Prague Journal

Tuesday, October 5, 2004.

We were determined to get mobile phones and be done with the deliberations. Having talked with n+1 people, visited several stores, looked at several brochures (all in Czech), and perused various phones and options on several websites (most are in English), we decided to go to the small independent shop near Hradčanská that sells several makes and models of phones for all three mobile phone companies and commit to an Oskar (formerly Český Mobil) SIMM card and the least expensive phones (about $120 each) with prepaid minutes (like a calling card, but embedded into the phone). So tonight I’m playing with the SMS (text-message service, which is about 8¢ (most calls are 20¢ per minute, depending on the recipient’s carrier). We opted against a calling plan, which would have required a $200 deposit and a minimum of $10 per month, which would have included 60 minutes of regular calling time, 15 free within-network calls, 300 SMS transmissions, unlimited weekend calls, and a slightly lower per-call rate for additional calls. Given that we could use over 100 minutes of airtime or send 250 text messages for about $10, we opted for the pre-paid cards instead of a monthly plan. I entered the mobile number of everyone I know here – 14 total. I’m guessing we’ll use the phones mostly to tell each other where to meet for dinner.
The other success of the day was getting the correct access code to make a collect call to the credit card company and, after talking with three different people, finally finding someone who acknowledged the problem and referred the apparent overcharge error to the Payment Department to investigate, reverse all overdraft and interest charges, and call me back (she said, reassuringly). Having taken American service for granted, partly because of good service from the credit card folks previously, I had sent several e-mails to the credit card company. Each one was answered with a form letter equivalent to “Thank you for your inquiry. We have deducted the amount of your payment as you have requested.” One of the more frustrating things about being abroad is not having access to a toll-free 1-800 number for credit card and bank problems, plane tickets and airline schedule confirmations, and various service- or product-related questions. Some local companies here do have the equivalent of a toll-free number (e.g. our broadband service provider), but, of course, the voice on the other end is Czech.

posted by JWinn @ 10:40 PM