Fun with Phones

Every couple of months I have issues with my phone, I don't really mind though, as the 'goodwill gestures' help to keep my phone bills down.
The thing is, it's not my fault these things happen, I refuse to setup a Direct Bank Transfer since my phone provider is so intent on being creative with my bills.

First let me tell you about my phone usage, I use a mobile as a primary line, ALL my calls are via mobile. This means my monthly phone usage can be up to 10,000 minutes. My current phone plan is unlimited calls to landlines, 700 minutes to mobiles, 100 text messages, unlimited evening and weekend data. (the data is for when I am not able to connect via the 2 plastic cups and piece of frayed string from Ben Franklin's kite experiment that my landline provider laughingly calls a phone line with ADSL support, but I'll explain more about that another time.)

My monthly bill should be about 42, this is before taking into account things like chargeable calls etc. I have received bills from 73 up to 97 for single months with zero chargeable extras, I have also had my phone cut off for non-payment of a bill which is below a zero level.

Today I had a weird experience, I finished on one call, tried to call another person only to be told that calls from my number were barred. I then tried to call INTO my phone only to find a disconnect tone, I promptly phoned the provider and sorted out the issue, then hit another issue, I received the SMS lifting the bar, closely followed by one sent earlier placing the bar back on. Cue another phone call to the provider getting them to manually resend the bar SMS settings to enable me to get the phone back on again. Needless to say this will be followed by another call monday to Customer service.

Why don't I change providers? Simple, they may screw up, but they are the only ones offering a talk plan suitable for my needs. Add to this the 'goodwill gestures' ensure my phone bills are low, and also that the inevitable issues only happen every couple of months. Overall I am quite happy with them.