Every time I call Sprint there's an issue...

Another bad review of Sprint's customer service...

A couple hours after the last post I realized what a whiny little brat I must sound like at this point -angry that my latest tech gadget isn't getting here fast enough... Well, it arrived yesterday -a week and a day after the last purchasing issue was ironed out. It's certainly not up to your average web store's standards, but it got here, so I can't really complain...

Of course, as soon as I got home I ripped through the box, powered up the phone, installed a couple apps, and surfed the web a bit. When I checked the voice mail, there was a message from Sprint saying that I should dial *2 to activate the phone. Well, according to what I've heard online you shouldn't call with the phone you are trying to activate (although you can call customer service with it unactivated -I tried), so I dialed the number that the instructions told me to with my regular phone. The auto attendant asked me some questions that I didn't know the answer to, like "are you a new customer?" uh... sorta. I tried both Yes and No, both dropped me into a queue where the wait time was estimated to be between 15 and 25 minutes. I waited for about 5, then hung up.

So, this morning I tried again at 7am CST and I got through to a rep in less than 5 minutes. (Good start!). It was an Indian girl who talked too fast for me to really keep up and she understood me about as well (although I talked clearly and slowly). It turns out that this wasn't going to be easy either. She said she had no record of my request that my number be ported from Virgin Mobile. I tried re-doing the request, but she needed a Virgin Mobile account number, and I couldn't find one, so I told her to skip it -I'd keep the temporary number for now.

She had me go into the phone settings and set up the phone. It went just fine although she spit out the numbers a little fast for me to figure out how to type/dial them in on this phone (Treo 755p), but I figured it out -no biggie. Once it was set up, she said "Ok. Now you need to choose a plan." Here's where the fun begins...

Me: "Uh, I bought the plan when I bought the phone."
Sprint Rep: "Well, it's not showing up, so we have to set it up again."
Me: "I don't want to set it up again, I already chose a plan when I bought the phone."
Sprint Rep: "You do not currently have a plan, how many minutes would you like?"
Me: "I'm not going through this again -I already have a plan"
Sprint Rep: "How many minutes do you want?"
(repeat)
Me: "Look. I signed up for the Sero plan. Can you put me on that plan? It's called Sero, S-E-R-O."
Sprint Rep: (silence)
Sprint Rep: "Yes. How many minutes?"
Me: "500"
Sprint Rep: "Ok"
Me: "How much is the plan?"
Sprint Rep: "$30" (right)
Me: "And how much data do I get with it?"
Sprint Rep: "There is no data on this plan."
Me: "There's supposed to be unlimited data and text messaging on this plan. That's what I signed up for. That's what I already have."
Sprint Rep: "I'm sorry, but that plan is not available."
Me: "What do you mean it's not available? I ALREADY HAVE THAT PLAN! I signed up for it when I bought the phone. You sent me the phone, so I must also have gotten the plan. It's on my invoice!"
Sprint Rep: "I'm sorry, but in order to be eligible for this plan you must have the rep that referred you to Sprint call and..."
Me: "That's not acceptable. I'm not jumping through hoops to get on this plan. I already purchased it and I have proof. If you can't put me back on this plan, transfer me to a manager."
Sprint Rep: "There's nothing anyone can do. You are not eligible for this plan. You must choose a plan you are eligible for."
Me: "Just transfer me to a manager."
(repeat ad nauseum)

I should have timed it. It had to have been 3-5 minutes of solid back and forth going in circles. I even pointed out the fact that we weren't getting anywhere. Finally she transferred me to a manager, who picked up in about a minute. When the manager picked up, all she said was "You've been authorized for the SERO plan". I was like "What!?!" She repeated herself, then I asked for the details -she confirmed both "unlimited data" and "unlimited text messaging".

Now, when I look online it says I'm on the Sero F&F 500 plan or something like that, which is the plan the rep told me about -500 minutes, no data, no text messages. But, the website also says that the details are not available because my plan was recently changed. It says details will be available after the next billing cycle. I'm willing to wait, but not that long. I think I might have to call back tomorrow or the next day in order to confirm that I'm on the correct plan.

GRRR I look forward to the day when this is all settled and I can just be happy using my phone. For now this hassle doesn't even seem worth the deal I got. But, over 2 years, I have to admit it kinda is, although I'm not happy to be giving Sprint ANY money at all at this point. >:P

Review of Allegro Medical's online store

Just to break the cycle of negative reviews, here's a positive one for Allegro Medical (at AllegroMedical.com). -I bought my dad a birthday present from them on Monday, July 16th and on Tuesday, July 24th, I realized that they hadn't been delivered, nor did I ever get a tracking number for them yet!?! Since my dad's birthday party was the next weekend (July 29th), I called and asked for the status of the order. -It turned out that the server in their warehouse that processes the orders crashed and my order kinda slipped through the cracks. I told them about my dad's party and that I needed them by Friday, and although it took a couple calls to follow up on it, they got the order to me on Friday -overnighted, at no extra cost to me. In short, they screwed up, they admitted it, and they made it right. -I'll definitely order from them again based on this experience!

Sprint's having "technical difficulties" -well, at least they admit it!

I ordered a new phone with service from Sprint on Sunday, July 22nd. On Monday there was an issue with them being able to pull my credit report, but that was resolved on the same day (although it took about 4-5 calls, see the "Sprint review" post from 7/23 for that story). ...My invoice said to expect the phone in 2-4 business days, so I expected the phone sometime between Wednesday and Friday, but Sprint's order tracking page still, to this minute, hasn't given me a tracking number... Today is Monday, July 30th -a week and a day since I put in the order, and one week from when the order was said to be complete. No phone, no tracking number....

