why does everyone keep saying sprint sucks?

There is a "sucks" website for every company out there, when you have millions of customers you are going to have some nay-sayers. Personally the customer service today is not the same as 10 or 20 years ago just because the company "policies and procedures" dont allow it. We as reps do not have the freedom to just adjust any amount and rightly so, I cant remember a time I called my hydro company and said " I used more than I normally do and if you dont take it off I'm going to go elsewhere"
You have to pay for what you use, check your star4 often or sprint.com..check it on or before your end cycle date and call care if you need to purchase some relief minutes once in a while// know that when you upgrade there IS an $18 upgrade fee, or if activating a line there IS a $36 activation fee, if the store rep doesnt tell you doesnt mean we can adjust it. Know when you purchase a phone there WILL be taxes on top and possibly shipping fees of $12, know when you change a plan mid-cycle or add something mid-cycle there WILL be pro-rated charges as well as one month in advance (yes all of our bills are and have been, one month in advance) know we cannot change the taxes surcharges or fees..EVER, check the bills often, part of the onus is on you to check your bills- we DO make mistakes, we are NOT in the business of ripping you off, we want to keep your business. DONT put your phone number in online and if you do, read the the fine print to avoid a possible monthly subscription to some Premium alert or other. Or call care to block lines from Premium texts before they happen. these are the reasons we get disgruntled call-backs. Just a heads-up for ya- see I CARE enough to take MY time to do this. Because at SPRINT we care LOL

---

› See More: why does everyone keep saying sprint sucks?

Originally Posted by camstuf

Its their customer service that sucks.
Long lines at service centers
Long waits on phone in service
Low customer complaint resolutions
I could go on...

I agree with most of that. And to add on/modify...

- I can testify to the long lines at the Spring store. I've never been to a service center and had to wait to be served in LESS than 3 to 4 hours.

- On top of that, ALL of the Spring service centers in Brooklyn, New York employ incompetent, teenagers that do not care about their jobs or your business.

- Sprint plans are too pricey and they tack on ridiculous taxes and surcharges.

- I felt that customer service was decent but that might have been b/c I was a Sprint customer for about 8 years so they were a little more accommodating.

Their pricey plans are what made me switch to Metro PCS. I'm a business owner and it came time to to let Sprint go and I made a really smart decision by getting rid of Sprint. I couldn't afford the plans and it was sucking money out of my personal account. Unless your job or business depends on it, nobody needs a $300 phine with a $100 plan. It doesn't make sense financially - it's so unnecessary. These major cell phone company's have us brain-washed; they've got us thinking that it's absolutely necessary to have "3G Coverage" - seriously? These guys can make up anything and sellanything! They're master-mind marketers. Excellentcam artists. Please, do not be a victim. If you absolutely must have a cell phone, go with a cheap and reliable cell phone company (Metro PCS has worked for me so far). Don't be a victim... please!

sprint bought a good company, Nextel and made them suck. When Sprint Bought out Nextel Nextel started to Suck... INSTANTLY> go to HELL Sprint..... Go to Hell for ruining Nextel.

Sprint is awesome! However customer service is CRUDDY!! Hate having to go over my bill on a monthly basis to see what 2 dollar charges they have tried to sneek in. Coverage is always great but maybe they should try keepin the CSR in the U.S. where their customers are. I dont want to call EGYPT for CSR!

I dont know i have had sprint for 1 year so far and for about 6 mths have had problems with them i have 2 lines on my account and every time i call the other line it says the phone is not in service... (when i no it is because i pay my bills) So i have to call about 5 times to even get threw!!!! Thats the only prob i have ever had with them!

I have seriously been thinking of switching to Sprint from Verizon. This makes me very VERY nervous. Yes, Verizon is expensive, but I've never had any trouble with their CS. I've always received great care in the store and although a cheaper plan would be nice I also don't want to be stuck in a two year contract with jerks.

