What to do When You’re in Another Country and your Cell Phone Won’t Work? How SKYPE and other resources can get you out of any jam!
I have an international phone and international service, but today I landed in London and my phone won’t work. No phone service, no emails, no texts and not an AT&T store in Great Britian. This is a crisis for anyone who depends on their phone (who doesn’t?) I was in Montreal 3 weeks ago and it worked, it always works, so I was stumped what to do.
I saw a TMobile store by the Angel Tube station and the nicest assistant store manager I’ve ever met spent about 10 minutes trying to ring up AT&T Customer Service in the US. Although he found the toll-free US number online, unfortunately 800 numbers don’t work world wide and we couldn’t find an international customer service number.
Since I really need my phone to work for my business (I’m always working), I went back to the hotel after luch, powered up my laptop, and called the 800 number from SKYPE. This time the toll-free number worked!!!!!!!! I then spent 29 minutes, and went through two technicians before I found someone who could turn everything on for me. Of course I had to give them my name, last 4 digits of my SS number, address, IME number, SIM card number, etc. twice but what a relief to be connected again.
It got me thinking that whatever country you are in, Mexico or otherwise, it’s helpful to know how to get out of jams.
Here’s a couple of things I’ve learned througout my travels.
1. If you can find a customer service number for your: credit card, cell phone, airline, hotel or whatever, you can use SKYPE to call them for help. I have an online SKYPE number that is a US number, so I have no problems. SKYPE is free, or at least very inexpensive depending on your plan, and fires right up.
2. If you have car trouble, need help, or are just lost, walk into the nicest hotel in the area and someone will help you. The same is true of nice restaurants, they will help you. I met someone for lunch once, and she accidently locked her car keys in her car. She walked into the nice restaurant we were meeting at, told the maitre d’, and he took care of it for her while we ate lunch! She gave him a nice tip and went on her way. It was a valuable lesson for me!
3. If you get a bad room, a bad meal, or a bad cruise, start Twittering. Lots of bigger hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships monitor tweets about their properties and they want to turn you around into a happy camper as quickly as they can. Start tweeting and see what happens. This, of course, is not as effective in small hotels, restaurants, etc.
Now onto a Pub!