Telcel is the Mexican telephone company and it is owned by Carlos Slim, arguably the richest man in the world. He usually does a pretty good job but I am having problems with him right now.
We have both a Telcel pay as you go cell phone and a Telcel pay as you go Broadband Internet stick. Neither has had any money added to it for about 18 months. I think this means the accounts have expired and I will have to buy new SIM's and purchase new time. Yesterday Edgar from the RV park took me to the Santa Anna Telcel store to take care of both these problems. The first store the woman claimed her computer was not working properly and she could do nothing for me. She sent us to another store. Back in the truck, Edgar told me she thought I was a Gringo (American) and made up an excuse to not help me. The woman in the second store knew how to help me but was out of SIM's. She sent us to the third store. There the woman asked me where I had bought the stick and I told her Playa del Carman. She then told me I would have to go back to Playa del Carman to buy more time. It is on the other side of Mexico. Her solution was to throw my stick away, buy another identical one from her for $700 pesos and then, for $500 more pesos for a SIM and time, she could get me Internet. I passed and she sent us to an OXXO store where the clerk told me it was not possible to buy time for Internet, only cell phones. I told her my phone had expired and she did not know how to deal with it.
There is a Telcel store here in San Carlos and I hear the guy there speaks English. This will make things easier so I will go there tomorrow!
We've been in Mazatlan almost two weeks.
1 hour ago
Methinks that a certain blogger is due to start studying the language of the country in which he spends half of his year. ;)
ReplyDeleteHad to do a new SIM in our cell phone ( after we had put 200 pesos on the old one all for nothing) GRRR!!!
ReplyDeleteWay cooler her in Maz, 62F this Am but up to 82F later.
Yes Croft, you will need a new SIM card for the phone, we went through the same issue in the past in Mexico (and again this year in the US with a TracFone).
ReplyDeleteCan't speak for the broadband, it's probably better to speak to a Telcel rep in a larger center (perhaps in Maz), after all it's Mexico don't you know!!
Al.
Almcc
I agree with going to a real Telcel store and not one of the kiosks that are privately owned. They don't often know as much as they think they do.
ReplyDeleteI thought (but don't take my word for it as I just heard it) that once you added minutes on an expired SIM the old minutes came back. That's why I think you should go on to Maz or the first city with a real Telcel store and find out before you buy a new one.
the Banda Ancha may be a different thing, they have upgraded the speed in the last year and you may need an upgrade on that. Again, I wouldn't take the word of one of those kiosks, they just want to sell you something.
So what exactly happened when you tried to use your Telcel stick? Did it just not connect at all?
ReplyDeleteAt the Oxxo, you just have to give them the phone number associated with your Telcel internet stick. Don't even tell them it's for the internet, they will get confused about that.
wow sure sounds like a rip off to me..how sad...now I'm wondering hummm once we cross in the US will we be able to reactive our US verizon internet stick and our net10 phone....
ReplyDeleteI know there is expired minutes on our phone...