Originally Posted by jdmccay

I have seriously been thinking of switching to Sprint from Verizon. This makes me very VERY nervous. Yes, Verizon is expensive, but I've never had any trouble with their CS. I've always received great care in the store and although a cheaper plan would be nice I also don't want to be stuck in a two year contract with jerks.

Likewise, but every corporation has it's share of incompetent customer call center reps. My only qualm is the number of times my calls are directed to an outsourced call center outside the country.

In my limited experience with Sprint, it appears I get transferred more to an outsource call center than I do when calling Verizon or T-Mobile.

First, there is the slight language barrier. Secondly, I don't think an outsourced call center is as equipped to handle customer service issues as an in house one. And, finally, a healthy disdain for the "customer" is embedded in every sales force or customer service rep. They're stuck in the middle. We as "customers' take out our aggression and frustration on the customer rep for policies we didn't read, oversights we're too careless to notice, and reflexively complaining to get something for "free." When they do follow their firm's policies, we complain to their manager--whining and complaining--until we receive an exception to the policy the sale force/rep was mandated to follow.

We do this because as customers we're accustomed to having our way. The customers who complain the most are the ones who are "always" right.

Then, on the other spectrum, management is out of touch with the field, and are completely oblivious to how impractical their paper theorist regulations are when implemented on the field. However, they are spared the constant customer complaints, and insulated from the adverse reactions their irrational policies cause in the first place.

Finally, when someone does complain, they waive the exception making the customer service rep who was only following "procedure" appear incompetent.

The "best" customer service companies are the ones with the most efficient policies fielded by an in house call center. From reading this post, it appears Sprint certainly would be the complete opposite.

I just switched from at& t to get the htc evo. and so far I think the service is pretty good. i dont know if its better or worse than my old service . so far no complaints. I have heard some sprint horror stories from people.

i bought a sprint blackberry curve 8530 recently on ebay and called sprint to activate it. they asked me my name, address, etc. then he says " do you have a drivers license?" what the heck does a driver license have to do with activating a cell phone? he put me on hold for probably on and off 30 minutes! i said I've been on here waiting for you to tell me what info you need. i say " you are in India right?" he says "no I'm overseas but not in India". i want to activate my phone. he then says you didn't buy your phone through a sprint store? i said i bought it on ebay. put on hold. he says okay i need to talk to my supervisor. i was so pissed off i hung up. i spent almost an hour on the phone trying to get this person to activate my phone and he did nothing! tranfers and holding and that's it. bad customer service. anyone know how i can activate my blackberry?

Originally Posted by gundamzero

I just switched from at& t to get the htc evo. and so far I think the service is pretty good. i dont know if its better or worse than my old service . so far no complaints. I have heard some sprint horror stories from people.

Hows that phone (evo) i been thinking about getting it....

---------- Post added at 03:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:25 AM ----------

I think sprint in general is ok i just rather be with T-Mobile or att.... Do to the sim card i hate dealing with esn crap every-time i switch phones

tried once again to activate my blackberry curve 8530 with sprint. i gave them the MEID DEC
number on the phone. they told me the phone has a corporate account associated with it! Now how can a brand new phone right out of the box, have an account associated with it?
any help appreciated.

Try taking the phone in to a Sprint Store to get it activated.
Does the phone show up on your MySprint account online?

verizon is more expensive, but has the cooler phones imo. what i would do for the droid incredible.

Originally Posted by nicknrm

NerdyMaGee,

Thanks for the detailed input...

You're very welcome. I felt (and still feel) all of that needed to be said. I'm very much an ethics-minded person, and my time as a Sprint CSR (I left the job some months ago) left me feeling very passionate... about contract-free wireless service (and that's where my current wireless nerdy interests lie).

I now work in retail, selling AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint phones/services, as well as assorted prepaid alternatives.

This is my story of what Sprint did to me, personally, when I tried to cancel my contract with Sprint, and not pay an Early Termination Fee according to the law.

