Nobrainer’s Think Tank

But it is about that time of year when I have to complain about Sprint, again.

Everything was going fine through a few weeks ago: I didn’t talk to them. They didn’t talk to me. I just kept paying my bill and they kept connecting my calls. Then they offered to take 10% off my monthly bill just for abandoning my no-contract ways and signing a new 2 year deal (I like how that sounds as if I was a highly prized free agent). Now, I expected the deal to come with a catch. But, I was wrong. I purposely made two calls so that I could talk to 2 people and verify that I got the same answers. The deal was good.

Then things got bad. I needed a new phone and ordered up a brand new m500. It arrived. I activated it, and all was well. Well, until I realized that the small, outer LCD screen didn’t work. So after one phone call I found out I had to ship it back. After another phone call I had my old phone re-activated. After the phone was shipped, my account was credited, but I had no new phone and my discount was gone. So I wrote to customer support. They told me to “exchange” my old phone. Then when I explained I couldn’t do that, they gave me more bad advice. Then they told me to call a number. The person who answered told me I had to call another number. The person who answered the other number said he would be glad to help me, but that he couldn’t access my account information. So I was transferred to someone else. The volume of that woman’s voice was equal to or less than the volume of static on the line. At least 10 times I said “I can’t understand you.” Apparently she couldn’t understand me either. A week has passed and nothing seems to have happened.

At this point, I’m not sure how many hours I’ve logged calling in for help. But I do know that not a goddamned person who answered the phone can speak English. Including the guy who was clearly American. And hell, I don’t even care if someone in India (or wherever) with an accent answers my phone. But, as with all things Sprint, they embody the likes Michael Bolton and fuck up all the “mundane details.” In this case, the quality of the phone line is pure shit. And being as Sprint is a phone company, I’m pretty sure its their fucking fault.

Let me throw in that the backend systems at Sprint are still pure shit. For some reason, after I am connected to the umpteenth operator, that operator has no idea why I’m calling. Shouldn’t that kind of shit be automatic? For once I’d like to hear, “Hello Mr. Nobrainer, I see you’ve been trying to order a new phone. Let me straighten that out for you.”