i have this habit of re-evaluating my expenditures every 3-4 months or so, and making changes to stuff. this includes changing insurance providers, phone carriers, tv providers, isps, etc. i think in some aspects of my life (as shocking as it seems) i enjoy change.
this time, i’m changing phone carriers. i’ve had a cell phone for like 8 or 9 years, starting with voicestream (who became t-mobile) changing to cricket, then nextel, had a phone for work through sprint, and then at&t. now i’m moving my personal line to sprint. not only is their coverage at my workplace better than at&t, their roaming agreements make their coverage better across the US and i’ll save $30/month with the same features, sans roll-over mins (which i never use anyway).
i went to best buy yesterday and picked up a palm pre and activated a new line to test it out, with the intention of porting my number over if everything turned out well. i knew my coverage at home was shitty, so i was going to get myself an airave. sprint gives these out to nearly anyone who has shitty coverage at home or at work. it’s a femtocell that acts like a miniature cell site, using your broadband connection to tunnel your voice/1xRTT data to their core.
anyway, i called tech support yesterday, playing dumb and saying i had terrible coverage at home. the first rep put me on hold and talked to account services, who wanted to speak to me about sending me an airave. i got transferred to them and spoke to the rep in AS who told me she’d be happy to send me an airave free of charge and would waive the monthly fee for 24 months. thrilled, i agreed to the offer and she placed me on hold. unfortunately, i got disconnected about 5 minutes later. also unfortunate is that she didn’t note the offer on my account, so there was effectively no record that the offer was made, so i had to attempt to get someone else at sprint to either believe me that i was offered the stuff or offer it to me themselves. i had no such luck and managed to get disconnected a total of 9 times.
the last rep i spoke to agreed to ship me an airave and would waive the monthly fee. she then informed me that they had none in stock and i’d need to get one locally, but i could have the cost credited to my bill and would still have the fee waived. thinking that i was all set, i went to a sprint store and picked up an airave. while i was at the store, the corp store rep tried to add the feature code to my account but couldn’t. also strange was the fact that there were NO FUCKING NOTES INDICATING THAT I WAS OFFERED A FREE AIRAVE AND FREE SERVICE FOR IT. she called sprint customer service and the account services rep asked to speak to me..he offered me a whopping 2 free months of airave service, stating there was no more he could do. i explained that i had spoken to several people that day, both of whom promised that i could be sent an airave free of charge and also could have the service fees waived. he was unwilling to budge. he said he’d added the feature code, i paid for the airave and left the store, annoyed at the whole situation.
i ran home really quick and installed the femtocell, thinking it would be ready to go when i got home that night. i got home and found that the device wasn’t working. of course, the customer service hours are only until 2100 CST, so they were closed. i waited until the AM and called airave support, who informed me yet again that 1. there were no notes regarding having the cost waived for either the service or the device and also that the device had not been activated on my account. after 5 minutes on the phone with her, she got it set up and another 5 minutes later it was active and working. the positive part is that it works great. i think i’m going to contact executive customer service tomorrow (monday) to see if i can get anywhere regarding the cost of the device or in the very least waiving the monthly charge for basic service. i’m not gonna hold my breath.
