Fuck Sprint

What used to be "Sprint PCS", that is. I'd like to blame their recent merge with Nextel with the problems I have with them, however unfortunately they've been sticking it to us since we (meaning Scott) opened the original contract five years ago. I added myself onto his account after the fact because at the time I was using a prepaid plan which I was in the process of getting rid of (that shit's expensive). For $20/month, Sprint said that I could just tack myself onto his plan and share his minutes, which seemed economical.

Well, it ain't. We're not heavy phone users to start with, especially now that we have a landline (because our Sprint phones weren't working inside our residence), but we pay a shitload of money every month to maintain our cellular phone contract (because yes, if you call to REDUCE your plan to a lower one, you get an automatic extension). Yes, we have picture mail and all that good stuff which I guess is overpriced now that the novelty has worn off.

I know we could have switched to another company prior to now, but everyone you talk to has something bad to say about their current company.

For a full month my picture mail wasn't working, which I found strange seeing as how Scott and I have identical features on our phones and his was working. It's hard to send a "you've got to see this bullshit" photo from your workplace when you're getting error messages. I tried to get around having to deal with phone tech support, who would surely piss me off greatly, but email support was useless. They sent me a 15-paragraph long explanation of what to do with my phone (which didn't even apply to my phone), and stated at the bottom to call tech support.

Being sufficiently pissed off a month later, I called tech support and got it fixed (no, they didn't offer to credit me for my month of frustration, but anyway...). Now I can send picture mail, but get this - I tried sending a photo through flickr yesterday evening to autoblog, but it never showed up. Thinking that was strange, I sent it to Scott to see if there was something wrong with my account. Never showed up...

...that is until 6 o'clock this morning. I was awake in bed trying to get back to sleep after having padded my way to the bathroom in the dark. The cats were scratching the hell out of my bedspread, and I was just trying to block it all out. Next thing I know, Scott's phone (turned up to supersonic volume) starts playing that God-awful text message/photomail alert noise. Usually, it'll stop after playing the alert once, but it played at least four more times in ten minutes.

I got pissed thinking, "Who THE FUCK is sending my husband text messages at 6 am?" I went to piddle again, went into his office, flipped open his phone and saw that it was that fucking picture I'd sent last night. Eight hours later it gets sent to his phone and I still don't see it in flickr.

We pay way too much for this plan.

We realize now that it'd be less expensive to have two separate accounts - that $20 add-a-phone shit isn't a bargain for us because we don't use all our minutes. We could get the same services for probably $20 less if we divided the account.

The problem with being a "paid volunteer" is that I'm in no hurry to go put myself on my own plan. It's easy for me to hand Scott a bill that he helped create and say "Here, pay this," but not so much for my own personal expenses.

All the same, I'm going to call Sprint this week and see if I can haggle them into a less expensive plan. I see that the same damn plan we have is on the site advertised as being much less expensive, but I don't really want to extend the contract.

Eh.

Posted by Tiffany at August 6, 2006 01:46 PM | TrackBack