Where could I start? I completely agree with your post on sprint. I have been going through a similar battle for 2 months and finally gave in and bought yet another sprint phone, which made me start www.sprintrants.com.

I had insurance on the phone and then used it for a year and a half, switched phones to a wonderful palm enabled phone, that stopped working, switched back to the old phone without insurance, then it went bad. Since I switched to the palm phone I didn't get any upgrade credits even though my current phone is 3 years old. Awesome, so I battled and lost.

Anyway, I was so p'o'ed that I started a site. sprintrants.com, check it out and leave your rant. I know how frustrating it can be so let er rip.

Tom,
Sounds like a harbinger of a potential class-action lawsuit............documented similar cases needed. (eg. sprintrants.com)
Dad

I HATE SPRINT!!! every month for the past 7 months, i've had to call for customer support about my outrageous bill. everytime i call they say," We're terribly sorry. There's a glitch in your account. It wont happen again next month. Let me let you talk to my manager- He'll take care of this personnally." obviously the manager is a jackass too because i have to keep calling back!! i hate sprint. i'm quite tempted to just pay the extra fee to cancel my service...but then they would win! I'll never surrender!

Thankfully, now I'm gleefully enjoying T-Mobile service with a new BlackBerry.

I called Sprint from the T-Mobile store to get my account number, since I forgot to bring it with me. After 10 minutes on hold, the rep who eventually picked up asked me why I needed to know my account number. In the interest of saving time and heartache, I told him I needed it for the "Memo" line on my check so I could send in a payment.

After giving me my account number, all of a sudden the rep must have realized that my contract expired, because all of a sudden he started spouting off deals he would give me in exchange for a two-year renewal. Too little, too late as far as I'm concerned. The company ignored me through six months of shitty service and then expected me to renew? I think not.

I have been looking all over the net to find other sprint customer's with there own horror stories of how bad sprints customer service is. Well my friends i have quite the story to tell you all, and all of it is true, here it goes, about a year ago say in june of 05 i decided to have my sprint phone put into my name, the account was currently under my mother's name at the time. I was living in Kentucky at the time and my mother was living in Illinois, so we both had to go into sprint stores at the same time in order to make the switch. Upon arriving at the store the sales rep told me that i would have to pay a $150 security deposit before the service could be put in my name becausae my credit rating was not good enough. Fair enough right? I payed sprint the 150 they where asking for and before i left the store i asked the sales rep is anything going to change on my account now that i have put this in my name? and he said no, everything on your plan will stay exactly the same nothing will be diffrent at all. So i left the store that day happy that i had my service in my name, i even called up sprint and added additional features on my account because at that time i thought Sprint was the best. Now here is where everything went bad, the very next day *NO JOKE* the very next day my service is cut off by sprint, now keep in mind i only had the phone in my name for ONE DAY , so i call up sprint and ask what is the problem the rep says you need to pay your bill, because we bill a month in advance, i said ive only had this phone in my name for one day!!! how can i possibly be billed anything??? he said sprint charges a month in advance , so i then say to him so your just going to basically "GUESS" how much my phone bill is going to be and then turn my service off and charge me for it? he said you will need to speak to a customer service rep instead so he transfers me to a service rep and the rep says that sprint shows no record of me ever paying a security deposit he then says take proof of payment back into the store and you will have no more problems he then restores my service. The very next day i took my reciet back into the store and the guy in the store noted on my account that i had paid the deposit. Now keep in mind threw out all of this NEVER ONCE was i even told that my account had a spending limit. So to make a long story short, my phone service was cut off 13 TIMES ....YES...13 TIMES IN ONE MONTH all because none of the sprint reps would get off there ass and fix this problem that could have been taken care of in one day. There is more to my horror stories with sprint but if i sat here and told you everything it would take about anywhere from 4 to 5 hours, so i will finish with this :::::ATTENTION:::::: TO ANYONE WHO IS LOOKING TO GET OUT OF THERE SPRINT PCS CONTRACT WITH OUT HAVING TO PAY A EARLY TERM FEE PLEASE EMAIL ME AT RYAN_SMITH81@HOTMAIL.COM AND I WILL INFORM YOU ON HOW TO DO SO.

you guys have no idea what you are talking about, every company is like that and you all are ignorant if you think otherwise

Let me share my most memorable, and recent (like today) shi--y service from Sprint. Mind you now I am actually trying to upgrade a phone and have been with these folks for more than FIVE YEARS.

