There are no other great things about buying a phone from Sprint. Everything else is terrible.
Two years ago, in his most heinous marital crime of all time, my husband purchased a smart phone for me and put it on the Sprint network. I really wanted to be cool and hip and relevant so I went with it. My phone came pre-loaded with a bunch of helpful bloatware that I could not remove and that, within two months, had the phone functioning like a 20-year-old computer. I once timed how long it took me to unlock my phone, open my contacts, click a number, and wait for the phone to catch up and begin dialing: 42 seconds. I digress.
So my shitty phone was shitty, and I decided it was time to replace it. I picked out the phone I wanted and called. And down the rabbit hole we go.
First Sprint decided that I needed technical support for my current phone. I pleaded with them that I did not, and eventually they agreed to send me to sales. The woman who answered the phone insisted on talking about my phone needs, even though I had already chosen the phone I wanted. No matter. She was sane and reasonably nice, so I listened, and we started the process of buying a phone, and were discussing overnight mailing options.
Until my Sprint phone on the Sprint network decided to disconnect my call.
Because I am an idiot, I called back, hoping that I could start off where I left off. Oh no. Oh hell no. We had to go through the same rigmarole, except this time I got robot man. Robot man paused for 10 seconds after each question I asked, then responded with his words pronounced very far apart. I asked him how to have the phone overnighted, and he informed me that was not possible. Even though I was about to get the phone overnighted before.
I stayed on the phone and did not scream at him, and took lots of deep breaths, and reminded myself that we are all connected, and reminded myself that being rude to this guy would accomplish nothing.
That's when he asked me for my email so that he could confirm I was picking up the phone in the store the next day. The exchange we had, verbatim, went like this:
Me: I'm not giving you my email address.
Him: We need it for confirmation.
Me: So you guys don't let people without email addresses get phones?
Him: That is correct.
I finally relented and gave him my email address. Then I thought about the last time Sprint started spamming me and I lost sight of the whole interconnectedness thing and just started throwing a fucking fit. So that's when he told me it was ok; he didn't need my email address and he'd remove it from the system.
WTF?
Fast forward to the next day. When I arrived at Sprint, the appointment had been made for "Dawn Filipovits" because the guy couldn't manage -- despite my spelling both twice -- to get either of my names correct. And this meant I had to fight about whether I was really the person for whom the phone was reserved. We finally straightened that out, at which point I learned that Mr. Stupid McStupidson had signed me up for a new phone number. Well, actually, he had signed Dawn Filipovits up for a new number, and she doesn't exist, so they were able to fix that part pretty quickly.
We arrived at the most harrowing part of the phone journey -- the part where they transfer your data from one phone to the next. Just as another customer service representative was telling another customer how fast and wonderful and superbly awesome the Sprint wireless network is, my dude and I have this exchange:
Me: How long is that going to take?
Him: It's supposed to take five minutes, but it usually takes an hour. Our connection is really slow.
Me: Your...Sprint network connection?
Him: Yes.
Me to other customer: Sounds like you better not believe what he's telling you.
Other Customer Service guy: Don't listen to her.
Other customer: You know, actually....Yeah, never mind. Thanks man. [Leaves store]
So at this point I've already lost them one customer. It becomes time to sign the contract, which appears on a credit card signature pad. The challenge was that the contract was not there. Instead, the "contract" was endless rows of hearts and clovers. I inquired as to whether I could sign a paper contract, or see the contract, and was told no. So I signed the hearts and clovers, mumbling something about an invalid contract.
I prepared to pay, and the dude man told me that there would be a $50 activation fee. That goes like this:
Me: $50? Are you serious? For what?!
Him: That's how much it costs to activate it.
Me: No it's not. It doesn't cost you anything. It's your network.
Him: Well, you have to pay it.
I grudgingly handed over my card, remarking loudly that I was already regretting signing the fake heart/clover contract. At any other business, I'm pretty sure such an obvious expression of frustration might warrant .... something? Not here.
Another customer walked in. I saw him stare at my ass and decided to take advantage. I turned to him and was like, "Man, don't do it. Don't do it. Once you sign that contract they're gonna have you and then you're gonna be like me." We chatted for a while, and he decided to leave.
Another customer service representative saw -- I guess -- that I was bad news when left un-entertained, so we chatted:
Him: Why'd you decide on that phone?
Me: It's supposed to not have a bunch of bloatware on it.
Him: Who told you that?
Me: The Sprint website
Him: [laughing maniacally]: And you believe that?! Man.
No, actually, I don't fucking believe that at all because now I own the phone and it has tons of garbage that I did not want. More important, though, are the two things I did want that it did not have: the voice mail and text message services for which I am paying.
Let me just say that again: My phone did not have voice mail or text messaging capabilities. And it was not broken. This is standard issue with this phone, but only if you buy from Sprint.
It's complicated and boring, but there is a story. Basically, Sprint refused to build its own voicemail/text messaging, so you're left with only Google stuff. Which means you can only text via Google hangouts (the phone also doesn't differentiate between hangouts and texts, which is horribad), and you can only check your voice mail by calling your voice mail.
I am totally fucking serious. And if we're being honest, there's nothing particularly terrible about this experience; this is how Sprint treats everyone. We've all just grown accustomed to the abuse the phone companies shower upon us. In return for the abuse I got, I now have a phone that does not perform two of three primary phone functions. And it's on the shitty Sprint network.
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