Hello Verizon and (unhappy)bye Sprint

Why I will never return to Sprint, even though I was once an admirer of the company. Sprint has amazing customer service. That’s where it ends.

They are seriously awesome and work well in the city (san francisco) and with unlimited data + talk this is a no brainer!

That was part of my Sprint pitch to my family, and 4 friends who all trusted me to move to the Sprint network. The sprint network was OK in SF. In-fact it was below par. As I moved back to east bay and started commuting to the city on the bart, I would sit there and wonder am I the only with no coverage? YES. There were people facetiming on the bart with Verizon, while I sat there hoping to load the ESPN homepage!.

Yesterday I ported over my family to Verizon, yes and so far I am impressed like nothing else! I feel like I can actually use my phone when not on wi-fi. Trust me I plan to facetime on bart very soon =)

Amazing (customer) service, bad phone service

Before you read any further, I want to note that the customer service team of Sprint is top notch. Never had issues in-terms of respect and willingness to help. No long waits and everyone was super courteous. So thank you SPRINT CUSTOMER CARE FOR A JOB WELL DONE.

Bad Breakup! No prorated Bill!

Now that I am on Verizon, I called customer service so I could return my Airave. It’s a device with Sprint sent me because the reception is too poor in my area. Airwave connects to my home wifi and all the calls get made through my internet line (why was I paying for Sprint?).

At the end of the call, I got the smackdown. My total bill for Month of November would be $173! That is the full bill amount!?! Even though I am leaving with 20 days to go. Turns out Sprint charges you the full bill no matter when you cancel service.

So basically they expect you to do the following if you are leaving their service. Wait till end of your billing cycle, for me that is December 7th. Then order a new phone with another carrier on that date. Sounds like nothing wrong with it? Realize, it’s impossible to move on end of your billing cycle because deals on other carriers, waiting for pre-orders (iPhone6 is what i’ve been waiting on) all have their own timelines. These guys know this and know you won’t want to sit around without a line for a few days to weeks.

Move on the 8th and you’re going to pay for the full month!

Why i’m upset

Yes I signed the document on which in some fine print it said “your bill is not prorated”. Really I didn’t read the fine print so definitely i’m to blame. If you are shaking your head, i’d be damned if you read every single line of that contract. This sounds like a big deal and something which is clearly not on anyones mind when they are starting a new relationship. So SPRINT puts this in fine print. Want to know exactly where? Read the second to last line of general terms. Again, it’s my fault, I didn’t read the terms.

https://shop2.sprint.com/en/legal/os_general_terms_conditions_popup.shtml

Poor Practice From Sprint

Anyway you look at it, this is a technique to make it harder to switch carriers, similar to how at one point we couldn’t port over our numbers.

Why is is hard to switch with this practice? Think about it, there’s a deal which shows up on the other network but your billing cycle just started. What are you gonna do? Better start pricing out the cost of moving to them, paying your entire monthly bill. Still worth it? For me it cost me $130 extra because I moved mid billing cycle. So I should have waited? Couldn’t wait because the deal would be gone on Verizon by the end of the month, not to mention it’s impossible to get the iPhone on a simple time table.

BULLSHIT is what I call this practice. COMPLETE BULLSHIT!

I was told this is an industry wide practice, if so SHAME ON ALL OF YOU. One of you is going to change this practice at which point the rest of you will follow. Become the leader and keep me around with honest to goodness great service!

For me I hope i’m never moving again because this was a poor experience and for better or worse Sprint it wasn’t that much fun knowing you with the poor service which I endured and even worse how you made me feel when I left you.

Hows Verizon?

I now have 3–4 bars consistently in my house. My LTE consistently hits 6mbps download and 2mbps upload. Not a single dropped call.

Went to my daughter’s swim class, dead zone for Sprint, 4 bars with Verizon.

I’m a happy customer, thank you for awesome phone service Verizon! I hope you’re customer service is just as good!