8 year customer.. very upset

sorry this is such a long read.. but it's been quite the experience the past week and a half, hopefully someone can point me in the right direction..

Well I've been a Sprint customer 8 years now, always loved the service and the phones, and I'm that guy who's always defending spring. Well last week I was trying to upgrade my phone to the Samsung M520, I went into my local store (#781), and tried to purchase the phone with the $150 discount for a new contract extension. The rep, and the store manager refused to let me purchase the phone with the discount since my mother's name is the primary name on the account and she would have to physically sign the contract.. first time in 8 years I've ever experienced this. I have full authorization to make any changes to the account, as reflected in the notes on my account. I've been the primary user on this account since the beginning; it's only under my mom's name because I was 17 when I had first signed up. I never had to have her present when upgrading or renewing a contract.

I called sprint customer care, explained my situation, and they transferred me to telesales, where I was taken care of and off the phone within 15 minutes - they honored my discount, extended the contract, and my phone was supposed to be delivered to my office with overnight shipping.. I placed the order March 30th, so i expected delivery on Tuesday April 1st. Tuesday came around, and I got a call from UPS stating they were missing a building and suite number (which was confirmed with sprint 3 times) and wouldn't be able to deliver the phone. That night UPS informed me they couldn't modify the address due to their contract with Sprint, so I called customer care back to see what they could do. After being transferred all over the place, I finally got someone in order support. The lady I spoke to was helpful, but she couldn't modify the address on the existing package, and said there was no way to send a new phone with overnight shipping without charging me again, so after some negotiation, I finally settled on 3-5 day ground shipping just so I could be done and off the phone with no extra charges.. This call lasted over 2 hours. The next night I called customer care again to see if there was any way at all I could get a new phone sooner than 3-5 days, as my current phone is on it's last leg. There was absolutely nothing that could be done without charging me again.. I settled for the original plan and decided I'd just wait for the 2nd package.

Well on the next Tuesday, April 8th, I still had no phone, so I decided to call sprint for my tracking number. They let me know UPS had an urgent message for me..... great. Sure enough the 2nd package was sent out with no building or suite number, and ups was holding the package.. this time a manager placed the order, and again confirmed the address multiple times.

I called sprint (yet another 2 hour call), and after talking to customer care, i was escalated to a supervisor to try to resolve my problem, and the guy I spoke with told me he was going to override the address, and submit a form to get the address changed with ups.. awesome.. some progress..

After all was said and done, he transferred me to account services, as at this point I was still a very upset customer and I was looking to get the shipping charges refunded, and he recommended I speak to acct. services about possible waiving activation fees for my troubles. They were able to give me a 25 credit, and after my situation was explained and my notes reviewed, I was transferred yet again to order support, who had me on hold for a very long time, and again spoke with a supervisor who let me know that the address would be changed with ups, and in addition to the 25 credit, promised me that the phone would be delivered the next day.

Well Wednesday came and went.. after UPS didnt drop a phone off. I decided to track the phone, and it was returned to sprint 5:33 that morning!!!!! unbelievable...

I called yet again, and after another 2 and a half hours, and another wasted night, no one was able to help me. I got bounced around all over the place, got different answers from everyone I spoke with, and finally after a real long hold, I spoke with someone in "corporate enterprise order support" whom I though was the highest ranked employee i spoke with so i figured he may be able to help me. He let me know that the ONLY thing that could be done for me was to wait for the returned package to be processed, 2-4 business days, then send another phone out. When I requested to speak with his direct supervisor, he said that he was in a meeting. The guy didn't know how long the meetings usually last, couldn't have his supervisor call me back, couldn't provide me with a contact number, wouldn't let me even hold for him.

With this lack of help, i finally decided to just simply cancel my order and give up. He told me that my credit card would be refunded in 7-30 business days..

