Josh and I are two months short of fulfilling our two-year contract with Sprint. Why we ever chose them in the first place is beyond me. Nearly all of our friends and family are on the Verizon network, and Sprint’s calling area and customer service are poor, at best.
In Scranton, we got so-so reception. I couldn’t get calls in Target or Wegmans, and it goes without saying that we (just about) always had our calls drop when going through the Notch on our way to Clarks Summit, but other than that, I usually had around three bars. I think both Josh and I were expecting really great coverage in Chicago because, well, it’s Chicago. You know, the Second City? Ton o’ people everywhere you look? Not rural Nebraska? Yeah…that place. I don’t know if we’ve ever been wronger. More wrong. Whatever.
When we rolled into town on Friday, we almost immediately found out how bad our reception was going to be. While walking down Clark Street (one of the busiest streets in the city), we had spotty reception. Some blocks were dead zones. Others afforded us one or two bars of reception. The Basil Leaf Cafe? Sitting five feet from an open window? Dead zone. Can’t check my message from the call I got while walking to dinner. Can’t call out. Can’t text. My phone keeps taunting me, blinking “Searching for service” at me every time I check to see if I’ve got a signal.
Knowing that Josh is going to be on Clark Street quite often meeting people for work, and since Clark Street is home to a lot of shops we’ll be frequenting, Josh decided to call Sprint and see if they would work with him in getting out of our contract early.
Stupidest. Idea. Ever.
Have I mentioned that Sprint’s customer service is horrible? I think there must be some nastiness screening process that occurs during the hiring process for Sprint customer service representatives (though instead of them not hiring the nastiest of the bunch, they give them huge sign-on bonuses).
I get that we signed a two-year contract and that they don’t have to let us out of it. Honestly, I get that. What I want to know is, what good does it do them to be rude to their customers and not work with them. By reducing the fee for breaking the contract (not even waiving it!) and having us leave them happily, they would have been ensured some good word-of-mouth publicity about their dedication to their customers. Instead of feeling the need to write this blog post about how utterly horribly they treated my husband, I could be writing about how they treated him with respect, recognized the short-comings of their network, and graciously worked with us on getting out of our contract early since their service is not adequate for where we now live.
Now, I don’t want this to be a biased post. Here are the three options the jerkwad, eh, I mean, customer service representative/manager offered my husband:
*1. Buy new phones (and thus sign on for another two year contract). Apparently our phones, being two years old, are not fit to keep up with the, uhm, upgrades they’ve made to their service.
2. Use a signal booster (provided to us for free). This device would need to be set up at a stationary location.
3. Break contract to the tune or $200/PER LINE.
And now, here are the problems that accompany each of the above-listed options:
Options 1 and 3 require a monetary commitment on our part. Not only would we have to shell out for new phones, but we would also have to commit to paying for two more years of horrible service. Option 3 is self-explanatory.
Option 2 is just impractical. Josh is constantly on the go for his job, and he needs to have a signal when he’s on the road, whether that be on a mission trip or around the corner having coffee with a couple of kids from his youth group. I need to have a signal when I’m out with Jude. The last thing I need is to get lost in Chicago and not have a way to get in touch with someone who has a sense of direction (and some knowledge of the city). Plus, we actually get decent reception at home, and Josh has a land line he can use at the church.
Having said all that, Josh and I have come up with a plan. Josh is going to go ahead and sign up for an individual plan with Verizon now. In two months, when our contract with Sprint is up, we’ll upgrade his plan to a family plan. While it will cost a bit more for the next two months, having the additional individual plan for Josh will still cost less than breaking our contract with Sprint early. And at this point, I want to make sure they get as little money as possible from us.
*Not only does Josh get mad points for dealing with those assholes at Sprint, he also gets bonus points for using the term “planned obsolescence” in an actual conversation. Kudos, babe!
