u/ZiggyZaggyBogo

I was wondering if anyone else thinks that Morton Downey Jr.'s controversial TV talk show acted as an influence on the increase of radio shock jocks in the late 1980's and early 1990's? I remember watching Downey's show and noticing the similar loud, in-your-face, combative, macho style on several night-time AM radio shows.

Last week, I posted several times about problems I'd had porting one of two phone numbers over to Total Wireless in order to take advantage of that great Total Max 5G BYOD offer for $20 per month with taxes and fees included.

My first line, from Visible, transferred without a hitch; the second line, coming from Xfinity Mobile, was more-problematic.

As I wrote, several customer service interactions wound up with no resolution. Instead, it was an endless circle of promises to help over social media and online chat, but no actual solution beyond "wait a bit longer, we've escalated the problem" — which isn't comforting when you've already been charged for service on a line that you can't actually use.

It made my blood pressure rise for several days. Five, in fact. Five long days of wondering when the number port limbo would be over.

After several frustrating posts, u/verizon-sh stepped in to help. To be honest, when she reached out over Reddit DM, I was really skeptical — five days of empty promises will do that.

But she had the special touch needed to get the issue fixed! It took a large amount of outreach to other people throughout Total Wireless, including technical team members with long titles on their business cards.

So, what was the issue? To be honest, I still don't know — I'm told it was a glitch somewhere in the Total Wireless matrix, a unique bug that the company was still trying to identify and fix, one that my account situation wound up bringing to people who hadn't seen it before.

The good news is, the line is now active, it works FLAWLESSLY, and the family member who uses that particular phone is thrilled that they got to keep their number (they're elderly so getting them to memorize a new number is a bit of an ask). She gets to stream all the YouTube she wants for just $20 per month, and not have to worry about the price suddenly going up for five years. Me? I'm in the same exact boat with my number.

All of this is to say, my faith in Total Wireless and Verizon has been completely restored, all thanks to u/verizon-sh, who spent HOURS working on my problem, kept me in the loop the entire time and apologized profusely for the situation. I really appreciate that effort and diligence; it gives me confidence that we'll be Total Wireless customers for years to come. (At least five years, if not more.)

And if it means that Total Wireless squashes that bug so others don't encounter the same issue, maybe it was worth it?

If you're having a problem — be persistent. Continue reaching out to support. Raise the issue here. Make noise. They will respond. You will get help. They really want their customers to be satisfied.

KCRA used to be the gold standard for television news in Sacramento, and one of the best local TV stations for news in Northern California. Now, their news is mediocre, resembling a small community TV station — and it seems the only reason people watch it is because it's literally the first thing that comes to mind when people think about local TV news (probably doesn't hurt that it's the first channel on the dial, too).

Take, for instance, today's shooting coverage at 5 p.m.:

• We have Denzen Cortez live at the shooting scene along Howe Avenue and Northrop. He repeats the same information multiple times as the station bounces between its live feed at Panera Bread and its helicopter footage, which KCRA never fails to mention is "exclusive" because it is the only one in the area with a helicopter. (The other three stations use drones.) Denzen rambles for more than three minutes, repeating the same information over and over again while apparently killing time so the station can show off its live on-the-ground and taped helicopter footage. (I guess you can't expect much from someone whose first job straight out of college is working at KCRA, though.)
• Next, we have Andrea Flores in the studio, offering a play-by-play of the helicopter footage, including an explanation of why some parts of the video are blurred. Just in case KCRA's viewers couldn't put together that the blurred part of the footage involves a dead body. Y'know, because it's a fatal shooting. I guess people can't put the two things together. Andrea repeats literally the same information that Denzen just offered a few minutes earlier — the suspected gunman shot himself. Anyway, Andrea lets people know that police used a drone to look into the car because of the heavy window tint.
• Then, Lisa Gonzales sends things over to Anahita Jafary, who is perched on an overpass along Highway 50. Anahita offers literally no new information — it's just another live shot. She is the third reporter, after Denzen and Andrea, to confirm the suspected shooter is dead, and the second to say that the station witnessed his body being removed from the car on Highway 50. And she wraps her report by stating the obvious — that KCRA has learned the scene on Highway 50 is related to the shooting along Howe Avenue at Panera Bread. (Duh, that's been said over and over again.) And she repeats, almost word for word, that police looked into the vehicle with a drone because of the heavy tint. At one point, her photographer pans to the left to show people walking on the overpass and looking at the scene playing out because, for some reason, this is news.

Speaking of which...just in case we weren't crystal clear about the situation playing out on Highway 50...