To begin with trying to navigate their site is truly the nightmare from hell! I actually gave up, my wife whose patience is without question most remarkable, primarily because she was previously with Nextel.

Yes she is crying over the merger, amazing how a truly stupid company actually managed to buy a good one. Well maybe when you recognize how sad your's is you want people to think of you as someone else, so maybe not so stupid?

Now for my experience, to begin with I am trying to buy a phone on Sprint’s web site, and I get the following instructions:
"To place a new order over the phone
Please provide the following code when calling in order to receive this special online price:
Call Code: 190659
Contact Number: 877-777-8596".

Well when you call you get two options
Press 1 - to talk about an order you placed
Press 2_ to talk about an order you haven't received

THATS IT!!! :)
No option to buy. Go figure? So the idiocy starts here.
I hold and end up in India, struggling to listen to some one practicing English, on me!
Well she (yes I was able to discern that much) gives me a 800 number to call (800 300-7066) to actually buy a phone.

Well onto the next step. I call 800-300-7066 and here is the experience, mind you now, all the while I am trying to upgrade to a phone that will cost me $300.00.
I get
Press 1: Inquire about a phone with a new service plan only
Press 2 To check the status of an order, or any other questions; so I press 2.
Then I hear the following Press 4 for Sprint and I get the following message "please call 866-424-3943".
And you guessed it here are the options:
Press 1: to inquire about a phone order you have already received
Press 2 to Inquire about a phone order you have not received

Still NO option to buy!!! :) How do you spell STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I gave up, can you say snail mail!

ya...so i work in customer care...for cingular...and im pretty sure i speak for all customer care reps when i say...we could give two shits about whether you cancel or not..we dont fucking care...you got fucked deal with it.

ya...so i work in customer care...for cingular...and im pretty sure i speak for all customer care reps when i say...we could give two shits about whether you cancel or not..we dont fucking care...you got fucked deal with it.

I have to laugh at this shitty post. No seriously, my stomach hurt. What insurance replaces something right away? Hmmm...Home owners...no they have a deductable and you have to wait for your check, never mind the list you have to SEND to them. Car insurance?..no, once again the duductable and the have a rental car portion in the insurance but that's only if you bought that otherwise guess what...waiting game! The point is that you want everything now and why not, you're American. That's how we are everthing is now, now! Any insurance takes care of you, your new phone would have cost you $50 and would have been there in three to five days. Oh yeah and if you're that customer that's in there when I'm paying my bill yelling at the Sprint rep saying that you're losing thousands of dollars because my phone doesn't work I got news for you...BUY A NEW PHONE THEN JACKASS!!!!! $2000 DEAL - $150 TEMPORARY PHONE = PROFIT!!!! Sprint complaints generally come from stupid people who don't think things through. Sorry buddy, just had to respond to their defense.

Learn how to spell.

The expectation is that your carrier will give you options to replace your phone immediately, kind of like when you buy an extended service agreement for a computer, TV or any other piece of electronic gear. The customer service rep who sold me the insurance in the first place told me that if I ever had a problem, I could bring my phone in and they would replace it immediately.

That's the expectation with just about any other carrier, including Verizon, who once replaced a phone for me same day when it turned out to be defective.

A prior experience with Sprint ended with my smashing a VGA-1000 on the ground, while talking to customer (sic) service, and putting my contract on the vacation plan for a year...

I should have known better, but I bought a Samsung A920 and reactivated my account, needing data coverage in an area not served by other carriers.

Immediately after leaving the store I tried to place a call, only to find that my service had been suspended for going over my spending limit. Sprint had charged me a contract cancelation fee after selling me an upgrade phone on my account. Several weeks latter they charged the cancelation fee *again*...

Bad Karma. I should have taken the phone right back into the store, when they charged the first cancelation fee, and gotten a refund.

For the past two months I've been calling Vision Advanced Technical Support on a daily basis. Every time I connect phone-as-modem (PAM), the Vision services and dialing voicemail from the handset become unusable, and I can't reconnect to the network via. PAM.

