Melissa Bailey Photo
A year after customers left Wilson Ahumada’s store for a new wireless phone operation that was popping up across town, they’re coming back, disgruntled.
Ahumada runs Las Vegas Jewelry at 748 Chapel St., near the corner of State. His shop sits two doors down from one of eight Pocket Wireless stores that opened across towns last September.
Pocket, which offered pre-paid, unlimited wireless service and phones, went down in flames. It announced Sept. 30 it would “cease business operations” on Oct. 31. The company closed 43 stores in the Hartford-New Haven-Springfield area, putting 100 people out of work. It kept 10 more open for the rest of this month.
Sign taped to Pocket Wireless at 742 Chapel St.
The Pocket Wireless at 742 Chapel St. is one of four New Haven stores that will remain open until the end of the month, according to company spokesman Chris Senecal. The abrupt closures sent customers scrambling to make new telephone arrangement within the month.
On Wednesday, four Pocket staffers helped customers make partial payments so they could finish the rest of the month.
Two doors down, at Las Vegas Jewelry, store manager Ahumada was helping some former customers make new plans. His store sells “a bit of everything” — watches, gold grills, phone cards, DVDs. A native of Colombia, he offers bilingual service for Spanish speakers and helps people send money abroad. On Wednesday afternoon, he found himself piercing the ears of a baby girl, while her mother held her.
Then he got back to what he said is the bulk of his business — selling wireless phones.
One customer, who gave her name only as Dee, waited at the counter around 3:30 p.m. A former Pocket Wireless customer, she had broken her old Pocket phone at the end of the month. She bought a new one for $152.
Then, a day later, around Sept. 30, she and other Pocket Wireless customers got a text message from the company announcing it was going out of business.
“I was upset,” she said.
She said the company had offered good, cheap, month-to-month service.
The company was “unable to maintain enough market share to continue operating in the Greater Hartford, Springfield and New Haven markets” because of “the severe effects of the prolonged economic recession, an expensive market in which to build infrastructure and increased competition from national providers of similar flat rate wireless services,” according to Senecal.
New Haven locations on 742 Chapel St., 407 Howard Ave., and 294 Foxon Blvd. will remain open through Oct. 31.
Effective Sept. 30, stores were closed at 560 Whalley Ave., 1158 Whalley Ave., 128 Grand Ave., 1316 State St., and 287 Dixwell Ave. in New Haven.
When the stores shut down, the 100 retail employees who lost their jobs were given two weeks severance pay and free phone service through the end of October, according to Senecal. He said didn’t know how many of those jobs were in New Haven’s stores. Customers who had purchased phones within the past month were given 30 days to return their phones and get their money back.
Dee went back to Pocket Wireless, returned her phone, and got back the $152. Then she searched for a new one. She noticed Las Vegas Jewelry.
On Wednesday afternoon, she walked in and bought a T‑Mobile Sidekick LX phone with a slide-out keyboard.
For switching to his store from Pocket Wireless, Ahumada gave her $10 off her new phone, and her new Simple Mobile, month-to-month plan.
He advertised that offer on a handwritten sign at the entrance to his store, near a busy bus stop. He said the deal is helping him regain some customers who left when Pocket Wireless swept across town last September.
“They [took] a lot of customers from us,” he said. “Now they’re coming back.”
His store is one of three wireless phone stores on that block of Chapel Street. Having one competitor gone has been a help: “It’s good for my business,” he said.