I may have mentioned it to many of you how absolutely terrible my cell phone service is with Sprint PCS. I am at a loss to describe to you the extent of the horror that is Sprint PCS "customer care". For all you potential cell phone purchasers: DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER GOING WITH SPRINT. IT CAN RUIN YOUR LIFE.
Hyperbole? Listen to one poor consumer's tale...
My husband and I switched to Sprint before we moved to Bloomington b/c it had better service coverage. Seriously, the map of coverage they showed us paints the whole country red, minus a few tiny areas in Wyoming. It looked too good to be true, and it was. Before we left the city I noticed strange places where I would suddenly lose service. This is in a metropolitan area, I thought, how can there be no coverage? We even signed up for the digital roaming which guaranteed us coverage everywhere. But this was only the beginning.
We moved to Bloomington and found the problem was even worse there. We could not use our cell phones at our apartment and there was almost no place in town that we could either. I called the Customer (we don't really) Care line to find out what was up. But we didn't have a home phone, so I was forced to stand in the back yard in one spot to call. Seriously, if I leaned in any direction, I lost the signal. Unfortunately, this was not enough de-humanization from Sprint. See, not only did I have to stand in one spot, but I had to stand there for around 2 HOURS! Sprint has mastered the art of long wait times, incorrect transfers, 'accidental' hang-ups. This is on top of hiring the most incompetent workers ever. Eventually I was told that they would send a crew to see if we was a problem with our signal.
They tell me the crew showed up (though I never saw them) and that there was no problem. Of course, I had to call them back to find this out. Meanwhile, we don't want to pay for a home phone b/c we're already paying around $70 a month for our cell phones. (You'll notice we have not been completely broken yet) So I call back and they say there is no problem. I say there is a problem, I CAN'T USE MY PHONE ANYWHERE. They offer me free internet access to compensate for my troubles. The free service I never use b/c I can't figure out how it works and the guide book doesn't cover it either. But I say sure, who the fuck cares at this point.
Then the next bill comes, and its more than usual. So I check it out and find they've charged me for internet access I've never used, didn't really want and it was supposed to be free to compensate for their crappy services. Again I call the we hate our customers line. I was on hold for forever, finally talk to someone only to be cut off in the middle because my signal faded, so I have to start the whole sick, twisted process over again. They finally take it off the bill and I tell them to cancel the internet, but that night Brent and I decided to get a home phone.
For the next few months, I had to call EVERY TIME WE GOT A BILL to have them remove the internet access I'm still not using. Maddening.
At that point, with Brent in grad school and my job paying low wages, we decided to switch to a lower minute plan b/c it was just getting too expensive. So I call and they tell me I can't switch plans in the middle of my contract. This I knew could not be true as I had done this with Cingular and T-mobile when I had cell phones with them. I got into a screaming fight with some bitch who said I was a liar when I told her I was paying for a phone I couldn't even use. She said, I'm looking at your record, and you have phone calls on the record. What the terrible cell phone whore didn't realize was that those phone calls were all listed as being 1 minute in length, though most were actually shorter. The people who called me would generally call, I would run around trying to find a place where I would get one transmission bar, and I would immediately tell them the call the home phone. So I guess multiple 30 second phone calls is all that I should expect out of Sprint. (BTW, eventually I was able to switch to a smaller plan. Yes, I was right.)
Alas, we moved back to Indianapolis, and I have reached my limit. I feel drained at this point. I'm too tired to tell you about the whole new set of problems we're facing with them. I have called their "we encourage our customers to commit suicide" line every month of our contract. But I'm pretty much at the peak of the amount of stress I can handle from this 'service' provider. I've paid hundreds beyond what I should have paid, b/c I would just rather pay them now than deal with their customer service. We've tried emailing, that gets nothing but a form letter stating it will be reviewed by someone, though not in this decade. Nothing works. This is the worst service provider I have ever seen. Now, the question is, do I pay $300 to get out of the contract on top of the bill? Do I PAY A CELL PHONE company over $600 just so I never have to speak to them again? DO I? DO I?(Hysteria complete--Sprint, you have crushed me)
I hope that this cautionary tale will ensure that you never get sprint for any service. I hope that I have demonstrated the complete lack of regard this company holds for their customers. I'm not the only one either. Sprint earned the BBB's lowest rating and the NY attorney general sued Sprint for misleading ads. You can read more about this by going
here. Or just google Sprint PCS sucks, and you'll be amazed by even more tales of horror.
Stay safe.
