18 month rebate inconsistency

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> The CS rep explained that if I ask nicely, Sprint's Rebate department,
> *might* reset the "New For You" rebate date based on the original
> purchase date. He transfers me to the rebate department -- and I get
> dropped off of hold.
>
> Booinnnggg!!!
>

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! WHAT A ****ING IDIOT!

Holy freakin' hell, this frustrates me so damn much. It is NOT the
Rebate Center's responsibility to check up on your eligibility. That CS
Rep is WRONG. HE OR SHE had the responsibility to place the billing
code on your account that overrides the 18-month clock and makes you
eligible for the rebate.

Godammit, I KNOW what Sprint's network is like. It's a work of genius.
Not perfect, but a terrific one. It REALLY IS. Time and freakin' time
again these stories pop up. Even now, a year after I left, I love it, I
want it to succeed. I honestly and truly think it could blow the whole
damn rest of the industry out of the water.

And then I see yet another story of customer service reps not having the
half-wits it takes to just take three minutes in Wizard to read up on
how New For You works, and another 2 minutes to find the damn bill code
and add it to your subscription.

I just wanna scream right now.

--
RØß
O/Siris
-+-
A thing moderately good
is not so good as it ought to be.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue,
but moderation in principle is always a vice.
+Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1792+

---

› See More: 18 month rebate inconsistency

O/Siris wrote:

> Godammit, I KNOW what Sprint's network is like. It's a work of genius.
> Not perfect, but a terrific one. It REALLY IS. Time and freakin' time
> again these stories pop up. Even now, a year after I left, I love it, I
> want it to succeed. I honestly and truly think it could blow the whole
> damn rest of the industry out of the water.
>
> And then I see yet another story of customer service reps not having the
> half-wits it takes to just take three minutes in Wizard to read up on
> how New For You works, and another 2 minutes to find the damn bill code
> and add it to your subscription.

This is my exact problem.

And as you know, I almost took a job with Sprint. Sprint FINALLY *just*
opened their Victorville store! (about time!) I was going to do sales, and I
nailed the intervew. Problem was, they require you to do a psychological
profile, and I always screw those things up. (I never have landed a job at a
company that does those stupid tests.)

It was rather disappointing. I'm like you. From a technical point of view,
Sprint rocks. They're way ahead of the pack in many, many ways (with the big
exception of EV-DO data... Verizon beat them to the punch on that). But with
my recent experiences with Customer Service, I'm actually glad I wasn't
offered the job (because I froze up on that stupid psych profile). I don't
like Sprint enough to want to have to continually apologize for crappy CS.

> I just wanna scream right now.

Welcome to my world. I've been told things are going to get better, and I
can only hope they will.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

John Richards wrote:

> I believe the criterion is not that one paid full price but whether the
> phone was ever activated on Sprint's network before.
> If this is its first activation, then Sprint assumes the buyer
> benefited from a Sprint subsidy on the sale price of that phone,
> hence the 18 month clock is reset.

Both of the phones my wife and I currently use were previously used by other
Sprint customers. My wife's clock didn't get reset. Mine did.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

O/Siris wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
>>If I buy a phone off eBay, the counter shouldn't reset then, eh?
>>
>>Yet it did. On my phone, anyhow. Not on my wife's when we bought hers off
>>eBay (which was weird).
>>
>
>
> It shouldn't. Yes, on occasion, it does. That's why reps are allowed
> to add that override code. All a rep has to do is do a lookup by ESN.
> If it's been used previously, it shouldn't have reset your "clock", and
> the rep can place the code to override that it did so.

But I've been told, by Customer Service AND Executive Services, that even
buying a phone off eBay resets the clock.



--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

Steve Sobol wrote:
> O/Siris wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>>
>>> If I buy a phone off eBay, the counter shouldn't reset then, eh?
>>>
>>> Yet it did. On my phone, anyhow. Not on my wife's when we bought hers off
>>> eBay (which was weird).
>>>
>>
>>
>> It shouldn't. Yes, on occasion, it does. That's why reps are allowed
>> to add that override code. All a rep has to do is do a lookup by ESN.
>> If it's been used previously, it shouldn't have reset your "clock", and
>> the rep can place the code to override that it did so.
>
> But I've been told, by Customer Service AND Executive Services, that even
> buying a phone off eBay resets the clock.

