Longklaw.com

Check another item off the list of things I told myself I wouldn’t do. I bought an iPhone. That means I’m only a Macbook away from being a full-fledged member of the Apple cult. I was going to get one of the new 16GB 3GS units, but they were out of black ones so I got a 32 GB. Now, I’m finally free of Sprint! Even though I don’t really like AT&T, they are much better than Sprint. It’s weird that one of the reasons I left Cingular (before they were AT&T) was because they had crappy phones compared to Sprint. Now, AT&T has the cool phone(s).

I’m happy with the phone so far. I’ve downloaded dozens of applications that I’ll probably never use. There’s only one small problem. I live kind of in the middle of no where. I seem to be relegated to the EDGE network when I’m at home. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m probably least likely to use the internet features when I’m at home. Beside, I can always use my wifi connection when I’m here.

I refuse the buy the new iPhone that is bound to come out next year. At least, that’s what I say now.

I’m still with Sprint for now. I’ll wait until the end of my contract and decide on something then. I had a hard time making a decision on whom to go to. It takes me a long time to make decisions like that and I came up with reasons not to switch to each of the other major carriers available in this area. I’ll deal with it later.

For a few days I was getting a lot of messages and emails from Sprint. The tone made it sound like I didn’t need to call back unless I had other questions. My guess was that they were feeling bad about how much they had screwed up. I finally called back and they basically offered to let me take as long as I wanted to on paying that balance. I’m going to go ahead and pay it all at once when my bill is due. I’m not as angry as I was, but I’m still not happy.

I have been a Sprint customer for over 5 years. I’ve done my share of defending them even when I’ve felt screwed by them because they always seemed to make things right in the end. This time it’s different. Now I can see why they have the worst customer service ratings and are hemorrhaging customers.

I bought a new phone from Sprint near the end of October 2008. The price I believe was $279.99 plus tax but they applied credits to bring the cost of the phone down to $50 plus tax. Before the end of the first 30 days, I decided the phone. It was freezing up all the time and I just didn’t like it. In early December I called to see how much I my balance would be after they credited my account for the phone. The CS Rep told me that I would be credited the $279.99 plus tax and with the credits they had already applied to my account I would have a negative balance. I got him to explain repeatedly that those credits wouldn’t be taken away and I would be credited for the full amount of the phone. I was happy to hear this and even though it seemed odd, I thought that was just the way Sprint did things. How silly and trusting of me.

I called in January about that balance still on my account. It takes them 1-2 billing cycles to credit refunds. They put in a payment arrangement on my account for the $279.99 plus tax to cover the still pending refund and I paid the difference between that and the balance on the account. The same thing happened in February. Later in February I decided to try a different phone model because I was still unhappy with the old model I’d had for a while and tried to replace in October. Somehow the lady got the returned phone credited to my account during that call. When I got my next statement I had a balance of over $300 dollars. It turns out that I was credited about $60 for the returned phone instead of the $279.99 plus tax that I was promised 3 times.

It was explained to me that I could be credited only the amount that I was charged and not the $279.99 plus tax. The Rep I talked to this day said that the earlier reps probably didn’t see those credits made to my account, but I know that at least the first person did. I feel like I was lied to for 3 months. Even if it was a mistake, they should honor the original promise that was made to 3 times. I was going on the assumption for months now that I would be credited $279.99 plus tax and a balance has accumulated. I have been a contract customer for over 5 years and have always paid my bills on time. If I can’t break a promise to pay them, then it seems like they can’t break a promise to me.

I had this case escalated to their “executive office” and I was once again denied a refund. He said that if I was unhappy with the decision he would discuss it among his colleagues and reach a final decision. Not surprisingly, they agreed with him.

I guess it’s time to finally end my relationship with Sprint. When I got the 2nd new phone in February, I had to renew my contract for 2 years. If I break my contract now, I have to pay a an early termination fee, which I think is $185. Of course they said that they wouldn’t let me out of the contract without the fee. I have to decide if I want to pay that fee and get out of my contract or wait 2 years until the contract ends. Either way I’m gone. It’s hard to do business with a company that I cannot trust.