My experience with EconoPage was, for the most part, uneventful, until October, 1997. Some time during that month, my 800-number service was cut off. That was the beginning of the end.

I received a page on a Saturday afternoon, at about 6:01pm. I think that was the time. I remember that it was right after the sales number for EconoPage was closed for the weekend.

The page pointed to an automated message that failed to identify itself. The message said that my paging service was to be turned off on the following day by 5pm, and that I had three choices. They were,

1. Bring my pager to EconoPage for replacement and reassignment to a different carrier.
2. Contact EconoPage about switching to a different provider.
3. Return the pager to Econopage for a refund of unused airtime.

That was the entire content of the message. At no time did it mention anything about why this was occurring. At first, I thought this was a prank of some sort.

Once my paging service was disconnected, I was relatively furious. I headed down to my local EconoPage office (quite a clip, I might add), and stood in line. Eventually, I was allowed to fill out a form to reinstate service. When I asked why service was disconnected, the idiot behind the counter said, "They just turned everybody off."

I would later learn that EconoPage and PageMart were having some business problems. No one actually mentioned this at any time, though, until my pager was deactivated again one week later, this time for good. My options were the same.

After being cheated (I still had several months left on a two-year pre-paid contract), I decided not to stay with EconoPage. I filled out the forms and went to PageMart, where they were completely and totally unprepared for the change. There were people screaming and yelling and getting pissed off like there was no tomorrow.

Quite a while went by, and I was off to work, pager-in-hand. This was by no means the end of the story, however. Due to the fact that PageMart was still completely unprepared for the volume of changes that needed to occur to keep its EconoPage customers happy, my paging service would be canceled two more times in the next 10 days. The second time, PageMart claimed that I was never switched over from EconoPage, which I was (luckily, I had the paperwork to show it).

In the end, I have the same pager number, and the same pager. I no longer have the cool exchange-a-pager guarantee that EconoPage was offering (the rep at PageMart was amazed at that when a woman asked if that coverage was carried over), and a few other features aren't there anymore.

I learned, though. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is... Duh