I've been blamed for Sprint's network issues, they've blamed my phone, I've been treated disrespectfully again and again on the phone, and still, two months latter, don't have a working phone.

Every single trouble ticket created to address Sprint's network issues has been closed when a moron from Sprint followed up on the tickets. Idiots have called, wanting me to remove the battery for 2 mins, are lost once that doesn't work, and close the ticket blaming the phone.

One caller wanted me to be in front of my computer, claiming I had A Novatel data card instead of a phone, and nothing I could say could convince her otherwise - and she closed the trouble ticket after I hung up.

Lots of the people I've talked to in Sprint's Customer Service Department, Vision Technical Support, and Vision Advanced Technical Support just want to argue or fight instead of trying to deal with the problem.

For 2 months I was told that I was the "only one" having issues with PAM over a A920, only to find other's horror stories on the web and in forums.

Besides my A920, I obtained another, Samsung sent me a third, and I've tried 2 demo A920's - all of which exhibit exactly the same issue. I was also able to duplicate the problem with a single A900.

Two months, three phones latter, *days* on the phone with Sprint, and I still don't have a usable phone. Last week Sprint promised to ship an LG Fusic to replace the A920, but I was told yesterday, almost a week latter, it had not shipped.

For two months Sprint refused to acknowledge an ongoing issue with the A920 and refused to swap the A920 for another device. I have never, ever had a problem with another carrier. I've had cellular phones since about 1994, was an agent for a B carrier in Georgia, and have never, ever heard of a horror story as bad as mine with Sprint.

Sprint's Technical Support (sic) is a joke. There is no way for a customer to contact someone they've already spoken to, so every single call is like starting from zero. Even if a tech bothers to skim notes attached to an account, he or she starts over, like it's going to make a difference.

Throughout the ordeal, as Sprint made changes to my account, I've been charged multiple times for a contract termination, had to deal with their billing department, over and over. When I finally demanded that they replace the phone, they wanted me to PAY full price because of the many, many "adjustments" they've made to my account.

I just found that other Sprint customers, with the same problems with the same phone, have received replacement phones from Sprint...

Two months, no working phone, no replacement phone on the way. God, Sprint sucks!

I once again laughed at your stupid response to my logical arguement. Fuck check spell. You must have never once made a claim for any electronic based on your idiotic response. "Expectation" is what you expect, not what's written on paper. I'd expect that gas only cost $1.05 but you see what we pay these days. Sprint customers like "ALL" wireless customers assume that Sprint doesn't have to follow procedure. Every company has them, and I call bullshit on your Verizon story because a good friend of mine works for them and told me that their policies are much more strict than those of Sprint. He should know since he's worked for both companies. Keep crying all you want but the true fact of the matter is that wireless customers are as faithful as a fat kid on a diet in a candy store. Sure you have your victory stories about the person that did this, or that, but the reality is that these companies run a business. All these wireless customers try to do is make these companies lose money to benefit their needs. Like the last poster "mustbme," use common sense and look at your bill, don't pick a higher plan when you have a spending limit. i have some disturbing news for ya, all the companies are going to spending limits because it has been proven successful! Wireless companies don't need jackasses to run up the bill, can't afford to pay the bill and then go to other companies such as Verizon to do the same thing. Do yourself a favor and go buy a pager and a roll of quaters!!!! At least payphones won't drop your calls!

What's written on paper was that Sprint would replace the phone immediately, not after nearly a month, so your argument is shot to shit. And you still can't spell.

It's not written ANYWHERE in their insurance policy that it would be replaced immediately, nobody writes that in their insurance policies. Don't believe me, pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and ask every company for their written insurance policy. Keep making up shit Hespos, if it helps you sleep at night. Keep feeding yourself with lies! I check spell on important shit, things that matter, unlike your blog page. I speak the truth...research your facts before creating your lies. That's still funny that you would say "What's written on paper was that Sprint would replace the phone immediately, not after nearly a month..." What a fucking LIAR! Deal with it, it's what you are!

