Any recent experiences with phone exchange process at Sprint?

[Procter]

I'm still within 30 days and I need to swap a defective blackberry to a WM phone. Contacted the ecare and was told that I need to call some toll-free number to exchange. They would get me a return kit and order the new phone, plus the restocking fee.

My question is if this is the definite answer with Sprint phone exchange process right now? A year ago, I exchanged phones at Sprint, but then it was more like wait-less, transfer-less process. I just email ecare, put such request, when they Oked it, they just ship me a new phone along with the UPS return kit. The new phone price (MSRP) would reflected on my sprint account as credit, when the warehouse gets the returned device, they then bill the same amount (MSRP) off the bill.

My concern is if they have me call the number to order, I'll probably have to pay the new phone price upfront with my credit card, then waiting for them to credit it back to my sprint account. Basically my credit card debt just increase by say $499, and afterwords, this $499 gets trapped in my sprint account?

And also how would they calculate the price difference as I'm exchanging for a different model. I'm just worried that I'll have to pay some outrageous price upfront with credit card to initiate the process.

Please provide some more recent phone exchange experiences (web orders). Thanks