[Macpartners] Update: Sprint - Warning (was: and Plea for Help)

[John-Elmer Canfield]

Monday, October 1st  - 
I can't tell you how heartening it was this morning to awaken and find so many kind and thoughtful replies to my post from last night; many people offered suggestions and many others offered their encouraging empathy and support. Thank you all!

What is most shocking about this whole affair is that one moment my phone was sitting on my desk working just fine, and the next moment it's totally disabled. Not only are my incoming and outgoing phone calls disabled, but I can't get to email, contacts, or recent calls; I can't access any photos I've taken, or any other data on the device; I can't even play my music. It's no different than as if someone mugged me on the street and took the phone out of my hands, and I feel just as beaten up, violated and victimized.

I much admire Richard Stallman's steadfast observations on our loss of privacy and control of our lives to a digital industrial complex. This was another wake-up call for me. If Sprint could cause this to happen simply from their sheer incompetence, who else can do it when they deliberately want to? If the carriers can, then the government surely can; presumably, someone with malicious intent could disable thousands (millions?) of devices. I don't like this.

…Anyway, I gather myself together and drive down to the Cambridgeside mall where there's both an AT&T store and the Apple store where I originally bought my iPhone 4. I wasn't sure who to try first, but very fortunately, it turned out to be the Apple store.

Immediately as I walked into the store an Apple employee, Matt, approached me and asked how he could help. [tearing up again as I recall that moment]

Matt looked at my phone and was puzzled by the strange mode it was in; supposedly wanting to be activated, but then unable to activate. I told him, "well there's a long story leading up to this". Matt paused and looked me directly in the eye, sincerely wanting to know what had happened so I told him everything. For the first time through this whole ordeal, someone honestly cared and made me feel that he really would do everything possible to solve the problem! Matt connected the phone to a computer and after a couple of tests, he recommended initializing the software. I have recent backups via iTunes at home so that'd be ok, and Matt said the AT&T store would probably send me back up for this anyway, so I told him to go for it.

It took only a few minutes for Matt and his associate, Nick, to get my phone working again; making and receiving calls on its correct phone number! I'm so happy, I just can't believe it! 

Nick hadn't heard all the sordid details I told Matt, but after getting the phone working, he was curious to know what happened. Just as I began to tell the story again, my phone rang with a call from Matthew Sullivan with MIT IS&T. Matthew wanted to know the whole story, so Nick got to hear it at the same time.

I believe that my post last night found its way to enough people so that it got Matthew's attention and he wants to do what he can to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. There are systemic problems within Sprint that allowed such an error to occur and perhaps now someone with authority will try to change it for the better. (meanwhile, my original caution against giving Sprint the power to port your phone numbers stands, if you rely on those numbers for emergency phone service)

Also replying by email today was Daivd Saccardo. He explained that he's "at the bottom of the totem pole" and all he can do is "find the appropriate departments". I can appreciate the position he's in; I've been at the receiving end myself of many an irate customer's wrath when they had no phone service. The impression made by Sprint's webpage at MIT's IS&T is that the representatives listed there can help you better than if you call customer service directly, but in reality, they're just another marketing-related layer that has no special connections. It's not David's fault that such a misrepresentation was made by Sprint, it's people higher up at Sprint's fault for giving such a misimpression to potential MIT customers. I apologize if any of my comments were deemed personally towards David. The fact of the matter is that reporting the problem through David only added an additional delay to the resolution, but the reason for that delay was due to policies put in place by his managers, not David himself.


And, just one final note to end this story:

On my way home, I stopped at the dollar store for a few things. At the checkout, another employee told the cashier she'd just heard from her doctor that the biopsy is malignant and that she has cancer. I spoke to the woman and gave a few words of encouragement; she reached out and held my hand and my heart broke in a whole 'nother way. Silly Elmer, feelin' sorry for yourself over a stupid phone!

Elmer



On Oct 1, 2012, at 1:28 AM, John-Elmer Canfield <canfield at mit.edu> wrote:

> I'm hoping someone may have a suggestion that will help me, but meanwhile I want to warn anyone considering purchasing new phones and/or service from Sprint: Whatever you do, DON'T give them any information about porting your existing phone numbers to Sprint, especially if you rely on those working numbers for your emergency phone service. Sprint will disable your old working phone service long before they're able to ship new phones to you, leaving you with no way to receive or make emergency phone calls for a week or more! Don't trust any reassurances they give you otherwise!
> 
> I'd hoped that ordering through the MIT portal would help get a better response with any customer service problems, but Sprint's representative for MIT, David Saccardo, did nothing but give me the runaround for several days and then stopped answering phone calls or responding to email.
> 
> Here's the short version of the series of events:
> 
> Thursday, Sept 20th - Ordered 2 new iPhones from Sprint with a 2-Year agreement. Projected delivery date was estimated at 3 weeks (but they immediately charged my credit card $550.00).
> 
> Monday, Sept 24th - One of the old phones goes "Out-of-Service" - it can't make or receive any calls! When I called the old carrier, they said the number had already been ported over to Sprint. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Sprint that night getting absolutely nowhere, and then they wind up disconnecting my call.
> 
> Tuesday, Sept 25th - I email and also call Sprint's representative at MIT, David Saccardo, directly. He "apologizes" and says he'll have the problem fixed right away, but the day ends and he's done nothing.
> 
> Wednesday, Sept 26th - I try it again with David Saccardo; more empty apologies, but then he pawns the problem off to someone else at Sprint. They call me, I waste more and more time with more people having to explain the problem from the beginning over and over again to each subsequent person, but still nothing gets fixed.
> 
> Thursday, Sept 27th - Sprint now tells me that the only way they can get the phone number they disabled working again is if I purchase another new phone for from Sprint (actually, it's $499.99 they'll be charging me for an old used iPhone) to use temporarily until the new iPhones are available to ship. This seems bizarre, but at this point I'm really desperate to have the number working again and they assure me I'll receive the phone the next day.
> 
> Friday, Sept 28th - I receive an email from Sprint that the additional phone is only just now becoming ready to ship (but it's already Friday afternoon, so there's no way it'll arrive at MIT before Monday!)
> 
> At this point I've had it with Sprint. I decide to completely CANCEL my order with Sprint - I tell them to refund the $550.00 they charged my credit card and LEAVE THEIR HANDS OFF MY PHONE NUMBERS!
> 
> Several more hours on the phone with Sprint and the old carrier (StraightTalk) trying to get the number back in service. StraightTalk says they can't turn it back on because Sprint has the number, but because I never received any phones from Sprint, it's never been activated there, and the carrier can only port numbers that are currently active.
> 
> I'm absolutely seething inside, but to get anywhere, I know I must remain calm and collected as I call over and over and over again. Finally, after wasting hours on the phone explaining the problem from the beginning again and again to countless people, a technician from Sprint agrees to make a conference call with a technician at StraightTalk and it looks like they get the problem ironed out; I'm told the phone should be back to normal in about an hour.
> 
> Saturday, Sept 29th - Still absolutely no service. Next, StraightTalk tells me that when Sprint ported my number it zapped the SIM card and I now need a new one for the phone to work again. They'll send me one free-of-charge, but it'll take several days to receive. However, if I buy another new SIM card from Walmart, they can reactivate the number right away.
> 
> I drive to my local Walmart, but they don't stock SIM cards for StraightTalk. A very nice lady there took the time to call around to other Walmart stores for me; she is told no stores in Massachusetts carry them, but stores in New Hampshire might. I drive back home and call all the Walmarts in New Hampshire; none of them carry them. (I even tried calling Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, and New York… but no store I call has them or knows anything about it)
> 
> I call StraightTalk back and then she reads off a list of "selected" stores in Massachusetts that supposedly have them. I start calling, Salem: "no, you've got to order on the web", North Reading: "no, but Tewksbury might have them". Tewksbury: at first "never heard of the things", but I plead and plead for him to look and finally he finds them!
> 
> I drive up to Tewksbury and pay $64 dollars for a new SIM card (which are only sold bundled with another $45 pre-paid refill card) It's over an hour drive each way, but when I get back home and call the carrier again, after a little while the phone finally comes back to life after being without service for the past six days! Hooray!!!
> 
> Sunday, Sept 30th - I'm still feeling totally beat up and exhausted from losing sleep for several days over the matter, but at least the worst telephone experience of my life is finally over… or so I thought…
> 
> ...It's now Sunday night and THE OTHER PHONE has suddenly gone "Out-of-Service"!!!   …says it needs to be Activated, but then keeps saying "Could not Activate iPhone". Worse than the first phone Sprint took out of service, this one's completely bricked…  it won't even bring up the Home screen!!!
> 
> The first phone belonged to my friend and I felt horrible for leading him astray by suggesting Sprint; he lives alone and has no other method of communication. The second phone (that has now stopped working) is mine; I also live alone and have no other phone service, so I'm unable to call my carrier (AT&T) to get any help at this time.
> 
> I'm sorry to be going on with such a rant, but sometimes it helps to just write down what happened during terrible experiences. If you've been kind enough to read this much, I'd be very grateful for any suggestions on how to get out of this awful mess. Does anyone know how to reach someone with real authority at Sprint? (the other Sprint representatives for MIT, Brian LaBree and Sonia Restall were just as useless as David Saccardo; they don't answer their phones and never responded to any of my emails)
> 
> I just want everything to go back the way it was before I had any dealings with Sprint. I thought AT&T service was terrible; SmartTalk is cheaper, but the service is just as bad. However, I had no idea how much worse it could be with Sprint. The bottom line is that Sprint does not recognize the responsibility they have to deliver emergency phone service, despite being granted a franchise to the public airwaves. Most of my career was spent as a field service technician repairing phone systems - when a customer had no phone service at all, it always took priority over "adds moves and changes". Not with Sprint; they simply don't care.
> 
> It's not as though these service failures were caused by a storm knocking out facilities or some major piece of equipment failing, it's nothing but a clerical error; a stupid, stupid clerical error by Sprint; an error that could be fixed in two minutes if someone really cared! … If Sprint were the last carrier on the planet, you'd be better off with two tin cans and a string.
> 
> FINAL WARNING - If you or anyone you know is considering a move to Sprint - DO NOT give them any information about porting your existing phone numbers until you actually receive new working phones. Otherwise, Sprint will port the numbers in advance and you'll be left with absolutely no phone service at all.
> 
> 
> I've literally been reduced to tears over this, and I don't know what to do next.
> 
> Elmer
>