How cell phone providers get away with daylight robbery

A few weeks back my phone stopped charging. Now, for anyone who knows anything about me, you will know that I LOVE my phone. I love my social networking, and I love technology, so my phone is an essential part of my life.

Unfortunately, because it goes everywhere with me (except my bedroom when I sleep - radiation fries the brain, you know!) it has wound up getting rather wet at times. Four times, to be precise. Soaked, to be even more precise.

But each time, good 'ol Tastic rice lived up to its name and saved my phone from certain death. In the process, I got quite good at opening my phone and disassembling it, and then reassembling all the parts. The volume button died, so to change the volume I now have to go via the settings page, which is a lus, but to be honest, that's not a huge train smash, because I so seldom watch videos on my phone (and the volume for everything else is already set at a comfortable level), plus there's another short-cut I use for muting and un-muting.

However, there came a day when the connection point for my charger just died. Understandably. (Personally, I think my phone has put up with quite a bit of abuse from me, so I'm rather impressed with it!) But I don't have insurance (I only have life, medical and car insurance... I can't afford any other type of insurance.)

So off I went to my cell phone provider, to see what they would charge me. Firstly, it took them more than a week to give me a quote, because the phone had to be sent to Jo'burg. Ja. Apparently they don't do repairs here in Cape Town. But take a guess at the quote.... go on! Take a guess.

R1783. Let me say that again. R1783. That's nearly the cost of the phone today!

Forget that! There's no way I would pay that amount, even if I could afford it. That's daylight robbery if you ask me.

So I phoned and told them, rather politely, that they were insane, and exactly what they could do with that quote, and, oh yes!, to please send my phone back to me IMMEDIATELY.

Well, 'immediate' must be relative, because it took just over another week to get here. Sigh!

But there's a little cell phone shop in my shopping centre. A very nice, upmarket teeny weeny cell phone shop. What the hell, I thought - it couldn't be worse than what my provider wanted to make me pay. Right? It was worth a look in at least.

You can see where this story is going, right?

Yes, I got the guy in the rather nice, upmarket, teeny weeny cell phone shop to repair my phone.

Firstly, guess how long the repair took? Go on... take a wild guess...

1 day. Less than 24 hours in fact.

And then, guess what I got charged? Seriously - take a guess.

R250.

R250.

And I'm sure that he put the price UP after hearing my sob story. (When will I learn to lie to salespeople and stop wearing both my heart and my conscience on my sleeve??)

So let me ask you this - if some random little cell phone shop guy can not only fix it PRONTO, but can do it for a 7th of the price, how is it that cell phone shops get away with such daylight robbery???

Because people are suckers.

SUCKERS.

I hope I never have need of cell phone repairs again (although, maybe I should get my friendly cell phone shop man to look at the volume buttons for me...), but if I do, I know where I'm NOT going.

And nope, Trevor Noah, I won't be telling you about it either.

When is stealing not stealing?

When you're just taking something because you don't have the money to pay for it.

Yup.

At least, that's the reasoning of some folk in the Western Cape. They don't have money to pay for food, so they went to Pick 'n Pay and just took it. After all, they argue, the government should institute a policy of giving R1500 to every single unemployed person so they could have enough money to feed their families. And since they don't, well, these folk will take the law into their own hands and just take what they need. It's not stealing though.

Of course, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between stealing and taking stuff that doesn't belong to you because you don't have the money to pay for it.

It's a bit like Julius Malema's comment that "sleeping around" is not having sex, or maybe it is, but he's not telling us what it means.

While I think this country has tons of potential, and while I believe that the majority of people (in the Western Cape - I can't vouch for the rest of the country given the overwhelming support Malema seems to enjoy) are reasonable, rational, logical human beings, it's events like this that make me wonder where we're heading as a country.

When I taught in the UK I learnt that many adults NEVER develop logical, rational thought. They simply are incapable of formal concrete thinking. While in SA I had never come across this phenomenon because of the sheltered existence I led. In the UK, however, one is not protected in the same way unless one's parents and family are royalty or stinking rich multimillionaires.

On my return to SA, I couldn't believe some of the things happening. I mean, surely anyone with half a brain would refuse to listen to the Julius Malemas of the world? Surely they could see his ignorance and bluster and realise that he's not fit to be anyone's leader? It's like a re-run of Mbeki's "AIDS isn't caused by HIV" statements.

Apparently though, the reason that idiots get into power is because there are hundreds of other idiots who are even more idiotic than them. Like the twits who stole food from Pick 'n Pay today (or was it yesterday? my brain is so fuzzy from tiredness I've lost track of the days...). Anyone who reasons that today isn't actually the 23rd July, but is the 23rd July instead, needs their head read.

So folks - if you want that flat screen TV, or that DVD-r, or Wii, or whatever, and you don't have the money to pay for it, well, that's fine. Just walk into your friendly electronics store and take it. After all, you're not stealing it; you're just taking it because you don't have the money to pay for it.