Sprint PCS Bad Service and False Charges ripoff Nationwide

Let's take a minute to talk about Sprint. The company and their service sounded so good in my employee training, I almost worked for them. Lucky for me, I took another avenue and did not get involved. Stupid me, I believed what they taught in training and started their service in March of this year.

First mistake. Starting service at a store not in my local area. That was a bad move on my part, but they are so technologically advanced, it should not have been an issue. I signed a 2 year agreement and purchased a $200 phone, which was the cost after the rebate. The horror story begins.

I return home to Portland from vacation with my new phone, and it gets a signal in half of the places my previous phone received signals. I am standing downtown Portland, and I am roaming. I am in the Sprint PCS store, and I am roaming. Lucky for me, I had the no roaming option on my plan. I finally decided that my signal was so bad, I needed to have my phone checked at the PCS store. Sure enough, my expensive phone is defective. "Do you have one I can trade it for?" "No," said the Spint employee,"And we do not know when we will have more. They are on backorder. You need to check back." I thought maybe they have a waiting list. Upon asking, I was told no, and that she would not remember to call me when they got one in anyway. I am a little upset now.

Also, I was receiving roaming charges every month so far on my bill. I had a free roaming plan, and my phone was almost always roaming. It should not have mattered. Every month, I had customer care remove the charges. The service continues to get worse, so I decided to take action. I contact the top 10 executives listed on Sprint's homepage and I get a call at 6am from their executive services department on the east coast. She assures me she can get a phone to the store, so I agree and go pick up my new phone. I can now make calls, and have a better signal. Before, I could have a full signal and the call would not work. Awesome technology.

The roaming charges continue, and I continue to dispute them. My bill keeps becoming more and more outrageous each month. I contact the local Portland news media, but they seemed uninterested. Last Monday, I get a text message from Sprint saying they are shutting off my service. This comes at 3am. Little did I know, my bill was $240. I had not received my bill, but they ask you to pay it before you get it in the mail. I call up and pay $120 to get my balance under my spending limit, and dispute the rest. Tuesday, 3am, another shut off message. I had a mysterious charge between Monday and Tuesday, and this caused another shut off. I call up and pay another $20 so I have my phone turned back on. Weds, 3am, another message. This is a joke, right? I call in again, and there was no charge. There was no apparent reason for it to be shut off this time.

One thing I forgot to mention, was the representatives that hung up on me. When I had the defective phone, I was hung up on twice trying to resolve my issue through customer care. That is when I elevated the issue to the executives.

After months of issues, I am still stuck with horrible service, even worse customer service, false charges, a horrible CDMA network, and a 2 year contract. All I can say is, do not use Sprint. Since I have had my phone and mentioned my issues to other people, I have heard nothing but horror stories. There are more little details, and more fun stories, but I want to keep this complaint at a reasonable length. Again, whatever you do, do not use Sprint. You will regret it.

James
St. Helens, Oregon
U.S.A.