Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Not Quite A Sprint
Tuesday
June 22, 2004
It's 96 hours and counting without cell phone service. And I, for one, am getting fed up with it. Humor me for a bit on this one... Sprint is not off to a strong start with the customer service.
Saturday morning: At 8:21 AM, as I had been told would happen, my AT&T service shut off and the number was ported over to Sprint. So it goes. I had thought that it would be a rather quick process, as it had taken several days for the switchover to take effect.
When I arrived home from Orlando at 11:30 AM or so, there was still nothing on my Sprint phone. I called up the 1-888 number for help, and that's where the fun began. The customer service rep sent me to business services (since my account was routed through DigiQuest's account to get me lower rates), where I was told that the port was "in transit". The woman on the phone then sent me over to the "ports department", where a guy with an Indian accent put me on hold for two minutes or so while he checked on my account. He contradicted what the woman before had told me, saying that the number was there with SprintPCS and that it should go into effect in 2-6 hours. That I could deal with. Unfortunately, by the time I went to sleep late Saturday night (and I do mean late -- Lara from upstairs came by knocking on my door, drunk, at 3:30 AM), the phone was still giving me the "not yet activated" message that has become all-too-familiar.
Sunday morning: I woke up, hoping that my phone was finally working. It was noonish, and I figured that surely my phone would be working by then. No dice. I called, was bumped from customer service to business service, and then heard that it could take "24 to 48 hours" for service to be activated. I was also told that the number was "in transit" from AT&T (yet another contradiction).
Monday morning: 48 hours later, I figured that surely my account was in working order. But, alas, the phone was giving me the same "your account cannot be validated at this time" garbage. I called yet AGAIN; finally I got the direct number to the business support department (though the customer service agent's attempt to transfer me there ended in a disconnection like something out of a Ned prank phone call). I then heard that it could take as long as a WEEK. WTF?!? Why couldn't they have told me that up front? So much for 24-48 hours.
I then contacted my Sprint rep, Mark, who promised to help me get the situation squared away. Unfortunately he got caught up in a conference call and couldn't help me. Arrrrgh.
Tuesday morning: That would be today. Still nothing. This is insane. Is this some plot by the phone companies to discourage number porting? "Okay, you can make us allow people to keep their numbers, but by god we'll make them jump through 20 hoops to do it!" I'm not saying that's what's going on here, but it's a royal pain in the ass. And I don't like it one bit.
I finally touched base with Mark and together we called through to the "ports department" at Sprint. The guy there told me that the number was put into the wrong queue (or some nonsense like that) but that he was expediting it into the proper list in Kansas City. So now it'll be 48-72 hours away. Good grief.
|