Okay, guy. I'm going off what I remember from the transaction, and I made a mental note to myself at the time I bought the phone from the Sprint Store that what the sales rep said was reflected in the piece of paper he asked me to sign.

The paperwork for this contract is, if anywhere, at my other residence, which I get to about twice a month. So I will retract my comment about immediate replacement being on in writing FOR THE TIME BEING. I'll try to locate the paperwork next time I get out to my house.

I will say, however, that the way the sales rep described the service to me was (I'm paraphrasing):

1) If the phone is ever lost, report it immediately and we'll replace it.

2) If the phone is ever broken or defective, bring it by the store and we will replace it immediately.

Notice he didn't say "you'll have to mail the phone off to another company and wait three weeks." He said the store would replace it right away. That sets the wrong expectation if Sprint stores actually plan to have their customers mail their broken phones off to a third party and wait for as long as they expected me to wait.

What you needed to do in the first place was call the insurance company and ask them about the return process.

It's actually quite simple:

1) You tell them the situation and then pay them the $50 deductable.

2) It only takes 3 to 5 days generally to receive the phone from Lockline Insurance. They also offer 2 day delivery for about a $15 charge.

3) They send you the phone and then you send them the broken one in a pre-paid package.

Just an FYI for when you go back to Sprint...

I have used sprint since 1999. Never had a problem with the insurance. If the phone was broken, you brought it back in the store and they gave you another. At some point they started fixing phones in the store. If they couldn't fix it, they pulled this bullshit insurance on you. when you purchase the insurance, nothing is said about this process, and no announcements were made that they changed the policy.

My problem is that i have never changed programs since the first contract i signed in 1999 when sprint advertised all thier phones were free minutes to other sprint phones. I have two other phones on my account now, and sprint just decided to remove the sprint phone to phone free minute option from my service. It caused me to go way over minutes and at 40 cents a call after that it shot my bill out of sight. Repeated calls resulted in snotty ignorant bastards like "stupid sprint customers" hanging up on me every time I asked to speak to a service manager.

My third issue is that I had free text messaging as part of my service, but when i upgraded my phone (since they no longer sell my old phone) i had to get the vision plus web package. NO one said that that web package would result in my being charged for text messages over 100. Infact, i have now gotten three different reps telling me three different things. The most helpful and polite rep was from indonesia. The least useful was clearly from the states.
I am still looking at incorrect billing of over a thousand dollars, and have spent 6 to 7 hours on the phone trying to get it straightened out.

It seems to me that the only thing that sprint understands about contracts is that they are a way to force payment. The other part, the part about the services you contracted for, they dont understand.

Did u guys know that the corporate office doesn't take phone calls? Well the reason why is: So they dont have to hear a subriber like me going APE SHIT ON THEM.

Well it all began in july when my 650 wasn't allowing me to retrive emails anymore. i took the phone to my sprint store to see if they could fix it, these assholes tell me i need a "software update" so i let them do it.This didnt fix my problem, like i suspected the phones life was coming to an end they dont make these phones to last a life time. i brought a pocket pc sprint 6700 and that phone was terrible for my biz. too much phone and too many gliches for me. I had my treo turn back on, knowing that i needed to have the equipment replaced but u can do that unless the phones on the plan rite? i go back to my sprint store and tell them the same shit i told them before. they finnally say " YES MR JONAS WE CAN REPLACE UR PHONE" this was the 5th of aug. they called my on the 9th to say it was in the store ready for me to pick it up. i have 14 days form the time it arrived to pickup before it will go back to equipment replace location. i go there on the 17th and they tell me we sold it to someone else! i said it hasn't been 14 day yet? they replied" You know how busy this store is?" What kind of shit is that? what kind of business is sprint running where they just give your phones away? CALLED COSTUMER SERVICE AND IT EVEN GOT CRAZIER......Stay away from this company because they dont give a shit about your business all they want know is when your gonna be payin your bill........

Here is my story. The most recent one anyway.

A little over 1 week ago I received a notice from sprint saying I qualified for up to $150 worth of credit on a new phone. Now, i've had sprint since 2000, and usually I don't have to call customer service. the few times that I have called have been hell.
Anyway, I called the number listed on the letter, waited 10 minutes for a live contact and finally placed an order for the phone I liked.