Yes, but only if the phone has never been activated before.

--
John Richards

Steve Sobol wrote:
> John Richards wrote:
>
>> I believe the criterion is not that one paid full price but whether the
>> phone was ever activated on Sprint's network before.
>> If this is its first activation, then Sprint assumes the buyer
>> benefited from a Sprint subsidy on the sale price of that phone,
>> hence the 18 month clock is reset.
>
> Both of the phones my wife and I currently use were previously used by other
> Sprint customers. My wife's clock didn't get reset. Mine did.

Then you have a valid reason to contest your rebate status. Someone
at Sprint made a mistake.

--
John Richards

On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 20:25:59 -0700, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>But I've been told, by Customer Service AND Executive Services, that even
>buying a phone off eBay resets the clock.
>
Yeah, because of lax programming. They cut corners. I am pretty sure
they didn't intend to move the clock back whenever you made a change
to your account, but because if was a very big job to track and handle
everything correctly in software they depend on customer complaints,
or they delay your rebate. Which is better for them anyway as long as
they don't get caught. Oops. They're caught.

Most people don't change phones on their account, except when they get
one, and they get a rebate in order to get one. So for 99.5% of peeps
a change in ESN=REBATE.

Sprint is counting on that as a fact, which it's NOT.

FWIW, they do reset it if you ask, but you do have to ask, sometimes
several times until you find the right person. It's shoddy business
practices on the part of Sprint. I shouldn't have to ask.

In article <[email protected]>,
"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Yeah, because of lax programming. They cut corners. I am pretty sure
> they didn't intend to move the clock back whenever you made a change
> to your account, but because if was a very big job to track and handle
> everything correctly in software they depend on customer complaints,
> or they delay your rebate. Which is better for them anyway as long as
> they don't get caught. Oops. They're caught.
>
> Most people don't change phones on their account, except when they get
> one, and they get a rebate in order to get one. So for 99.5% of peeps
> a change in ESN=REBATE.
>
> Sprint is counting on that as a fact, which it's NOT.
>
> FWIW, they do reset it if you ask, but you do have to ask, sometimes
> several times until you find the right person. It's shoddy business
> practices on the part of Sprint. I shouldn't have to ask.

Gack. It sounds like they went out of their way to make it harder on
themselves. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler on Sprint's end to simply have
a field in the database for each customer that records when they become
eligible for the next rebate? Whenever they actually take a rebate, set
that field to "today + 18 months". Whenever they buy a phone, if the
date is past the next rebate date, allow the customer to take the rebate.

Trying to deduce rebate eligibility from other activity is asking for
mistakes.

--
--Tim Smith

"John Richards" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Steve Sobol wrote:
>> O/Siris wrote:
>>> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>>>
>>>> If I buy a phone off eBay, the counter shouldn't reset then, eh?
>>>>
>>>> Yet it did. On my phone, anyhow. Not on my wife's when we bought hers
>>>> off
>>>> eBay (which was weird).
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It shouldn't. Yes, on occasion, it does. That's why reps are allowed
>>> to add that override code. All a rep has to do is do a lookup by ESN.
>>> If it's been used previously, it shouldn't have reset your "clock", and
>>> the rep can place the code to override that it did so.
>>
>> But I've been told, by Customer Service AND Executive Services, that even
>> buying a phone off eBay resets the clock.
>
> Yes, but only if the phone has never been activated before.
>
> --
> John Richards
>

Any ESN swap can reset the 18-month clock (on my own account, I had one
warranty replacement that reset it, and an ERP replacement that didn't), but
in the case of warranty exchanges/ERP replacements/CSA swaps, we can take a
few minutes, research the ESN, and if we can validate that the phone really
has been on the account somewhere for 18 months, we can add a code to allow
the rebate to go through.

