Outsmarted.

By who, you ask? By me, myself and I. As you know I went to Watertown NY to take take advantage of the high-flying loonie.

I planned to take my cell phone with me in case there was an emergency at home and I needed to be contacted. I called my cellular provider who will remain nameless but it rhymes with HELL. A pleasant young lady answered the phone and the conversation when something like this:

Me: "I'd like to add US roaming to my account for the weekend."
Her: "Of course sir, it'll only be $40."
Me: "What? $40 for a weekend?"
Her: "You have to keep it on your account for a month."

Once I found out the roaming charges were more reasonable than the last time I asked for my trip to Martinsville, VA in 2004 I decided to take my cell phone with me and risk it.

After I checked in at my motel, I went to the main shopping area and my first stop was K-Mart. Yeah I know but it was my mother's favourite store so at the very least I will stop in and look around. While I was in there, I saw the pay-as-you-go cell phones and one company (who will also remain nameless) was selling a phone for $15 including 10 minutes of airtime. When I got back to my motel, I got the package opened and charged the phone.

After talking to the K-Mart employee working in the department and reading the brochures it sounded like a good deal. Especially the parts about 800 numbers to call outside the US and being able to set up local numbers in Canadian cities for people to call me. So I'm thinking if I buy some more air time, my nieces can use the phone instead of calling collect from a phone at school which is 10 km away from home.

To make a long, internationally copyrighted story short. The phone doesn't work here, I either get a No Service or Emergency Only message, even when I go right by the lake to hope maybe a signal will bounce off the water. But I have had no such luck so the phone is a $35 paperweight. I was told the folks at Rogers may be able to sell me a new SIM card to use the phone but no such luck there either. Fortunately, K-Mart says I have 90 days to return the phone so there may be another provider out there that can help me.