Now, over 1 week later, I still haven't received the phone. So I called them this afternoon, spoke to a young lady who proceeded to tell me that the was was delivered on the 25th, signed by "Rath". I asked her to verify the address they shipped it too, but she could not. I explained to her how i, the customer, have not received the phone. she told me that was my problem, to call UPS to demand my money back, and hung up on me!

So, I called back, talked to a young gentleman, repeated the entire story back to him. He looked up my info and then told me that NO the phone was not yet delivered and to wait another day. I asked him to give me the tracking number so I could follow up on my own and then he suddenly changed his story and told me that it looks like my phone had in fact been delivered after all.

SO, he tells me to contact UPS and file a claim. He then told me to call him back after the claim was filed and he would send me a new phone to make up for the lost one.

So i called UPS who the told me that only the shipping party could file a claim. So I called back sprint and asked for the same guy who I had just talked to. Turns out I was talking to some ghost because they had no idea who this guy was. I become irate, they hang up on me.

I call a 3rd time, talk to another young lady, re-explain the entire thing back to her. Then she placed me on hold for a total of 20 minutes. She comes back on the line and tells me to call UPS and file a claim. sigh. SO, i once again repeat the part about how UPS request for the shipping party to file a claim. But still she doesnt seem to understand me.

So I ask for a manager, and she actually tells me the following, "If I call him, he's gonna get upset at me"!!!! I then tell her, I AM UPSET AT YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS IS MY 3RD CALL TRYING TO GET MY SITUATION CORRECTED??? So then she places me on hold for 15 minutes, and then Suddenly a man answers and says, "This is the floor supervisor, how may I help you?" Did he just seriously ask how he could help me????????????????????

So I once again repeat myself for the 4th time. he tells me he is going to research my account. Places on me hold for 15 minutes, and then suddenly my call is disconnected. Yes, they hung up on me.

So I call back, wait 5 minutes to get thru to a live person. I finally get one and I ask for the same floor supervisor. The guy tells me that the F.Supervisor is working on my case and will call me back in 20 minutes with a resolution. well, as of right now, it's been two hours.

And how much would you like to bet that I will have to explain myself a 5th time. Any takers?

First off, Sprint is the easily the best deal overall when it comes to cell phones. They easily have the best plans of the 3 biggest carriers. They have the best upgrade program especially if you upgrade at Best Buy (same as new customer price) note that the rebates may not be the same at all Best Buy's around the country. Sprint offers a 1 year $75 rebate towards a new phone (which at Best Buy actually works out to be more than that), and at 2 years they offer a $150 rebate (which again works out to be more than a $150 at Best Buy). Oh, and the BB rebates are instant since July 1. I will state again that some Best Buy's may not have the new upgrade program yet.

Cingulars rollover is a joke. If you roll over more than just a few minutes every month, you are on a rate plan that is too high. Sprint offers nights at 7 for free now, and if you go over it's only $5 for 30 minutes. As long as you choose the correct rate plan on Sprint it mathematically works out to be much cheaper than Cingular. Sprint also offers mobile to mobile between Sprint AND Nextel. If you want a non-Blackberry PDA phone you can have unlimited data for $15 a month on Sprint. Don't even get me started with Verizon...Verizon's rates are the absolute worst that I have seen.

The $4 replacement plan that Tom complained about is actually an amazing offer. For $4 a month everything that could possibly happen to your phone is covered by insurance. This includes if it breaks, you lose it, it is stolen, or if you lie and claim to have lost it. $48 a year and a $50 deductible to get a replacement phone is a much better deal than shelling out $200-400 for a replacement phone. If you aren't worried your going to lose or break the phone, then it's probably not a good idea to add the replacement. All phones are also covered by a 1 year manufacturors warranty.

No matter what type of services you get, you are always going to run into bad customer service reps unless you are very lucky. I work at a Best Buy and constantly have to call CS. None of them are perfect, but Verizon's from what I have seen is the worst. If there is one thing I have learned when you call CS, you should plan out exactly what you are going to say beforehand, never ever raise your voice or use profanity. The people you are calling are there to help, but if you are rude the chances of them helping go down a lot. If you get someone that is unhelpful simply make an excuse to end the call (breakfast, lunch, dinner, company... etc) and just call back. Also, every time you call back chances are you are going to a different call center. This means you can't reasonably expect to be able to call a 1800 number and get the same person you talked to last time.

