Cricket Communications Customer service is bad and the phones are defective nashville, Tennessee

I purchased a Huawei Ascend for my daughter for christmas december 2010. It stopped working as soon as I paid the second bill and the 30 day warranty was up in the beginning of january 2011. To date I have spent almost $300 on the phone including the bill but my daughter is not able to use the phone since it will not come on. I was told that I would have to pay more money to get another phone even though the phone that I bought via the internet is a dud. This does not seem fair to me since I'm on a fixed income and I have put so much money into the phone already. I went into a local store thinking that they would help me but the young lady that I spoke with said that it was out of her control as she shrugged her shoulders. I cannot afford to put anymore money into this phone since I am paying for services that cannot be used and will not be refunded. I would have been satisfied if the phone would have just been replaced free of charge as it should and my month of service that is not being used be refunded or credited to my account. I feel as though Cricket Communications has taken advantage of me and basically stolen my money!!