Leisa

On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 16:45:41 GMT, Tim Smith
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> FWIW, they do reset it if you ask, but you do have to ask, sometimes
>> several times until you find the right person. It's shoddy business
>> practices on the part of Sprint. I shouldn't have to ask.
>
>Gack. It sounds like they went out of their way to make it harder on
>themselves. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler on Sprint's end to simply have
>a field in the database for each customer that records when they become
>eligible for the next rebate? Whenever they actually take a rebate, set
>that field to "today + 18 months". Whenever they buy a phone, if the
>date is past the next rebate date, allow the customer to take the rebate.
>
>Trying to deduce rebate eligibility from other activity is asking for
>mistakes.

Call me cynical, but rebates are a net cost to them. If they could get
everyone to wait as long as possible due to an "error" or whatever,
they would have to pay later, or maybe not at all.

If they didn't have to pay 2 million earned rebates this year, well,
how could that be bad for them? They DO back off if you catch them.

But most people don't read their phone or credit card bills, or their
bank statements. There are millions of dollars of "errors" that are
not caught by consumers every month. Companies make millions on them.

Leisa wrote:

> Any ESN swap can reset the 18-month clock (on my own account, I had one
> warranty replacement that reset it, and an ERP replacement that didn't), but
> in the case of warranty exchanges/ERP replacements/CSA swaps, we can take a
> few minutes, research the ESN, and if we can validate that the phone really
> has been on the account somewhere for 18 months, we can add a code to allow
> the rebate to go through.

So you're royally screwed if you buy from Sprint, and you're royally screwed
if you don't.

It really *should* be "18 months since the last purchase of a discounted
handset."


--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

Welcome to Sprint PCS!
Had the same exact thing happen to us yesterday. We have had two lines
with Sprint for almost 5 years now. Contacted them because our two
year agreement expired last week. About 8 months ago the wife's phone
broke in two. Bought a replacement on ebay and called and activated.
Noticed that her phone now says 10 more months for rebate.
Told them that the plan rules says Purchasing and activating a new
phone AND receiving any other discount. We didn't receive any
discount! The guy says no go. Then he has the balls to say that he
noticed are contracts were up and would we like to renew since my
phone is eligible and that makes it a good deal! "It's just like
getting $75 off on each phone!" I just laughed and hung up.
Who designed this business model?
Anyway, I guess its goodbye SprintPCS.


On Fri, 1 Jul 2005 11:18:33 -0700, "Gary Rall" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Just called in to get my new phones for the 18month program and found out
>that Two of my 4 phones do not qualify. The reason given was that the two
>phones were changed 2 months ago and that started the 18 month plan over
>again for those two phones. Note all 4 phones were activated on the same
>date 20 months ago... two phones destoryed in an accident 2 months ago and I
>purchased NEW PHONES at full price from Frys Electronics to replace them.
>Note: SPRINT did not give me replacement phones I just changed the esn to
>the new phones I purchased as replacements.
>
>The intention of the Sprint replacement plan was to have Sprint give
>customers rebates on new phones every 18 months to allow them to obtain the
>latest new phones and then lock them in to another 2 year contract instead
>of churning to another carrier.
>
>I was willing to sign up for another 2 years but now since they wont give me
>the rebates allowing me to upgrade each of my phones I am forced to move to
>another carrier to get the new phones. Good thing my original 2 year
>contract is up next month.
>
>Gary
>


Al

Al wrote:
> Welcome to Sprint PCS!
> Had the same exact thing happen to us yesterday. We have had two lines
> with Sprint for almost 5 years now. Contacted them because our two
> year agreement expired last week. About 8 months ago the wife's phone
> broke in two. Bought a replacement on ebay and called and activated.
> Noticed that her phone now says 10 more months for rebate.
> Told them that the plan rules says Purchasing and activating a new
> phone AND receiving any other discount. We didn't receive any
> discount! The guy says no go. Then he has the balls to say that he
> noticed are contracts were up and would we like to renew since my
> phone is eligible and that makes it a good deal! "It's just like
> getting $75 off on each phone!" I just laughed and hung up.
> Who designed this business model?

> Anyway, I guess its goodbye SprintPCS.

You got an idiot (and, obviously, a jerk) for a CSR. I'd call back.

Talk to a supervisor.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"