The father-in-law dropped by and we took apart one of his phones to try to get a working one again. A coke got spilled on the mother-in-law's phone and it fizzled. That phone was from Verizon (the crappiest phone company on the planet. Do NOT use Verizon!). They have an identical phone from Sprint (no longer have Spring service). Model numbers are identical! Anyhow, Verizon won't flash the Sprint phone and those phones don't use sim cards so they are stuck with a working phone but cannot get the service.
They are going to end up buying a new phone and I bet their contract gets extended to at least 2006. Phone companies are getting to be about as crooked as credit card companies.