[joe123]

I have been a Sprint customer for several years with 2 phones. My contract with Sprint was up and I was looking for 4 new phones plan.

My local AT&T store had a real nice plan at the time and I called Sprint to stop my service. I was then connected with Sprint Retention Plan. I am not going to go into all the details, but it took me some 40 calls to Sprint to finally get the plan I was offered.

Sprint offered me $40/750 national shared minutes, unlimited pcs-pcs, unlimited nights and weekends 8pm, $20 per phone on lines 2-4, 20% off (%15 business I work for, %5 retention). One of the lines included free PCS Vision from my previous contract. So additional PCS Vision for lines 2-4 was only $5 per phone (no $15 for first phone).

As I was contemplating this new contract, the call was dropped (I was at home not moving). So I called Sprint and after another 45 minutes of wait, I get a whole new person, different plan offered. So I decided to wait a few days. I called Sprint again and the plan changed again. By now, I figured that Sprint is either playing games or their structure is such that allows different reps to give out different plans depending on whom you talk to.

I eventually got a rep who offered me the orginal plan and thus I took it. I agreed to it over the phone. I called back 2 days later to check (by now I suspect that this is a game) and sure enough, my current plan is not what I was offered. So I call Sprint again and after 1.5 hours on the phone with several reps, they magically find the plan I was offered. So, I asked Sprint for a written contract since this was a 2 year committment and I did not want misunderstandings over the phone. That's when all hell broke loose.
In total, I must have made some 40 calls to Sprint with no success of getting a written contract of what I was being offered (I was withing the 2 weeks of my new cell phones and contract).

So, I finally wised up. I wrote the contract on paper as it was stated to me and took it to my local Sprint store to have them verify it against what they saw in their Sprint system.
A real nice Sprint lady looked up my account and say "YES", that is your new contract being offered to you - EXACTLY how I wrote it.

[joe123]

Sorry, did not finish my note.

After the nice Sprint lady confirmed my new contract - I asked her to PLEASE SING IT to confirm it in writting - I explain all the problems I had with Sprint.

The real nice Lady turned into THE DEVIL. She begun speaking out loud in front of other customers making me feel bad. I poliltely told her that I was simply trying to get IN WRITTING what I was being offered.

After a VERY long and uncomfortable time at the Sprint store, the Sprint lady finally put her business card on the form and initialized it saying that this was my new contract.

Later, when I was finally able to verify my new contract, you guessed it, it was wrong. So I called Sprint again and told them I had it in writting - they finally corrected the contract to what they originally offered.

Thus the moral of the story - GET IT IN WRITTING!
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[ZEROpcs]

Originally Posted by joe123

Sorry, did not finish my note.

After the nice Sprint lady confirmed my new contract - I asked her to PLEASE SING IT to confirm it in writting - I explain all the problems I had with Sprint.

The real nice Lady turned into THE DEVIL.

Dude I wouldnt have been to happy if you asked me to sing to you either. I cant hold a key to save my life. Just playing

[joe123]

Originally Posted by ZEROpcs

Dude I wouldnt have been to happy if you asked me to sing to you either. I cant hold a key to save my life. Just playing

What really got to me, is how I could NOT get anyone at Sprint to simply provide me with a written contract before commiting to a 2 year contract.

I had a real funny rep manager telling me that I had to agree to it before I could see it. I asked him what if we have a misunderstanding over the phone? Tuff luck was the answer

In all honesty, all the reps I spoke to agreed that a written contract was BENEFICAL to ALL (Sprint and me), but none would provide me with one. No email contract, no written contract, no nothing - just a verbal agreement.

Not the way to do business in my opinion unless you have something to hide.

[mddavid]

Originally Posted by ZEROpcs

Dude I wouldnt have been to happy if you asked me to sing to you either. I cant hold a key to save my life. Just playing

I had a similar bad experience today with sprint. Actually, this wasn't me, but this was my mom, dad, and sister. I filed a complaint with the better business bureau online, because this straight out lied to me, by offering me one thing at one time, and then claiming that they never made that sort of offer. We ended up not changing anything in the plan, since my mom and sister are both not in any kind of contract right now. Here is the story in case you want to read it, but I agree with joe123. If they give you a really good retention offer, you should try to get it in writing...

