(Continuation of Run-around (the daisy))
Fast-forward to (last) Monday morning. Jeff's Sprint phone stopped working. This was okay, because we'd have the new phone activated, right? We called Qwest to do that and were told that we had to call back after 12:40 PM (mountain time). We called back again, activated the phone, and got told that it'll work in 1-4 business days. Not okay!
Last week was a very bad time for him to lose his phone (although to be honest, any week would have been bad for one reason or another). Since he doesn't have his own Internet connection, he has only intermittent access to email, and phone is the only reliable way to reach him. I lent him my phone for a couple of days last week, but obviously it's not the same. By Friday, his phone still wasn't working, although on about Thursday I started getting a different error message when trying to call him. That was sort of progress, but not really.
We were both away over the weekend, so I wasn't able to call Qwest until after work on Monday. I looked around for Jeff's phone but discovered that he had taken it with him. I wasn't going to call Qwest for support without the phone present, in case something needed to be done to it, but I decided to call Jeff's number to check whether it was working or not. Shockingly, I got his voice mail! He called back a few minutes later (after his phone buzzed at him). Finally!
Overall, I'm not terribly happy with the experience. Qwest staff repeatedly told me things (particularly about prices) that were later contradicted by other staff (not in a good way). The transfer of Jeff's number from Sprint also was much more difficult than we had expected, and Qwest had not told us to expect such a long break in service. I don't entirely blame them for the delay, because I'm sure there are reasons (including interacting with another company, Sprint), but they didn't tell us at the beginning that after activation it would take a number of days before the phone worked again. That it took a week instead of 1-4 (business) days is regrettable, but I'm more unhappy about not having been told to expect a delay at all.
Senji says:
Yeah, my experience is that you get this sort of run around with all phone companies. It's just crap...
*sigh*
Stephen says:
Ditto. I've had similar experiences with Sprint (Like double charging me for a month's service and getting whopped $250 for breaking my contract although I didn't. I got both problems resolved after making my way through a few of their hired idiots.)
Jeff says:
I'm just leaving Sprint. I moved to a new apartment half way through my contract with them, and it took 6 months to convince them my address had changed. Even after that, they never sent me another bill, and this was a full year after I had moved (admittedly, I gave up on it as a lost cause about 6 months ago, but still...).
This is why I'm changing providers. I want to put up with someone else's crap for a while.
Jeff
Laurabelle's Blog says:
Never underestimate the power of complaint
Given that I've been ragging on Qwest, I felt like I should give them credit for the good as well...