If you search on google for "sprint sucks", "verizon sucks", or "cingular sucks" you will find results for every company similar to the complaints on this page.

Sprint used to be good - we've had them for many years. Yet in the past year or so, they've slid to becoming the epitome of a true consumer nightmare. Salespeople blatantly misrepresented the capabilities of the phones and service plans they sold our family members, and rude, often incompetent customer service people have replaced formerly honest and knowledgeable folks. Sprint's Walnut Creek CA office used one lame excuse after another to avoid honoring the warranty on a phone - on our first visit they said no technicians were available to examine the phone, on our repeat trip they said that phones are only replaced under warranty in the store during the first 30 days, and then they finally blamed our new phone's malfunctioning on customer abuse (they said I must have leaned on it), despite the fact that the phone's case is completely unblemished. If one excuse didn't work, they just went to the next. It's truly sad to see a good company go bad so quickly.

all cell phone carriers suck period. customers suck just as bad.
1.) i am not a genie, i cannot zap a new phone into your hands just because you dropped it in the toilet and are 5 minutes late to a meeting.
2.) i am not a magician, i cannot magically erect new towers at your whim, because you can't call auntie beatty without dropping the call. i also cannot magically make service transactions go through instantly.
3.) i am not sprint, i am a human being just trying to earn a buck. i did not make our policies nor can i break them.
4.)i am not all powerful, there IS a limit to what i can do. i cannot add $200 dollars to your account because you couldn't check your email for 3 days. i also cannot control what others do or do not do.
5.)i am not deaf, i can hear you just as well you you speak normally as when you yell. getting louder does not change how long it will take to fix or replace your phone. it also will not get your bill paid either. it also does not fix signal issues or dropped calls.
6.)i am not psychic, i can see quite a bit but i do not just "know" what the hell is going on. i also do not know what anyone else has said to you. i only know and can control what i do. so if i ask you to do something that seems stupid, just do it. there is a reason i am asking, if you want to know why just ask but it will take time to explain, so you can waste your time questioning me or you can just do what i ask. if you want things done right it takes time...see numbers 1 and 2.
7.)i am not a 4th dimesional being who can control the space time continueum. i cannot give you back the half hour you spent on the phone trying to get it fixed only to be told to call back from a different line. i also cannot zot into your living room and troubleshoot your phone, hence why you need to call back if you were stupid enough to call in from your phone. the automated sytem tells you, more than once, if you are calling from the device in question to please hang up and call back from another phone. i cannot make time stand still because you only allotted yourself 15 minutes to fix your phone before work. come on people when does anything technical take less than 15 minutes?
i cannot go back in time and fix your phone. no one made you wait a week before you decided to try to fix your phone, so don't get mad its your own fault for waiting.
8.) i am not all knowing, i cannot possibly know everything about every phone sprint has. also i cannot know everything about our network, every plan we have ever had for every type of customer we service. i just can't do it. yes i know it sucks if you have a pda or connection card but it really is best to transfer you to the department that handles your issues. come on, really, we have 4 types of treos alone how many other phones do you think we support, it is not humanly possible to know everything in billing, all our plans, the vision network, our voice network, the voicemail system, the layout and feature of every phone we support, pricing, text messaging, modem usage, email servers, hot sync-ing, the power vision network,voice command, updates, tower locations, up coming cell sites, news, fraud cases, network security, collections etc... so sometimes you ask shit that we don't know, we try to find the answer as fast and as accurate as we can but when you get impatient and start yapping and complaining we don't always find it.
9.) i am not your mom, neither is sprint. if you don't get your bill it does not mean you don't have to pay. you are adults it is your responsibility to find out what you owe. we offer you a plethra of options *4, *2, sprint.com . we do not have the time to call each individual customer to remind you that your bill is due, we also cannot call you to warn you that your service is about to be interupped. you know about when your bill is due..pay it and you won't get shut off. if you have a spending limit you have one for a reason, we didn't put it there to mess with you. you have it because you have a nasty habit of not paying your bills, we are not gonna babysit you while you rack up a $600 phone bill then have to turn it over to an outside collection agency. based on your credit history you get a spending limit, which is the amount sprint is willing to risk on your flakey self. if you pay your crap on time and don't let your phone get cut off every other month it will go up and eventually go away.
and finally ladies and germs...
10.) i am not perfect, neither are you. everything and every person screws up now and again, it happens. all the argueing and pouting in the world won't change that. you stare at a dimly lit screen for 7 and 1/2 hours listening to bitching and yelling from all sides, you miss-read a line, you say things backwards. oh well, just because i admit i was wrong does not make me incompetent. bills get confusing, broken phones are annoying..i really do understand, being an ass only serves to make me not care. i am human. so are you.
bottom line- customers often ask for things that are just unreasonable. i can't zot you a new phone, tought tittie. a new phone will cost you, nothing is free. kids do lie, doesn't mean you should get all of your charges waived. customers lie, and we know it. i have rules i have to follow, doesn't your job? i cannot change the way the system works it sucks oh well, this is the land of big business. you and me are just bugs caught in its money machine. i know sprint sucks they treat their employees and customers horribly. nothing either of us can do about it other than grabbing our collective ankles and praying for vaseline.

