Tu Saldo de Recarga es Inferior a 5 Quetzales

For those of you who read less Spanish than I do, it translates (roughly), to “Recharge Your Balance, You Have Less than 5 Quetzales”.  I have come to loath that phrase, because this is the text message I get from Movistar/Telefonica when my phone is almost out of minutes.

For all of my adult life in the states, I have had a cell phone.  I got my first one when I was 18 and working for a cell phone company part time.  It was a brick.  When I moved here last fall, I had a brand new Blackberry, and loved it.  I even kept it on the nightstand at night, much to the dismay of my wife.  I’d never had a prepaid phone, which is what almost everyone here uses, so it’s taken some getting used to.

Well, every now and then I get a text from Movistar telling me I’m almost out of minutes, so I watch for the signs around town or the frequent text messages telling me that if I recharge my phone on a particular day, I can get double or triple time.  The way this works is you put 100Q on your phone but you actually get double or triple that much time.

Well, as the newness of Guate has worn off over the months, I’m starting to watch prices a little more.  I’m no longer doing arithmetic in my head and I’ve developed a sense of the worth of Quetzales instead of merely their floating relationship to the dollar.  Anyway, it seemed like I was having to recharge my phone an awful lot, especially since I never buy less than 100Q at a time and I always buy on ’special’ days.

The next time I get a msg telling me I’m out of minutes, I go to the Movistar office on 5th Calle and tell the lady I need to recharge my phone.  I give her 100Q and while she’s processing it, I mention that I seem to be running out of minutes fast.  I explain that I’m just not making that many phone calls.  She giggles and says something about how Movistar just sends out those messages in advance of a promotion, to get people to load up on minutes.

I figured as much.  She asks how many minutes I have (silly me for thinking it was actually less than 5Q), and then proceeds to show me how to check.  After navigating some menus in Spanish, we learn that I have over 900Q in minutes on my phone.  The look on her face reminded me of the lady at the mercado who was eyeing the bulge in my pocket when I was looking at roses.

She told me to always check my minutes before recharging, and to basically ignore the text messages.  I left, ambivalent about having caught on to one more GuateScam and at the same time realizing I’ve been loading money onto my phone that could have otherwise been spent on valuable things like beer and cigars milk and diapers.  I decided to be smug about it and let everyone know how I had adapted so well and Movistar wasn’t going to screw this Gringo any longer.

Well, a few days ago my phone stopped working.  I could receive calls but not make them.  I visited the office and a different woman tells me I’m out of minutes.  I protest, explaining how just the day before I had something in excess of 600Q on my phone.  She then says, “Oh, they must have expired”, and then explains how when you buy minutes they have a expiration date attached to them.  This is to prevent someone from, for example, loading up on minutes on a ’special’ day, and then not using them quickly enough.

Thus, all the minutes I had been loading in previous months were now gone.  My plan to ride those minutes for a few months had vanished over night.  Little did I realize that not only did I just lose something north of 600Q, but I’m still being taken advantage of.

You’ll have to wait for Part 2 for the conclusion (and a tip that every expat MUST know).  In the meantime, watch this video.