Today I called the sprint business retention dept. to see if I can add my husband and daughter to my plan. The representative gave me an offer of $75 for 1500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends minutes starting at 8pm, and unlimited sprint pcs to pcs minutes, for THREE PEOPLE on one plan. Several times, I asked, "$75 is for three people right?" And they said, "yes this is correct." And I said, "That's a great deal, I'll take it." So, she told me, all I need to do is buy the two new phones (one for my husband, and one for my daughter) from anywhere, and then call back the business retention department to activate these phones. So, I asked her for her name, and she said, "oh you don't need my name, I will just make a note on your account about this offer we are giving you, and once you buy the new phones, call into the business retention department, and they will see this offer on your account and give it to you...but only the business retention department can give you this offer. We will also waive the $35/$30 activation fee for your phones." This offer was made to me around 430pm EST on August 16 with my husband sitting right next to me and asking me what the offer was before we agreed to it, and then reconfirming it with the customer rep several times to make sure we knew the exact options/deal we were agreeing to. So, I trusted her, and my husband, daughter, and I went to Costco right after that, and purchased two phones, came home and had dinner, and then I called to activate my husbands phone. Basically, they told me there is no note on the account about this offer or me even calling into sprint today. They said that the representative could not have given me an offer like that because the only offer they could have given me is $75 for 1500 minutes, plus $20 for each additional phone line that I want to add to the account so they wanted to charge me $115 for the exact same thing that about 3 hours earlier they told me was $75 for THREE PHONE LINES on one account. We spent from about 8pm to 11pm trying to activate the phones and get the deal that they promised to us earlier. We talked with their supervisor (name was Luis, and he was in Texas), and then after no success with him, we asked to be transferred to another supervisor. They put us on hold, and then they hung up on us before transferring us to another supervisor. So we called again and tried to tell them our story. Still they would not budge and we had no success after about 3 hours in all of talking with the customer rep. They continued to tell us that there is no note on our account of this, and no record about it, and that they cannot give us a retention plan like that. We were very disappointed and frustrated, and could not believe that they could get away with something like this. The lesson we learned is that it is very important to make sure to get the name of the representative that gives you an offer, when they give it to you.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by mddavid

The lesson we learned is that it is very important to make sure to get the name of the representative that gives you an offer, when they give it to you.

In my dealings with Sprint, once I got clued into what was happening, I begun to write down the name, date, and the rep's call-id and the details of the exact plan being offered to me. I repeated the plan back to the rep some 3-4 times to make sure that there were no mis-understandings. Each time I repeated the plan, the rep would confirm the plan as being 100% correct.

A day or two later, I would call Sprint back to confirm the contract to make sure it was correct and sure enough, it was wrong. To Sprint's credit, Sprint would kind-of, sort-of find the "PLAN" I was offered once I gave the details of whom, when, and what was offered to me AND after being on the phone for the LONGEST times. But even when the plan was found, it varied in the details in Sprint favor costing me $more$. Oh yes, be sure to take a day off work to deals with long waits and the "LOST" calls (from land phone line) when talking to the reps. I spent some 40+ calls (probably more) to get the plan right.

I will STRESS once again to you and all ----> MAKE SURE YOU GET THE SPRINT CONTRACT PLAN / DETAILS IN WRITTING. Don't simply assume that getting the Rep's name and info is going to save you.

Also, be prepared to deal with the DEVIL once you ask for the contract in writting. I had the nicest Sprint lady turned into the wicked witch right before my very own eyes for simply asking her to initialize my Sprint contract stating that it was true.

[ziggy4500]

i'm not gonna lie. 2 business made me change my way of dealing with any company. Bellsouth and Sprint. I dont want to go into ancient history, but like many of the people on this board, i can agree, customer service reps outright lie. what do i know is i put my phone on speaker and digitally record everything said as evidence. i dont even think about doing any type of business over the phone without it being recorded. too many loopholes out there and not enough people to fill them once their exposed.

[jg013c]

I would recomend that after you agree on the plan, tell the rep that you will start a tape recording and ask the rep to anounce his/her name, location, the time and date of the call, perhaps the name of his/her supervisor, and the offer being made.