So due to an error on my part, I ran over my minutes last month. I have had 4 lines of Spring cell phones for over 10 years with a very large plan. So my bill this month is over $1,200.00. I called today and asked if, since this is the first time ever I did this, and I have had my account for so long, could I pay the overages over 3 months? I will pay the regular monthly rate as usual, and 1/3 of the overages every month for the next 3 months. They say sure. So I happen to say, and my phone will stay on? And they say NO! Unless you pay the entire bill in 30 days, we shut off your phone.

So I called Customer Retention and they say there is nothing he can do either. I did not yell, I did not even give them a hard time. I just kept with the fact that I had been with them a long time and never gotten into this problem, could they help at all, and they say no. So I say well then I guess I should look around at other plans that might fit me better, and they tell me that if I change plans within Sprint I have to commit to 2 years and a $200 per phone fee if I cancel early. So I said then I might as well look around at other cell providers, and he says sure, why not.

So I sort of whimper some more about the size of the bill and not being able to get any slack cut on paying the bill, and he says he can give me a $150 credit on next months bill (not the big bill, I still have to pay that in cash in 30 days) if I sign up for a new plan and commit to the 2 years. So I said I needed to think about it, but right now I have to figure out how to pay the really big bill. So he says "If you don't agree right now to taking this credit, don't even bother to call back because this is a one time offer and Sprint won't do anything to help you at all if you don't do this immediately". So I said I need to think about it, and he says that he noticed that I updated my phone last August and the 2 year committment was not added to my account. I asked if that was a threat, and he said no but now I find out HE ADDED THIS TO MY ACCOUNT RETROACTIVELY !!!!!

MY ADICE : LEAVE SPRINT AS SOON AS YOUR COMMITTMENT IS UP. Other cell providers can't all be this bad, and if they are we need some regulations to control what they are doing.

I have to admit that while reading all posts, I started to laugh! We all run into the same crap regardless of what service provider we have.

I've been with Sprint now for three and a half years and have had my battles with them. All in which have been handled timely (timely as in same day). I believe that if you want something done you have to be prepared for every question that will be asked of you and also be very clear as to what it is you want done. Whether a correction, a dispute and even a refund.

I've had Verizon, T-Mobile, Cingular, etc. no one is better than the other. It's all how you handle them and boy do I have my methods! :)

Remember everything has a LOOPHOLE! You just have to find it and work it into the ground, LOL!

I LOVE SPRINT FOR THEIR LOOPHOLES!!!

At the end of August, I get a friendly call from a Sprint rep offering to upgrade my phone with a $150 rebate. COOL. I was tired of the old Nokia I had and wanted to get a blue tooth and picture phone.