I had been a Sprint PCS customer for many years. I had issues with their service along the way, but they'd almost always been resolved. The exception to that is not the subject of this post, but I'm mentioning it as part of it. Back in 2006 I think, I noticed that I was being charged for calls that I had not made to foreign countries. So I called up Sprint, and found out that somehow one of my phone's had been "cloned". Apparently, there is tech out there that allows someone to simply walk up to a person and get their phone info just by being in proximity of their phone, if it is turned on. After being in touch with Sprint, they credited me with the first month of bills that weren't mine, but the 2nd month wasn't. I was told it was being investigated and would be credited at some point. In the meantime, I retired and moved to Florida, where I purchased a home in an area that didn't receive good Sprint service. I wasn't worried about the $50 or so in fraudulent charges that Sprint still hadn't credited me from almost 2 years before, because it wasn't a large amount of money, and I'd been a customer for many years. I had 4 lines with them. Once I got to Florida, I began experiencing dropped calls, calls not ringing, going straight to voicemail, and low/no bars. Fortunately for me, there is a law in effect that allows for wireless customers to cancel service without ETF if the wireless service provider raises any rate at all, including passing along any raise in taxes or fees. (When wireless companies first began paying these taxes and fees, they paid the fees and taxes themselves, instead of forcing the customers to pay them, now they force the customers to pay them). So when a couple of months after moving to Florida, I noticed that my bill had gone up, I called and cancelled, invoking federal law to cancel without ETF. I spent HOURS on the phone with numerous reps, all who REFUSED to cancel my account! They all were breaking federal law by doing so. I then sent them in a certified letter stating that I had cancelled my account verbally and that this letter was reiterating my cancellation. Sprint then decided to continue to bill my account, then eventually send it to collections. They also never removed the fraudulent charges from the cloned phone. When I got my first collection letter, I sent them a copy of the letter I sent Sprint, along with a letter of explanation to the collection agency, telling them my story, and explaining that indeed Sprint was breaking federal law by refusing to cancel my account without ETF when I requested it, continuing to bill me, refusing to remove to fraudulent charges on my bill and sending the fraudulent bill to collections. The collection agency then refused to take further action and the idiots at Sprint then sent it along to another collection agency. I then sent the new collection agency a new letter of explanation and a copy of the previous letters. Then they refused to take further action. This went on for a few years. In the meantime Sprint put a negative mark on my credit report which affected my interest rate when I purchased a brand new car. I tried 2 or 3 times to have it removed from all 3 major credit reporting agencies. Finally, this year, when I submitted the dispute, the credit reporting agencies removed it with no problem.
I'm guessing that Sprint got into trouble with the government for refusing to cancel accounts that cancelled according to the new federal law that gave them the right to, or that they lost a major class action lawsuit. I'm not sure which. So when I see Dan Hesse on tv talking about unlimited data being truly unlimited and Sprint being good and all the other wireless companies being bad (which is the message he's trying to say) I call bull****. This guy was at the helm when Sprint screwed me over and he's responsible for Sprint becoming the worst wireless provider in the nation. When I was with Sprint I used to have unlimited data on my smartphones for 5 bucks a month each. Now they are charging ridiculous prices for it, and they don't even offer a decent phone.
I will continue to tell the world about sprint and their campaign of violating federal law until they contact me personally and reimburse me for the extra points I've paid on my car note as well as the hassle I've had to go through to get this taken off my credit reports. It's easy to see how Sprint has gone down the tubes from one of the nations best wireless providers to one of the worst. So when I see Dan Hesse on tv spouting his bull**** about how Sprint offers truly unlimited service, I beg to differ. They may offer wireless service that is unlimited, but it costs about 10 times what it did just a few years ago, they don't offer a decent smartphone to get the data on, and if you try to get out of your contract according to federal law, they will try their best to ruin your credit.

