Review by Rakeesh - Location: Mesa, Maricopa, AZ, USA
- Cost: $270 per month (24 month contract)
You can talk without a cord. Slowest data rates, unreliable service, idiot tech support, horrible customer service Don't even think about it.
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EDIT 21-JUN-2014: I switched to t-mobile in February of 2013. If you're with Sprint and you're on the fence about T-Mobile, just stop thinking about it and switch already. T-Mobile is night and day better, especially in the Phoenix area, not only that but I reduced my bill to only $114 a month for 5 lines, and unlike Sprint I get unlimited talk/text/data with the standard 1.5GB 4g limit. I've been offered numerous times to upgrade to unlimited 4G for another $15 more than I currently pay, but I've found that I never exceed the 1.5GB anyways, so I don't need it. In any case though:
DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO SPRINT.
---Original review follows---
I've been a Sprint subscriber for 9 to 10 years now. In the beginning, it was good. Although it wasn't the tip top service in the world, it was inexpensive and they always had coupons and the premier program ready to hand out.
Over the last four years, all of this slowly faded away. First, they scaled back the discount from applying to all 5 lines to only 3 lines. Lame, but whatever, was still a good price. Then it went from 3 to 2 lines, and then 2 to 1 line. My corporate discount went from about $150 a month off to $25 a month off over the span of 18 months. What assholes, but that's not all.
You realize that you pay $10 extra for what they call "premium data" for each smartphone you have. Thing is, there's nothing premium about it. Their 3g data is literally slower than every MVNO's 2g speed. I live in the 6th largest city in the US, and they still don't offer 4g. Not only does every other carrier do 4g, but even several MVNO's also do 4g, in fact they've had 4g since only a few months after Sprint called themselves the first 4g network. Not only that, but some carriers even do 3g much faster than what sprint calls their 4g.
Sprint should rename their company to Crawl. They should then change their slogan from "The now network" to "It's perpetually coming soon" because for years they've been saying a major upgrade is only a few months away, and none ever comes. They have a stupid chart on their website that tells which towers are being upgraded soon, have just been upgraded, etc. Thing is, these have to be minor changes, because you never observe sh*t for a difference. Meanwhile their support people tell you how many upgrades are coming soon based on the same data, but they don't know a damn thing.
Also their tech support are morons. I bought my dad a Galaxy Nexus on Amazon, and had him take it to the Sprint store to activate it. They provisioned it wrong, and then told him that the phone was defective and that he's SOL because we got it third party. Pissed off, I de-provisioned it (to clean up their mess) and then told them try it again. Sure enough, it worked, no thanks to those dipsh*ts trying to take it out on us for not buying from them.
Also, their $150 off of a phone upgrade is a scam. When I was in the Army, we had a Jody that went like this: "They say that in the Army, the pay is mighty fine. They give you a hundred dollars, and take back ninety-nine." That of course, was a joke, the Army actually did me a lot of favors. However Sprint missed the sarcasm and applied it to their upgrade policy: they give you $150 and take back $36. Used to be there was no activation fee, then there was one but you could talk your way out of it, now there's no getting out of it at all. Then on top of it, you get a two year commitment with horrible data rates and moron customer service.
Stay away from Sprint and their fscktastic service. You've been warned.
member for 12.3 years, 1647 visits, last login: 1 year ago
updated 9.7 years ago
kdouglas10 Premium Member join:2002-10-04 Jacksonville, FL |
Above Is Correct - Maybe Even UnderstatedThank you for the above. As soon as I get my mess cleared up (only 6 weeks into it now after making the mistake of walking into a 3rd Party Reseller instead of a Sprint Corporate Store) I will publish my tales of woe and disservice going back 15 years. Like you, I stayed because they gave you things and I had a plan from 10 years ago with a couple of Premier Perks that made it worthwhile. No longer.
Anyway - no details until I am made whole again. Have recouped almost $400, but have a ways to go, yet. Thank you for sharing what is absolutely correct.
Two additional points:
1) Do NOT even think about an iPhone (or anything Apple) on the Crawl Network. My Novatel 2200 & iPod Touch was minimum 30% faster than an iPhone 5 on the same 3G Network. A Sprint tech explained why in a technical way - the layman's summary is Apple kludged together something to get their phones on our 3G network, but all comm goes through their servers so yeah, it is dogsh$t slow.
2) If you are a Sprint customer you need to check everything about your bill every month. As you may know, Comcast provisions your cable packages using codes. So when we recently upgraded hidef cable package, we were getting ESPNU in ONLY lo-def and not getting the Travel Channel at all. Technician comes to the house and says, yep, they failed to put in the codes for those two channels, and had it fixed after a 7 minute call to the new South Florida Ops Center.
Sprint runs at least some of their provisioning like this, so if at one time CEO Hesse thanked you for being a Premier customer by giving you a perk, provisioning was done by inputting a code into your billing details. FOLKS - if those codes are ever accidentally wiped out (or expire as several are set to do), then they are never coming back - No Way - No How - Absolutely Not, regardless of what some sweet-talking pig-eyed sack of s*it has promised you when you picked up your new phones.
So AVOID Sprint 3rd Party Resellers more than you would the Swine Flu (just ask when you enter the store). Current customers - take the time to check your bill and question any new and unusual charges (cause the same folks who can't run their web-sites are preparing your billing charges). Hopefully at some point a sharp lawyer will initiate a class action suit against Crawl for deceptive marketing, fraud, failure to deliver, etc. In the meantime...
Go with a real phone company. If data speed is what you need, (God help me I thought I would NEVER say this), go with AT&T 3G/4G (sortof); or for half-ass fast and nicer CSRs, chose Verizon. I have personally verified on 4th gen iPod Touch (with FCC speed check by OOKLA) hooked to wifi pucks 11.5 MB/s down on AT&T and 4.85 MB/s down with Verizon. My daughter's company has just changed after 2 years iPhone use from AT&T to Verizon and she says VZN data speeds suck on her iPhone. Course, YMMV, but the reviews are readily available by utilizing Google. Check Google for mobile data package reviews and CHECK YOUR SPRINT BILL!
May Sprint sometime soon crawl off into the sunset. | |
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Rakeesh
Member
2013-Jan-25 12:04 am
Re: Above Is Correct - Maybe Even UnderstatedYeah I have to check my sprint bill MONTHLY. Every now and then I get a charge that wasn't supposed to be there. One time a person on one of the phones on my account swapped his phone for a used one, and they stuck an activation fee on it. They explicitly tell you that there's no activation fee for used phones, but they billed it anyways.
There's always SOMETHING wrong with the bill.
Also, speak of their website, they are complete morons. The system you use to check your bill, minutes, etc, is down every night. | |
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