I find the phone I liked - Samsumg A640. I was told it would ship in 3-5 business days. 2 1/2 weeks later - no phone but they had no problem charging my credit card right away (note however the website does state they will not charge a customer if the order is delayed, and supposedly will call the customer if there is a delay and arrange to credit the charge card back). I call Sprint and initially they were incredulous that I didn't have the phone yet. Then I'm told it had shipped - so i ask for a tracking number. Then I'm put on hold and when the rep returns, she tells me that its still processing. No explanation. Pressing further, and numerous more times on hold there apparently was a backorder situation. It would ship the next day. OK, I'll bite. One week later, no phone. I call again and they have no explanation but plenty of apologies.

Seeing as they are incapable to ship me this phone, I ask them to cancel that order, I'll take another one. I got them to kick in another $50 towards a different phone - opting for a Samsung A920.

A week and a half later - still no phone. They were waiting to try & cancel the A640 shipment. Now I'm incredulous. The A640 never shipped. More apologies and a 1 month's service credit offered as a token gesture and a promise it would ship on the next Monday (it was Thursday). OK - perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel?

HA HA HA HA. I called this past Tuesday and was told it had just shipped by their shipping vendor. But no tracking number was available. I would have the A920 in 3-5 business days. Tonight I called - to see if I can get the UPS tracking number. HA HA HA HA HA. They have no answers, no tracking number and supposedly a supervisor is now watching the order and will call me tomorrow. Wonder what I can get for free now?

And the saga continues.........
I called sprint this morning to follow up as I knew darned well that no supervisor would call. Conveniently, the supervisor had just went into a meeting. A not was left to call me - and i had asked for a call back by 5:00pm.

4:30 - no call. So I gladly picked up the phone and dialed the all too familiar toll free number to start again. Through the course of the 1 hr call, there was no clue as to why the order didn't ship. Then the story changed. Sprint couldn't ship the A920 I ordered until the A640 had shipped to me, and I returned it - even though I had requested that they cancel the order for that phone (since they couldn't ship it due to backorder - and still is apparently).

Now apparently a branch manager is monitoring the order. Getting tired with dealing with the customer service representatives, I wanted a direct number - or even an extension - for the supervisor or branch manager. This information was refused under the guise that there is no extension or direct line to these people.

I would love to know the cost of labor spent trying to get this phone. I did get a 2nd month of service for free though.

Stay tuned as I'll be talking to them again tomorrow. My guess is i'll keep calling and getting another month's service for free that i'll never have a cell phone bill!!!!

FUCK SPRINT!!!

I bought my 2-line plan in August 2005 and added a third line shortly after. I have moved twice and hence changed the numbers. Their billing system has made 12 or more errors in the year since then.

1. First, “taxes and surcharges and government mandated fees” (fees in short) should be based on the billing address and sprint accepts that. In my case they have added fees for the county I purchased the plan and my billing address. Then every time I moved they added these fees for the new location without removing the old ones. As they don’t give detailed calculations for these fees and moving from one “Orange” county to another “Orange” county, I didn’t notice this error until the fees began to top $25 every month. Once I informed them (in April 2006) they send me around for about 4 months. (25+ emails and about the same number of phone calls. Promises to fix the problem, promises to call back, please contact that department, etc.) The last guy I talked to first offered to refund $25 despite I have been overcharged $10-15 for 7 months. After another 10mins of talking he told me that the max he can give me is $34. By that time I was sick of this issue and accepted it. Sprint stand is that according to the contract they do not make refunds for errors older than 2 months. They were never apologetic of making the errors and on few times tried to deceive me that there is no problem at all. Also they don’t accept anything in e-mail and want you to call, probably because they don’t want any evidence.
2. Apart from this, Since February 2006, there has been 5 unrelated billing errors, each time overcharging me about $5-$10. Add a line charge when no line was added, extra $5 for one line for no reason, minutes on one line being counted outside the plan, list goes on. Every time I call the girls first try to tell some story and convince me that there is no problem. After I hammer in the point, put me on hold for a while and later credit the amount back to me. Sometimes they try to sell something extra at the same time. Last couple of times I asked if they give any extra credit back when they make repeated mistakes as customers have to spend lots of time – no luck there. Basically I have been doing their billing calculations for few months. For the number of hours I have spent checking and getting things corrected I should get a fair compensation I think.

Another thing that I keep pondering is how all these “mistakes” (6 separate type of errors) happen to benefited Sprint and never me.