it's surreal, but nice.
- notting hill

yesterday i tried out the call reload promo of smart telecoms. i texted CALL and sent it to 258. a confirmation never came, since "the service was not available at that time". i was pretty sure the account didn't push through so i checked by remaining balance. boy, was i wrong.

P115 was deducted from my balance. true enough, i was more than ecstatic. i had myriads of people i could talk to because of the supposed "unlimited call" promo. so i called up grace, ecstatic and all. after six minutes of talking about our day's exploits, not to mention that same afternoon that we went out, my line got cut off. true to my nature, i dialled again - only to find that i could not connect anymore. fearful, i checked my balance again, only to find P3.89 remaining.

needless to say, i was devastated. I WAS UNDER THE ASSUMPTION THAT UNLIMITED CALLS MEANT UNLIMITED CALLS. i dialled *888 and called the customer care hotline. after several futile attempts to get connected, not to mention, being cut off the exact minute the prompter answers, this guy - MARCO i think - answered the line. i gave him my name and started asking him questions.

right in the middle of the questioning, he dropped my call. i have never been so pissed off with a CSR in my life. i went out, loaded up, and called again. this time, a girl - EVETTE i think - answered the call. i exlpained to her what happened, then she told me my procedure was wrong. you see, the unlimited calls were only available from 11pm-6am, which makes you wonder why they call it unlimited calls (why can't they just call it THE ALL-NIGHTER CALLS or something? talk about false advertising). tapos i wasn't supposed to directly dial the number. i had to type the number i was calling as SMS, then send it to 882. then i'd have to wait for 882 to call to get the line connected. darn it, don't these promos come with manuals?!

so i stayed up till 11pm, and started calling people, much to my dismay since the line got cut off ev'ry 10 minutes. again, why call it unlimited calls if they only last 10 minutes? grr.

so now i'm stuck with the promo for six more days. as if i could conjure up enough strength to stay up till 11pm onwards for the next week just to avail of the calls. i could try, yes, but i started outsmarting smart last night by spending a cumulative of 2 1/2 hours on the line - this is more than enough of the money i spent for the promo. top that, a-hole! grr.

keep me posted aight?
tell me if you want a call in the middle of the night.
hey.