Last Thursday we were driving home from LaGrange. We took Bonnie over to see Andie, Michael and her great-grandkids. It was a good day to do that as it turns out. Andie had a dental appointment for herself in the morning and she had a doctor's appointment for Hayden in the afternoon. We were able to provide car services and kid-sitting services during this visit.
I'll post about that later when I'm not quite as 'irked' as I am right now. Back to my story...
We were driving home. I was in the back seat and Bonnie and Claude rode in the front seats. Since it was dark and I couldn't crochet or read, I pulled out my trusty Blackberry and proceeded to play the BrickBreaker game. The Blackberry hung up on a totally white screen with the indicator light at the top showing bright red.
When I purchased my Blackberry, I was told that I should occasionally take out the battery and let it rest a few minutes, then put the battery in and let it restart so it would reset itself. I was told if it hangs up, to try this first.
So, I pulled my battery out of the Blackberry and sat in the dark for a bit. Then I put the battery back in. I got a black screen and a red indicator light shining brightly in the dark. Eventually the word Blackberry came across my screen and the little bar indicating how much longer the process of getting started again had to go. I waited and that indicator bar moved to the middle and stopped. The screen went black again and that red indicator light shown brightly. (I shall now call this 'the process' so I don't have to repeat these steps again in this blog.)
Okay, I must have not let it rest enough. I pulled the battery out again and waited a longer length of time. Then I went through 'the process' again.
I took the battery out and waited until we got on I-75 and then went through 'the process' again with the same results.
Then I pulled the battery and waited until we were past Georgetown to try 'the process' again. I pulled the battery and waited until we got to the Sadieville exit and tried on more time with the same sad results. The drive from our home to LaGrange is 1 1/2 hours. I gave this process lots of attempts with varying lengths of pause between attempts.
When we got home I waited until 11pm and tried one more time. The same disappointing results. I headed to the basement to find my book. I tried to sync the Blackberry thinking that would jog it into working again. No such luck. The manual told me to try charging the Blackberry. So I headed to our bedroom and plugged the little guy in and headed to bed.
Friday morning I tried 'the process' again and got those same pitiful results. I now knew I needed to head to the AT&T store in Georgetown. Fortunately, I had received a coupon for $50 off on a new Blackberry and Claude wanted to shop for a new one to upgrade his Blackberry.
They were very nice at the AT&T store and we finally determined it was not a battery issue as I thought. I went prepared to purchase a new battery. Instead, it seemed to be a defective Blackberry. The sales representative tried a few tests they gave him. He also called the tech support hot line and discussed the situation with them. He was told I should take the Blackberry home and call them while in front of my computer to make the final decision. However, it appeared to be the fault of the Blackberry which was still under warranty.
I left Claude and Bonnie to head for home and spent the rest of my afternoon at Papa's trying to change his home phone, long distance and DSL/Internet usage from Southeast Telephone to AT&T.
When I got home I called the tech support phone number and went through the steps they asked me to do with the phone. They then said it was the phone not the battery. They were sending me a replacement phone and I was to mail the defective one back to them.
Monday, in the afternoon, I got the replacement phone. I spent the afternoon working at loading my addresses, calendar, memos and notes from my computer to the new Blackberry. I tried Facebook and it worked. However, I was not receiving eMails and I couldn't log onto the Internet. Hmmmm....
I found the place in the Blackberry where you put in a User Name and Password to get the Blackberry to work with Outlook so I could get my eMail's and Internet. Here is where the problem arose. I wasn't sure what was used when we set up the first Blackberry last May. So I used what I do on my computer to get eMail's. That didn't work. I thought, "Okay, it is case sensitive and maybe I need to use capital letters." That didn't work. On the Blackberry you have to press two keys at once to get numbers and I wondered if I had not done that quite right and the numbers were wrong. I tried again. That didn't work. Okay, maybe she used my name in some form, so I tried that. That didn't work. After several attempts my Blackberry told me I was blocked and to wait and try again later.
I found a place in the Blackberry where you set the number of times you can try and the maximum is 10. I had exceeded 10 times trying. No problem, I would just wait until much later and try again. This never worked. Tuesday morning that still didn't work.
Claude gave me the paperwork from when we originally purchased and I could find no written record of what Angie used for a User Name and Password. I did find a phone number and called it. They walked me through a process and I eventually had eMail's coming to my Blackberry and I could get on the Internet on my Blackberry. I was a very happy lady.
Why am I 'irked'!! When I tried to use Facebook on my Blackberry it would not work now. It had worked when I first got the Blackberry and when I didn't have eMail service.
I went to my computer and tried to get on Facebook and it told me my account was 'disabled'. There was a hyper-link to a help page. I clicked it and found that they do this when someone uses a 'false' name for their Facebook account and/or they have more than one Facebook account. Now what was I to do.
I looked all over pages in Facebook for a phone number. No such animal people, no such animal. I checked the Internet for a phone number to call. Still no luck. Finally Tuesday afternoon I found a page on Facebook where you can send them an eMail and explain the situation, they put you in a 'queue' and you wait for your answer.
I wrote my nice response indicating my belief this was a direct result of the issues with starting eMail on my Blackberry. I really was Sandra Christensen and my eMail address has been the same for years and I have no other. I waited for a response.
This morning, I got the response. Basically, they refuse to reopen my Facebook because I have committed the grave sin of using a false name and/or having more than one account. Okay, I have NOT done EITHER of these things.
I wrote them another eMail beginning with the words "I am livid." I sent my kids each an eMail explaining why I would not be communicating with them via Facebook.
Jake wrote me back and said to consider myself 'free'. I would love to consider myself 'free' of this but as I told him in my eMail response:
- My good name now has a mark on it that is not correct or fair. I didn't do anything wrong!! It just feels awful to know there is this scar on my good identity for no reason of my own doing.
- If I wanted to quit using Facebook, I would have at least posted that I was leaving Facebook before I left so that all those people that I have as friends understand why I don't respond to their posts. I don't believe I am a rude person by nature and this just feels rude.
- I also post to the Facebook pages for the City of Sadieville and the Friends of Sadieville Renaissance. I have permission to put pictures out there and to post messages of things that we are doing in Sadieville. I can now no longer do that.
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