---------- Post added at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 PM ----------

This is my story of what Sprint did to me, personally, when I tried to cancel my contract with Sprint, and not pay an Early Termination Fee according to the law.

I had been a Sprint PCS customer for many years. I had issues with their service along the way, but they'd almost always been resolved. The exception to that is not the subject of this post, but I'm mentioning it as part of it. Back in 2006 I think, I noticed that I was being charged for calls that I had not made to foreign countries. So I called up Sprint, and found out that somehow one of my phone's had been "cloned". Apparently, there is tech out there that allows someone to simply walk up to a person and get their phone info just by being in proximity of their phone, if it is turned on. After being in touch with Sprint, they credited me with the first month of bills that weren't mine, but the 2nd month wasn't. I was told it was being investigated and would be credited at some point. In the meantime, I retired and moved to Florida, where I purchased a home in an area that didn't receive good Sprint service. I wasn't worried about the $50 or so in fraudulent charges that Sprint still hadn't credited me from almost 2 years before, because it wasn't a large amount of money, and I'd been a customer for many years. I had 4 lines with them. Once I got to Florida, I began experiencing dropped calls, calls not ringing, going straight to voicemail, and low/no bars. Fortunately for me, there is a law in effect that allows for wireless customers to cancel service without ETF if the wireless service provider raises any rate at all, including passing along any raise in taxes or fees. (When wireless companies first began paying these taxes and fees, they paid the fees and taxes themselves, instead of forcing the customers to pay them, now they force the customers to pay them). So when a couple of months after moving to Florida, I noticed that my bill had gone up, I called and cancelled, invoking federal law to cancel without ETF. I spent HOURS on the phone with numerous reps, all who REFUSED to cancel my account! They all were breaking federal law by doing so. I then sent them in a certified letter stating that I had cancelled my account verbally and that this letter was reiterating my cancellation. Sprint then decided to continue to bill my account, then eventually send it to collections. They also never removed the fraudulent charges from the cloned phone. When I got my first collection letter, I sent them a copy of the letter I sent Sprint, along with a letter of explanation to the collection agency, telling them my story, and explaining that indeed Sprint was breaking federal law by refusing to cancel my account without ETF when I requested it, continuing to bill me, refusing to remove to fraudulent charges on my bill and sending the fraudulent bill to collections. The collection agency then refused to take further action and the idiots at Sprint then sent it along to another collection agency. I then sent the new collection agency a new letter of explanation and a copy of the previous letters. Then they refused to take further action. This went on for a few years. In the meantime Sprint put a negative mark on my credit report which affected my interest rate when I purchased a brand new car. I tried 2 or 3 times to have it removed from all 3 major credit reporting agencies. Finally, this year, when I submitted the dispute, the credit reporting agencies removed it with no problem.
I'm guessing that Sprint got into trouble with the government for refusing to cancel accounts that cancelled according to the new federal law that gave them the right to, or that they lost a major class action lawsuit. I'm not sure which. So when I see Dan Hesse on tv talking about unlimited data being truly unlimited and Sprint being good and all the other wireless companies being bad (which is the message he's trying to say) I call bull****. This guy was at the helm when Sprint screwed me over and he's responsible for Sprint becoming the worst wireless provider in the nation. When I was with Sprint I used to have unlimited data on my smartphones for 5 bucks a month each. Now they are charging ridiculous prices for it, and they don't even offer a decent phone.
I will continue to tell the world about sprint and their campaign of violating federal law until they contact me personally and reimburse me for the extra points I've paid on my car note as well as the hassle I've had to go through to get this taken off my credit reports. It's easy to see how Sprint has gone down the tubes from one of the nations best wireless providers to one of the worst. So when I see Dan Hesse on tv spouting his bull**** about how Sprint offers truly unlimited service, I beg to differ. They may offer wireless service that is unlimited, but it costs about 10 times what it did just a few years ago, they don't offer a decent smartphone to get the data on, and if you try to get out of your contract according to federal law, they will try their best to ruin your credit.