Castle Magus

A month or so ago, Tracfone informed me via email that the old, non-smart phone that was previously my main cellphone (LG328BG) was apparently only 3G capable and, as such, would soon presumably become a useless piece of plastic. A few days ago, I bought a new phone through the Tracfone website that is 4G capable (as opposed to 5G, since the only phones they had compatible with 5G were in the hundreds of dollars range, and I was uninterested in paying that much). That new phone arrived today.

The new phone I got was a Samsung Galaxy A10e. I have no idea how "modern" that phone model is, nor do I really care. I don't need cutting edge bullshit. One cool bit, though, was that I was able to transfer everything over from the older Samsung Galaxy S3 that I was using as a smartphone-device-but-not-as-my-regular-phone-for-actually-carrying-around-with-me-and-making-actual-calls thing. Meaning that I now have an actual smartphone that I can use for everything, including (get this) making actual phone calls. Imagine that.

I can even still use the basic $20/3 months plan I had been using before (even though Tracfone really wanted me to buy a smartphone specific plan, which cost more, instead, enough so that they initially hid the basic plans behind a drop down menu). Since all I really care about at this point is upping the service time, I don't need that extra smartphone plan stuff. I already have like 1800 minutes and 1.7GB of data built up from all the previous refills or whatever that I'd bought that I'll probably never use all of, anyway, and even if I download stuff through the phone, I plan to only use WiFi instead of the data stuff, anyway. If Tracfone offered a cheaper plan that was only for additional service time and didn't bother with additional minutes/data/whatever, I'd probably get that instead, but they don't, so I get what I can get. That said, I do think this phone actually does 3x the minutes when I buy a plan, whereas the older, non-smart phone I'd been using "only" did 2x.

In any event, I have a new smartphone now for use with Tracfone. <Monty Python> Yay. </Monty Python> and all that good shit.

One bad thing about getting this cheapo phone (LG328BG) to use with Tracfone, rather than splurging for one of their smartphone models, is that this phone apparently cannot block incoming calls. Tracfone customer service chat told me, in no uncertain terms, that they do not and will not block calls on their end.

For the past week or so, several times per day, I have been getting calls from 910-593-7818. The area code is for southern North Carolina, but the likelihood that it is a spoofed number is probably somewhere around 99.999%, so they could be calling from Nigeria or somewhere, for all I know. I never answer it, which is my policy for all calls from numbers that I do not recognize. I have been manually rejecting the calls if I happen to see them show up on my phone, and for the calls that slip through, they never leave a voicemail message. The one time I, perhaps unwisely, cracked and tried calling the number back, the call dropped immediately with an "Unassigned number" error (which still ate 1.00 minutes from my Tracfone, even so).

It's annoying, but apparently there is nothing I can do about it, outside of ditching this phone and "upgrading" to a Tracfone smartphone model that has the ability to block calls. *weary sigh*

Oh, and when I chatted with the customer service people, the first agent suggested that I text BLOCK to 611611, which I did, but all that got me was about three or four texts worth (0.30 minutes each) of instructions on how to block calls on a fucking smartphone, which was irrelevant to me.

(EDIT) They just called again. I actually answered it this time. They didn't say a word (though, to be fair, neither did I). No automated spiel, nothing. Just silence for 10 seconds or so, then the call disconnected. And while typing this edit, they called again and I rejected that one. (/EDIT)

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Comment May 2, 2019, 12:52pm EDT

This is basically making my cellphone unusable, except for outgoing calls. I have to keep the phone on silent mode 24/7, as otherwise the constant ringing would drive me apeshit. These stupid motherfuckers (same 910 number as above) have already called five times today alone, between 11:00am and 12:30pm (EST).

As a last ditch effort, I am going to turn my cellphone off entirely and just leave it off for at least the next two or three days or so and see if that has made any difference when I turn it back on.

Okay, let's say that my current cell phone plan is about to go completely kaput, and I need a new plan. That may or may not be the case, depending on how things go forward, but as for right now, I am operating under the assumption that I am going to need a new cell phone plan soon. Considering I know next to nothing about cell phone plans, aside from the scant research I have done in the past hour or so, I'd like some advice on my options.

Basically, my requirements are that I must be able to talk on the phone for whatever bare minimum I might be required/forced to talk on a phone during any given month (generally speaking, I hate talking to people, even family, on a telephone if I can at all avoid it). I don't need texting, and I don't want texting if I can get by without it. If I could get a phone that was straight up incapable of sending or receiving texts, that would probably be ideal. I don't need or want data at all, period. I want as little frill as I can possibly get away with, with a maximum of zero frill being the best.

From what I've been looking into, it seems like a pay-as-you-go plan might be the best for me, because I intend to talk on a cell phone for a little as humanly possibly. Failing that, prepaid is the next step up. (I wasn't even sure at first if pay-as-you-go and prepaid might not be different terms for the same thing, but research indicates some difference between them.) That said, I don't know shit about whether there might be hidden pitfalls to having a pay-as-you-go or prepaid plan versus a "normal" plan, so any insight into that would be appreciated, as well.

Gist: I want to have a cell phone without having to fucking pay $30-plus per month for a cell phone, if that is even remotely feasible.

(I will be cross-posting this to Facebook and Twitter as well, so if you're reading this from one of those, feel free to answer either here or there, it doesn't matter to me.)