So now on Friday, 4:30 rolled around, and as soon as I left work i made a call, as I always do and kept getting a strange message.. "Welcome to America's roaming network. The cellular device you are calling from is not registered in this calling area, you need to make a collect call or enter your credit card information to complete a call"

Immediately I called customer service. the lady treated me like an idiot and told me to wait until i am in a service area.. when i explained to her that I make calls all the time in this area, she finally transferred me to tech support. . the wrong tech support, who had no ability to access to my account with the "new" billing system. Luckily I got disconnected, because when I called back I got a helpful rep. She told me that my account was cancelled, and I was charged a $200 early termination fee. I never authorized this, and apparently my account was cancelled due to an "internal error". She also let me know in addition to the $200, there was a $99 charge on my account for the first phone and a $250 charge for the second. She put me on hold to get these charges, and before I was on hold I let her know I got disconnected earlier, so she said she'd call me right back if I get disconnected. Well sure enough, I got disconnected, and never got a call back.

Later in the night, my mother contacted sprint customer care, who put a priority note on my account to give me permission to purchase a phone and extend the contract in the store. She said there would be no problems, and told me to go to the store. Well I went, and they refused to help me, despite what the note said. A manager at the store told me to try radio shack since they usually don't go by the same strict rules, so i figured I'd give it a shot. I went to radio shack, and found out i was not eligible for an upgrade, and my contract was extended to march 2010 since it was cancelled and started back up today!!!

So after 13 days, and about 8 total hours on the phone with sprint, I'm going to take the 3 hour drive this weekend to meet up with my mother, change the account over and get my phone. Sprint couldn't help me, so i have to take it upon myself to fix the problem. Is there anything that can be done about this *horrible* experience??? I don't want to give up, and I feel that Sprint treated me like they don't even care about their customers in the slightest bit. even a loyal customer for 8 years. The only thing stopping me from cancellation is the $400 fee for my 2 lines... can anyone advise me on what to do next????? Thank you so much for reading my story..

An account in your name and home address would resolve your initial problem.
Several calls to customer service will reslove the current problem.

Ha! Welcome to the new Sprint! Ok,sorry about your troubles. You need to read about my similar experiences last year- I've been with Sprint for 11 years now, they don't care one bit about their long time, loyal customers. It's all about getting activation fees and contract fees to them. Oh, don't just assume you'll get those charges credited back to your card- it took me 3 months to get a 'refund' for when they wrongfully charged me $250 bucks for a 'free' upgrade phone.
I'm just waiting for my contract to expire...

1. The reason you have such a hard time is most centers don't have the authority to contact UPS or do other things that would seem as though they are the obvious solution, and the contact numbers for the locations that can do not work.. hence being sent from place to place
2. 9/10 locations, the supervisors don't actually take calls but if a rep tells you that, they get fired. There's an escalations department who has supervisor authority, but it's very specific to the department.
3. Things that you could do and have completed in a matter of one day or two days take way long because everything has to be "processed" before it's done. And THEN you have a time period that it takes. For Instance, refund requests take 5-10 days to be processed, and then 10-15 business days to be sent and recieved by you. Most reps won't say that though because then they get asked "why?" and they know as well as you do that it's ridiculous but they're just going by what they're told.
4. Also, every center is told different things... So you could be told one thing one day and something entirely different the next... Best thing to do would be when you hear something different and conflicting answers ask the rep to double check in "kms" or with their floor sup...
5. If you're spending that much time on the phone, just call sprint's corporate office/executive services... they'll fix everything in a matter of minutes, and you've been with them for 8 years so you're bound to have your account monitored and be very well taken care of from then on. 703 433 4000... they also accept formal complaints and will actually address the issues

OMG. Your experiences are similar to mine. I thought I was 'special' but you proved me wrong. Hope you get your phone & enjoy it!

I find that I have to switch carriers about every 2 years because of the disregard for current customers.

I just had Sprint up my Bill by 10%. I have also been with them for many years. I had been recieving a !0% loyalty discount. It seems that when I got a second phone line and added a family plan they changed the type discount to a contract extension. It was no big deal at the time. I had never even had a contract with Sprint before. Well guess what happend after two years they offered me a $100 credit if I would re-up for two years. I just ignored that. But I didnt know they took away my 10%. So it was sign up again or lose the discount. Local service could do me no good. I called Corporate and made my way around the phone tag system. Corporate reinstituted my 10% without the contract extension. They also said it will expire in Two years. So between now and then I might just have to leave them. Dont take no for an answer go to corporate and complain they can get it done.