So, I called Sprint this morning to find out why their order tracking page is still saying "The order is awaiting fulfillment." After a half hour on hold (yes, I timed it), I get this Indian guy who I can barely understand. He takes my order number and puts me back on hold for another 5 minutes. When he gets back on the line, he tells me something about technical difficulties and to call back on Wednesday. After going back and forth with him trying to figure out what's going on, he says it's not a problem with my order, all I can get out of him is that it's just "technical difficulties" and UPS should have my tracking number on Wednesday... Super.

...I just can't believe that I ordered the phone on Sunday, and then the next day I put in an order with Egghead for memory for the phone, and I opted out of their $2.99 "faster processing" fee, and I still got the memory on Wednesday (2 days after ordering it). I also bought 2 cases for the phone from a Yahoo store on Monday, and I got those on Friday. But I'm still waiting for the phone...

When I ordered my phone from cheap-as-heck, pay-as-you-go Virgin Wireless, I had my phone the very next day! What's up with Sprint? Is it a temporary problem? -It doesn't look like it... Google "The order is awaiting fulfillment." and you get back results from various forums where people are discussing how long it takes to get a phone. The average seems to be a week (which means Sprint's invoice should be updated so their customers aren't expecting it in "2-4 business days"). But some are reporting up to 20 days with no notice of the item being back ordered, etc. Everyone, however, reports terrible wait times when calling Sprint and horrible customer service once they finally get through. With the carriers all being bought up and the market coming down to AT&T vs Sprint, I don't expect we'll see any improvement.

I guess that when you shop by price alone, this is what you get...

A review of my Sprint customer service experience -trying to get a new phone set up with Sprint

Whew. I feel like I just went through some initiation for some super-elite underground organization. But in reality, all I've accomplished was becoming a Sprint customer! Wow... it really shouldn't be that hard!

Here's what happened:

At 9pm last night I ordered a new phone and service plan with Sprint online.

At about 9am I found I had an email from Sprint saying there was a delay in processing my order because of a problem running my credit report. It said they'd call me, but gave a number if I wanted to "expedite the process". I did, so I called. This is call #1...

Call #1:
Nice girl, spoke English well. She said that the order was saying it was "in process" and she couldn't check or alter it -it may be going through just fine. She told me she'd personally keep an eye on it, and if it got held up, she'd call me. She took down my number, and that was that.

At about 11am I got another email from Sprint saying I needed to call them because of a problem running the credit report. Okay, I call again. Call #2...

Call #2:
This girl barely spoke English at all. She took my application # and put me on hold while she talked to the credit department. When she came back on the line she kept saying something about them "not having my credit report". -I asked several times: "Who doesn't have my credit? Sprint or the credit reporting agency?" She didn't understand my question so I tried rewording it, which was hard because it's a 5-word sentence! So, the last couple times I asked the question v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. She still couldn't tell me so we moved on.

Next, she wanted to know who took the credit report in the first place? I repeated that I purchased the phone online. She asked again -"Yes, but did they run a credit report?" I said "Did who run a credit report? The form on the web site asked for the info to run one, but... I don't know, it's YOUR website!?!" Then she says, yes, but someone has to run your credit... I replied that surely I can't be the first person ever to have purchased a phone and a plan off your website... (Silence) So, I added -I can't be expected to know how this works... The website asked for the info to run my credit, I entered it and hit "Purchase"... That's when we somehow got "disconnected".

I called back...

Call #3:
I got another girl who sounded exactly like the last girl. I asked if this was the person I was just speaking to, and gave my name. She did not reply to my question, but asked my order # and then asked me to hold. Again, I somehow got disconnected.

**I want to clarify that I never raised my voice with anyone. Towards the end of call 2 I let the girl know I was frustrated and wanted a resolution, but I was never mean or angry. I'm generally not good at being forceful with people anyway. But I was frustrated that it took half of my day to get this taken care of while I was supposed to be working.**

Call #4:
This time I called Sprint's main number. Probably a mistake if I look back on it. But, this time I got a male who was able to communicate better than the last girl, but still had an accent (no biggie as long as we can understand each other). I told him the whole story up to this point and then he asks for my name, address, phone number, etc. When he gets to my SSN, I ask if he's starting a new application. He says "Yes". I told him that I already had one, I paid for the phone, and I just needed to straighten out the credit report issue.

"Ok" he says, "no problem", I can run the credit report for you right now. I gave him my info, he put me on hold, then came back and said my credit was good, and I was approved. Sweet! But, no. He then said he needed to cancel my previous order and start a new one. I told him I didn't want to do that because I had ordered the phone through the SERO program. He didn't even know what that was. I explained it, and he said he'd transfer me to that department to re-do the order.

So, I get transferred, and a recording says "welcome to the Sprint employee purchase program, please enter a valid sprint phone number to continue". Uh... I enter the phone number I'm trying to get transferred to this new phone, and it's invalid, so it tells me to re-dial the customer service number I used to get there and then hangs up on me.

Call #5:
This time I go back to the number from their email and I get a nice English speaking girl again. She explains that they need to run the credit report in order to process the application. I tell her that the guy I spoke with 5 minutes ago already ran the report. She said she needed to run it again because that one was under a different application number. Great. Whatever, I said, I just want this done. So, she re-ran the credit report. It came back ok (again), and apparently the phone will be on it's way in a day or two.

Wow. It took over 2 hours of calling, recalling, (several times when I dialed either the number from the email or their main number I got a busy signal or "please try again"!?!) They are a PHONE company!!! WTF!?!

If I didn't get such a good deal on this plan, I would have given up. I kinda dread ever having to deal with them again, though. 2 year contract... Yikes.