• Let's go to the sky, where KCRA's pilot Dan Oppenheim states the obvious: A standoff on Highway 50 is causing traffic backup. He speaks slowly and repeats himself, like he's unable to handle flying a helicopter and reporting on live TV at the same time. One of the big changes KCRA's news director Derek Schnell put in place — having Dan report during the afternoon news. Derek seems to think it makes KCRA seem like a Big Boy Station, when, really, it comes across as extremely mid, given Dan's inability to explain what's going on, let alone advance the story. Anyway, Dan calmly lets the viewers know that there's a significant traffic backup on Highway 50 because of a "highway block near the Howe Avenue exit." Gee, wonder what that could be?

KCRA spent more than seven minutes on a breaking news story during their 5 p.m., despite having less than 90 seconds of actual information, or "news," useful to anyone. They committed at least two reporters, two photographers and a helicopter pilot to the story.

And they're the ratings leader in Sacramento.

I wish I could say that my last post about Total Wireless is the absurdity that finally broke things out — that customer support actually stepped up once they realized how many hoops they were making me jump through just to sign up for their phone service.

Nope.

Just to recap:

• Here was my first post about the port-in issue from Xfinity Mobile to Total Wireless
• Here was my latest post about how they reached out to me via Reddit chat, ignored me for a half hour, and then had the nerve to ask how they could help me, like I initiated the conversation.

It has now been four days since I requested they cancel my port-in (I've since moved the number from Xfinity Mobile to Visible), and for some reason, their "system" won't let them do it. They said the matter has to be "escalated" to their advanced port-in team, which convenient is "offline."

I was promised a resolution within 24-48 hours. It's been four days. There has been no resolution.

So, if you're thinking about moving away from your current phone provider for Total Wireless:

• Your mileage may vary. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly for you, like it did on my first line.
• But, be warned, if there is even the slightest hiccup with porting your number, or any other issue, it will almost certainly not be resolved.
• Total Wireless has THREE DIFFERENT customer support chat services. Their social media one is linked above. A second is on their support page. And a third uses artificial intelligence before connecting you with a real person. There different chat systems. Zero help.
• When you call their customer support line, you're routed to an overseas call center. Not unusual for a prepaid service, but their customer support agents are not particularly helpful. They're clearly reading from a script; if you have a unique situation like mine, they will continue to read from the script, which provides zero answers about the specific issue. When I asked them to cancel my port in so I could start all over again, their response was — we can't delete your account. No one can delete your account. No one can cancel the port-in. Our system won't let us. We can't even see the details of it.

Remarkably, the only thing that has gone through smoothly is my initial payment of $30. Yep, that was taken out of my account right away.

What a joke. What a mess of a company. Verizon should really be ashamed of itself.

Two people living in my household. Ported one number from Visible to Total Wireless yesterday, everything went through in less than five minutes.

Tried to help the other person in my home port their number from Xfinity Mobile to Total Wireless yesterday, and that's where I ran into NUMEROUS problems:

• The eSIM QR code absolutely would not work for me, and once I moved off the page, I was unable to generate another eSIM QR code because the port was "pending."
• Customer service chat line shut off three hours before the scheduled time listed on the support page.
• AI assistance was absolutely no help, just kept saying that the port was pending.
• AI assistance also wrongly said I could check the port-in information, like the account number and PIN I provided, to ensure everything was correct by checking "My Lines" in the account menu, but that turned out to be wrong — there was no option to do so.
• TWELVE HOURS LATER, finally chatted with someone at customer service who — unsurprisingly — was also unable to help because the port-in showed as pending. He couldn't cancel the port-in. Couldn't explain why it was taking so long. Couldn't provide the port-in information to ensure everything was correct. Just said to wait, that it could take "several days," which is a problem because Xfinity's port-out PIN is only good for 24 hours.
• Chatted with Xfinity, they said everything is fine on their end, and that something must be hung up on Total's end.

I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but if I had to guess: When porting from Visible, there is an actual option that says "Visible" on Total's end, but when porting from Xfinity Mobile, one has to choose "other" and hope that Total Wireless knows the number is associated with Xfinity.

Ultimately, I got extremely frustrated and demanded the Total Wireless chat agent issue a full refund on my account and close it. He said the refund request was submitted, but couldn't close the account because the port-in is still "pending."

To ensure my number isn't lost, I locked things on Xfinity's end because, at this point, I just don't trust Total Wireless to not f--k something up, and even if they do f--k it up, their customer support seems pretty useless.

Ugh.

Our free Xfinity Mobile line ends in December, and given the problems I've had with Total thus far, I'm half-tempted to just sign up for Mint Mobile to avoid the headache. Yes, what they offer is inferior to BYOD 5G Max on Total, and, yes, it could wind up being more expensive for unlimited in the long-run, but at least I won't have to deal with the headaches of Total's incompetent customer (lack of) support.

Anyway, the line ported from Visible works fine.