Phones and #firstworldproblems

I should have realized there was something wrong with my phone when I tried to send two text messages and neither of them went through.

The first message was to my sister, telling her to be careful because Tropical Storm--perhaps soon-to-be-hurricane--Erika was heading for Florida.  When that message didn't go through after multiple attempts, I thought something was wrong with her phone.  That's right, always blame it on the other person's phone!

Then, I sent a second text message to a friend visiting in Florida.

It didn't go through, either.

At that point, I checked my Messaging app, and nothing seemed to be wrong with it.

So I went to my carrier's website.

When I logged in and put in my phone number, I got a nasty error message.

So I put in my husband's phone number and got another nasty error message.

I decided to go and check the status of my account . . . and that's when I figured out my problem.

You see, recently, I got a new debit card.  I thought my debit card was just being replaced because they were putting in security chips (in other words, everyone was going to get a new debit card). Yesterday I found the sheet that came with that new debit card, and it said it was being replaced because they'd noticed unusual activity that made them think it might have been stolen or that I'd been a victim of identity theft.  (There WAS a lot of unusual activity on it recently.  We were on vacation!)

Anyway, when I got the new debit card, I also got a new debit card number . . . and any automatic payments I have set up with the old debit card number will no longer go through.

Guess what one of the accounts was that I had set up for automatic payment?

So, I ended up putting in a new card number so that our phones could be paid for, then reactivating the phones, then I spent the next several minutes trying to reactivate MY phone (mine is a smartphone, my husband's is not)!

The phone is finally activated and my sister and friend have received their texts.

I call this a #firstworldproblem because in so many places, they don't even HAVE smartphones to worry about!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.