[Updated] Why Should I Stay with Sprint PCS after they hose me for $300?

[toviaheli]

Edit: I am reviving this old thread to add some helpful info for PPCGeek'ers! Hope some of it helps. I'll start with this:

1) If you have a longstanding Sprint issue that you can't get resolved through multiple attempts with regular Sprint customer service, dial the hotline at 703-433-4401.
2) Sprint has a cheat sheet they give CS representatives to help them overcome your objections. Here is an example which can be found on Consumerist.com: http://consumerist.com/assets/resour...objections.pdf








Original opening Post is Below:
[Updated: See Post #20]

So, two days before I leave for my business and family trip to Tennessee my Top of the line PPC-6700 (aka: HTC Apache) Sprint PCS Pocket PC starts freaking out. This baby is my lifeline to all things worthwhile when I am traveling. I have all my meeting notes, drafts of my books, address'--you name it; it's all on there (properly encrypted of course).

Here I am, on a Sunday afternoon and instead of watching the games or taking a nap I get to stand in line to speak with a Sprint Repair Store Manager who refuses to give me the time of day.

I explain I am going on a business trip for 10 days and can't be around in 3-5 business days to pick up the warranty replacement they want to give me. In any normal week, this really wouldn't be a problem, but this week? PROBLEM.

"What's the solution?" I ask.

"We've changed our policies. I can't just give you a new phone in the box, you have to wait for a replacement," we went around on this one for about 20 minutes when he finally said, "but you can buy a brand new phone for $585 with a new two year contract and if you return it when your replacement comes in you 'should' get your full refund."

What??? I have to extend my contract by two years AND deal with replacing a phone I don't even want to buy, because this Yahoo won't do something that Sprint seems to do EVERYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY???

I say no deal. Go to another store. Same game. I go to another store. No deal, they've all started keeping notes in the computer record I'm a troublemaker.

I call retentions; they tell me they can give me a $50 credit on my account to pay for Asurion Insurance to give me a replacement. Then I call Asurion. Do I get the phone I need by the time I need it?

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It will take 7-10 business days!!!!!

So I call Sprint and tell them I'm canceling my service. You know what the Retention department says after another two hours on the phone with them??

"We can only give you $150 toward a new phone."
Me, "Do you care that I have people calling me in the middle of the night wanting me to talk them out of suicide and if my phone isn't working they end up dead?"
Supervisor, "I am sorry sir, I can offer you the deal I gave you, our you can try your luck at AT&T."

What????????????

So here I am, stuck paying (according to their acrimonious pretending the drop the price enough to give me the "web special"): $300 damn for a phone that should have been FREE UNDER MY WARANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They didn't care that I have radio interviews needing to be done from that phone. They didn't care that people rely on me to have a reliable cell working phone.

They DON'T CARE!

All because they refused to overnight me the original warranty replacement phone I wanted, asked for, they are required to give me in the first place.

They're loosing my business forever, and to think I was already talking to them about a Corporate Sponsorship for Child Predator Busters!

The founder has been using their service for two months and is just as fed up with their customer service.

Edit:
Did I mention I pay for the premium replacement program? My phone is less than 8 months old?
I told them I would have taken ANYTHING in that store, or online, or through retentions if I could get it overnight that would make sure I didn't loose an interview or a life! And I still have to wait 3-5 business days for my new Mogul to arrive.

What's wrong with these people?



Now, is there a company out there that cares, who wants do a Corporate Sponsorship?

[luv2chill]

Well you sound pretty riled up and I don't really want to direct any of that my way, but are you sure these stores actually had new in box 6700s to give you? This phone has been discontinued for quite some time now and the stores are running out of even the refurbished ones.

Secondly, Sprint changed policy a while ago to have the manufacturers handle the 1-year warranty. Technically, if you want Sprint to handle it you're supposed to pay the monthly fee for insurance or TEP. I think sometimes stores will bend those rules, but there's probably limits on what they can do--especially when everyone and their mother seems to be marching into a store with a broken 6700 and demanding a 6800 as replacement.

I'm no Sprint apologist--just trying to be rational here. What I compare this to is like when I buy a computer from Dell. My previous laptop I only paid for the "mail-in warranty service", which was included in the price but meant that if it broke I wouldn't be able to get it fixed overnight. I had to use that warranty service a couple of times and found it really inconvenient, as that laptop was my only one. So to have to spend at least a week without it while I sent it in, waited for it to be fixed and mailed back really sucked.

So when I bought my new laptop, I paid the extra for the overnight on-site warranty. Hopefully I won't need it but the extra money spent was worth it for the peace-of-mind.

I do feel for you in this situation--I'm just not sure you have the right to expect Sprint to give you a new phone when that service isn't included in the warranty you paid for.

But if you're just venting, carry on! Hope you get the situation resolved to your satisfaction--even if that involves going to Verizon or another higher-priced carrier (which may result in more expedient service--I dunno. Maybe Verizon users can chime in to see if Verizon would have handled this any differently?).

[yellowone]

seems Sprint is having a issue with customers that want them to bend over backwards. they say it cost them too much to retain these customers. so they say goodbye....

[verizonguy]

Originally Posted by yellowone

seems Sprint is having a issue with customers that want them to bend over backwards. they say it cost them too much to retain these customers. so they say goodbye....

What Luv2Chill wrote is exactly what I was thinking as I read the original post.

As for the cost of retaining pda customers being too much, if you compare the $80-200 per month a pda customer spends with the data plans, etc, compared to the $40 your basic flip-phone customer spends, it's worth spending more to keep the higher revenue customer.