Then record the call, but if the rep thinks he is being rcorded he may decide not to lie.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by jg013c

I would recomend that after you agree on the plan, tell the rep that you will start a tape recording

Very good recommendation. I will stress, however, that there is nothing like a written contract. Trust me!

With a recording (which I agree is much better than nothing) you are sitll bound by noise, clarity, and other elements. Some folks will simply not agree to being recorded. For those that give their ok, you may be violating some state law, or a business policy which may negate your recording altogether.

As for having a contract in wrtting, I can easily fax, email or photo copy the contract and send it to the FCC if need be much easier then sending a copy of a tape. Your milage may vary.

[Guy]

Just because you mentioned that the first time you called in your call was dropped, I wanted to add that it's best to call from a land line if you're going to be talking with Customer Service for a long amount of time and possibly making changes to you plan because this does happen (it has to me) and it's hard sometimes to get a rep to give you something that another rep offered you. Thing is, when the call is dropped, if the initial rep doesn't note your account as to what they offered you, you're going back to square one.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by Guy

Just because you mentioned that the first time you called in your call was dropped, I wanted to add that it's best to call from a land line.

B.S.

The first call was from my Sprint cell, all others were from MY LAND LINE and they GOT DROPPED as well any time the plan begun to look good. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it's funny how NON OF THE REPS ever called me back even after I gave them my land line number (which they have anyways in their files) and as ask them to call me back if we got disconnected. For goodness sake, they also have MY CELL NUMBER as well.

I am willing to believe in innocence up to a point, but this was just too many errors on Sprint part. Also, why did Sprint find it so freaking hard to give me a WRITTEN copy of the proposed new plan? They could not even send me an email to my sprintpcs.com email address with the specifics.

[Guy]

Originally Posted by joe123

B.S.

The first call was from my Sprint cell, all others were from MY LAND LINE and they GOT DROPPED as well any time the plan begun to look good. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it's funny how NON OF THE REPS ever called me back even after I gave them my land line number (which they have anyways in their files) and as ask them to call me back if we got disconnected. For goodness sake, they also have MY CELL NUMBER as well.

I am willing to believe in innocence up to a point, but this was just too many errors on Sprint part. Also, why did Sprint find it so freaking hard to give me a WRITTEN copy of the proposed new plan? They could not even send me an email to my sprintpcs.com email address with the specifics.

Ok.

I guess what works for some doesn't work for all.

[xdothedew]

That's exactly what happened to me. The first time when I was transferred to retention, I was offered a good deal also and the call was lost. This was on my cell phone. Now, I know that I don't have bad reception because I'm next to a tower and that I made sure I didn't push any buttons. So I made calls from my landline from then on.

So for the second retention guy, I got a good deal having two lines sharing the minutes. The next day, all the reps played dumb and said I wasn't able to add another line to share minutes on a retention plan. They didn't budge even though I had the rep's ID.

So, I kept on calling and calling and got a rep who could get a supervisor to add an extra line to share the minutes on my retention plan.

I feel like I was playing a game or something. It's so crazy.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by xdothedew

That's exactly what happened to me. The first time when I was transferred to retention, I was offered a good deal also and the call was lost.

I feel like I was playing a game or something. It's so crazy.

I don't want to dramatize this, but I spent well OVER 40 calls to Sprint with some calls lasting as long as 1.5 hours to FOKING get the plan *THEY* had offered me.

Unfortunately for Sprint, I live for this. I have gotten burnt so many times with other vendors that I learned the ropes. So I kind-of took pleasure in playing at their own game - Can be very frustrating a times, but I love how towards the end, after I was able to verify my plan, I would keep on calling just to make sure. Some 90+ calls later to Sprint, they finally got tired of me and would immediately confess to the correct plan without any B.S.

Oh man, I love this stuff. I think I will be calling Sprint again in a bit, just to double check

[joe123]

I have been reading so many posts here of people who give it too easily.

If the plan they offer is no good, try back in a few days. TRUST ME!

I can't stress enough how many much these reps vary - I got reps from one end of the spectrum to the other.

So keep at it and if you hear of a good plan, GET IT IN WRITTING!