I have phone service through Sprint; if you want to call it service. I drop calls constantly and everywhere. Out of probably 30 customer service experiences with them, perhaps only once did I not feel latent hostility from the representative. The Sprint stores themselves are like something dreamt by Dante. But that’s not what has me so frustrated at the moment. You see, I’ve been a Sprint customer for about 5 years now. I have always carried their insurance for my phone on the plan. Heretofore, I’ve at least had no problems getting phones replaced when they weren’t working. This time it has been a fiasco.
I have the HTC touch. Over the weekend, it received some water damage and is completely inoperable. “No problem,” I thought. “I have insurance!” So I went to the Sprint store near my house, where I’ve always gone when my phone was damaged, to get a replacement. I was told I’d have to call the insurance company, have the replacement phone sent to me and pay a $50 deductible. I have discovered since then, that under the terms of my contract, had I, say, dropped the phone in a lake and then filed a police report, I would have simply gotten a new phone sans deductible. Word to the wise.
I spoke to a Sprint customer service representative on the phone before calling the insurance company and when I explained that I came to understand this odd discrepency about losing the phone and filing a police report, I received a condescending lecture about the machinations of insurance. Gee, thanks. After accepting that I would be without a phone for a couple days (they made no offer to provide a temporary replacement) I made the call to the insurance company, Asurion. After navigating their rather terrible phone menu software for a bit, I gave up and went to their website and filed the claim. It turns out that to get my phone quickly, I had to pay an additional $7. Nevermind that I’ve payed for the cost of 5 of these phones in insurance premiums over the last 5 years. Not a big deal. Insurance is what it is. At least I’d be getting a new phone.
So the phone comes today at around 3pm central time. I unwrap it and go through the process of activating it only to be unceremoniously shunted from the Sprint automated activation system over to customer service. The customer service representative asks for all the information I’ve already given to the activation system. They he asks me what I need today. I tell him I’m trying to activate my replacement phone, doesn’t he already know that? He seems confused and stammers for a moment and then asks me for the serial number from the inside of the phone. So I have to hang up with him, have him call me back on another phone, take the battery out of the replacement phone and give him the serial number. Midway through giving him this, he sighs and tells me in a frustrated tone that no, he doesn’t need the serial number, he needs the DEC ESN number. So I give him this. He then tells me to put the battery back in so we can activate. So I do.
At this point, he sits there silently for a few minutes. I’m waiting for the phone to boot. Finally I say, “hello?” Then we have this exchange:
Sprint Customer Service: Sir, I need you to give me that serial number again.
me: You mean the DEC ESN number?
Sprint Customer Serivce: Yes.
me: The phone is rebooting. You want me to pull the battery again?
Sprint Customer Service: Yes.
me: Okay. The number is _________.
Sprint Customer Service:
me:
Sprint Customer Service:
me:
Sprint Customer Service:
me: Hello?
Sprint Customer Service: Uh, sir, we can’t activate that phone. Where did you get it? Did you buy it?
me: (wondering if he’s insinuating that I stole it) It’s a replacement. I got it from the insurance company. Remember?
Sprint Customer Service: Oh yes. Well it’s assigned to someone else. I can’t activate it. Where did you get it?
me: I just told you. I’m reading you the number right from the back of the phone.
Sprint Customer Service: Well then what’s the HEX ESN number?
me: (reads number)
Sprint Customer Service: Yes, that phone is assigned to someone else.
me: How can it be? I’m holding it in my hand. Whomever it is assigned to is probably fairly non-plussed about not having their phone.
Sprint Customer Service: I don’t know, sir. You’ll have to call the insurance company to get a new phone.
me: So I’m out a phone for another couple days?
Sprint Customer Service: Yes, sir.
me: I use this phone for my business, is there anything you can do for me? A temp phone or something?
Sprint Customer Service: Do you have another phone you could use on the Sprint network that I could activate temporarily.
me: No.
Sprint Customer Service:
me:
Sprint Customer Service: Well. I can credit you a couple days on your account.
me: (giving up at this point) Okay. Thanks.
Sprint Customer Service: Alright sir. I’ll credit your account. Thank you for calling Sprint and have a great day.
me: Awesome.
I don’t even know what a “couple days” of credit on my account means. I pay a flat rate for unlimited minutes. So how does that even translate. I’m sure the representative had no idea either.
Now I’ve got two phones that don’t work that I’ll have to send back or they’ll charge me up to something like $200 each. I’m still without a working phone. What’s to guarantee that the next phone won’t also resist activation? If there’s another cellphone carrier out there that would like to pay my fee to get out of my Sprint contract, I’ll happily switch.