The Sprint Store

Brad's Rumor phone

Well if you saw Brad's birthday post you know that he got a phone for his birthday. Since we already had five lines on our contract we had to purchase a whole new plan for Brad, to which we also added Brian when he got home, making that 7 lines. Let me tell ya, you don't want to look at my cell phone bill every month, especially the ones before we broke down and added the all you can text-text plan. A few days ago Brad asked to go to the Sprint store, why, why would you want to go to the Sprint store, I asked, it's definitely not on my list of fun places to go.

Brad: The screen on my phone is all messed up.

Me: Hmmm--did you get it wet, you know they're going to say you got it wet.

Brad: No, honest mom.

Me: Did you drop it?

Brad: (As he's snapping that cool slider thingy open and closed repetitively) No mom, the screen just stopped working.

OK off to the Sprint store we go last night, we go to the one where he got it by Target, sorry you didn't buy the extended service plan, he's not eligible for a new phone till 2010, it'll be $280 for a new phone. NO, that's not for the cool slider thingy phone, it's for the cheapest thing they have.

Well, can't we have it repaired? You can take it to the other Sprint store and they'll fix it for $99. That's sounding like a good deal to me and we head off to the other Sprint store by Wal-Mart, after signing in and waiting forever the guy says, "We might be able to repair it but it could be way more than $99, you should just buy a new phone." Well, let's just see how much it will cost to repair it. That will be $35 you should just buy a new phone. Since my phone is eligible for an upgrade, lets buy a new phone for me and then I'll trade with Brad, I like my low-tech pink phone. No ma'am you can't do that either. You would have to keep the new phone for 30 days before you could trade him. That's ok with me, but Brad looks at me with sheer panic on his face at the thought of having to carry around a pink phone at school for the next 30 days.

Me: (to the salesman) "Sir if you'll take a look at my account you will see that I have spent a lot of money with Sprint, isn't there something you can do for me that's not going to cost me a crazy amount of money?" He looks at our account, last month was the worst, because of all the changes we made to our service plans, adding Brian, texting-before new plan, etc. He goes and talks to the manager, comes back and says, "If you'll give me all 5's on a survey you'll be receiving, I'll replace your phone for $55. Alright--it's a deal, far better than I imagined. So we wait for the tech to program the new phone for Brad, transfer his numbers etc, he brings out the new phone and says, "No charge." What?! I left quickly, before they could change their minds. (With a look of amazement on my face). As I'm leaving the salesman says, "Remember our deal." No problem you want all 5's, I'll give you 10's.

While I've never liked the service you receive at Sprint stores, I do have to say I got lucky last night.

The salesman also told me something else interesting, Sprint is going to stop charging their termination fees, I don't know if it's official yet but I'm glad, $1400 to terminate all of our lines and switch is crazy, and with so many phones it's impossible to go two years without making some changes.