[psiphi]

This is why I keep an older Sprint Sanyo 8100 I used to use rather than sell it on eBay... As long as you have an old working Sprint phone, they SHOULD be able to transfer your number to that phone while waiting for a replacement... For what its worth, I have a business account, so it may be easier for me to activate/deactivate/transfer numbers than a standard account... I just don't know...

[schettj]

If this guy had TEP, and he claims he did, then there is no way they would not have swapped him on the spot, or attempted a repair on the spot.

Hell, even without TEP they repaired my 12 month old 6700 with a dead dpad (swapped the top half, got a new LCD too ) for $50.

I am afraid you may have triggered the "he's trying to get a free mogul or touch" flagged response when you initially called in/hit the store. Once in that bucket, Sprint will now try everything in their power to get rid of you, which it seems they've succeeded in doing.

Note, when I called Sprint when my dpad died, I said very very clearly "I love my 6700, I sure hope you guys can fix it, and I know I'll need to pay for it to get fixed..." I had an appointment to drop the phone off 5 minutes from my house in 30 minutes, and it was fixed 2 hours total time. Now that wasn't a Sunday, and I had no pressure to get out on a trip, and I know better then to go in guns drawn.

At this point you are screwed. You'd be better off leaving sprint and getting something new from verizon. Yeah, its that bad.
Edit - so you went on the business trip without a phone?

[unitypunk]

PS: Verizon costs hella money...

lol

buttt, sounds like a shitty deal.

(i kinda want the free touch) haha

[adam2dot0]

I've never heard of anyone who had Sprint and liked it. But they have a special kvetch # for readers of the Consumerist.com website, 703-433-4401. I guess it connects with Executive Customer Service. Maybe they'll give you some service credits for your pains.

[KenGraham]

I'm totally feeling ToviaHeli's pain. There seems to be some type of apathy in Sprint's customer service for your non-run-of-the-mill type of problems. For the last month I've had a similar customer service reluctance-to-help experience. Matter of fact it was this past Friday.

I had a gross billing error where automagically my PCS to PCS minutes disappeared on September's billing cycle. This more than tripled my 2000-minute plan bill. I had a bill that was over $900.
I called last month (Oct. 16th) to get it rectified as soon as I saw the error. The CSR said that this seemed to be happening to alot of people. I have a 5-year-old 2000 minute plan (grandfather) for a base rate of $85. She put in a request for it to be corrected and I was credited $274 for a bill the was over $600 above the amount I would normally pay. There were notes added to the account that I was not due anymore credits.

After being told to wait until the of the month for the credits to show up, I saw that I was not fully credited and was now delinquent even though I sent in a payment greater than the amount that the CSR said that I would ultimately be responsible for.

Two Fridays ago (Nov. 9th) I called to get the issue rectified and spoke to someone named Mario who was supposedly a supervisor. He promised to get on top of the issue and get back to me. No dice.

I called last Monday (Nov. 12th) to follow-up..... I was told the account was under review and it would take 24 to 72 hours. Three day had already passed (1 business day).

I called back last Wednesday (Nov. 14th). No movement in the right direction. Still supposedly case under review.

I called back Last Friday (Nov. 16th) and explained how I've been dealing with this for a month and have been following up since the Friday before. Ultimately A supervisor got on the phone and told me nothing was being done with my case when I called in Nov. 9th. On top of that because the notes said no other credit was due my account, no other action was going to be taken. I asked for someone to talk to who actually can do something. I was given a number to call corporate @ (703) 433-4000.

The CSR read the notes on the case and told me that the issue was already handled at a level higher than himself at corporate and he would not be able to do anything further because the notes said so and I was already credited $274.

Mind you last Friday I was standing a Sprint store for 1.5 hours while having these conversations on the phone. A very understanding in-store CSR named Jasmine was listening to everything and had no explanation for the on-phone CSRs. Jasmine also noted that it looked like no one fully reviewed the bill properly. She ultimately called retention after I left to try to get the issue rectified. They told her that this had been a common issue with my type of plan and that it would take 1 -2 billing cycles to rectify.

In the 5+ years that I've had the 2000 minute plan, I've NEVER used up all of my minutes. I later found out that Sprint did a conversion / migration of my plan in the end of August which is when all of this stuff started.

Sprint's reluctance to help my their long-time standing customer that spend approximately $230 per month for 3 lines of service, one line being a PDA data plan, and a data card, has totally soured me to the company. This is not the 1st time I've had billing issues with Sprint Wireless, but is the 1st time that I've had not 1 but 2 CSR tell me that they will not help me.

About 4 years ago I left Sprint land-line services because of their unscrupulous billing practices and lack to see beyond their face and vowed never to go back. It looks like time to fully jump ship and give someone else my business and who respects what there customer is telling them. I would choose Cingular / AT&T if they insured their PDA phones, but they don't so at the end of this month, hello Verizon.

FYI

[schettj]

Let me know how you like Verizon, and how the costs compare. I had them when they were called GTE, and even though I worked for them at the time, they were just as screwed up as Sprint.

My experience with Sprint - if, and that's a big IF, you can get your plan set up right.... and you never touch it, and they don't migrate you to a new billing system, OR you catch billing errors right away (look for a billing error any, er, EVERY time you touch your account!) then they're fine. Basically, if you can get it right two months in a row, you're good to go until the next screwup.

I am also a business account, that might help. Three lines, two data plans. been with them since 2000 or so.

Personally, I think they all suck, but Sprint might be the best at sucking.