What's going on over at Sprint CS?

[awesomest47]

I called Sprint to factory unlock my iPhone 4S this does not seem like a complicated procedure. I have had the phone on the line for a year now, I have paid EVERY bill on time and I did not steal the iPhone from somebody. So I call Sprint and simply say "Can you factory unlock my iPhone 4S please?" The first person said that it was factory unlocked out of the box and I didn't need to call them. Knowing this was a lie from Macworld's article and that they had changed their policy a while after the 4S came out (http://www.macworld.com/article/1163003/sprint_clarifies_iphone_4s_unlocking_policy.html) I decided to hang up and try a new rep. Silly me! The next woman sounded like she was a teenager and said "Sir, this isn't AT&T we don't do unlocks" After explaining to her that the 4S is a world phone and that there is indeed a SIM card slot she literally NO JOKE said "Wait, what's a SIM card slot, are you sure you don't mean AT&T? Oh wait! You mean an SD card! " Seriously, Sprint? There is something really wrong with me calling two agents just to have an unlock placed on my account and being given completely inaccurate information twice. Previously I have found Sprint to have great CS but what happened this time? Any ideas?

 

[Applejuiced]

I don't know what gave you the false idea that Sprint has great CS reps.
They are the worst. They don't know how to do their job and most of the times will either guess or lie to you and try to get you off the phone or put you on hold forever till you get bored and hang up. Promise you they will do this and that and fix any issues you have and then next billing cycle you notice that they didn't fix or credit you anything.
And like this situation they don't know how to do a simple unlock process.
BTW you know the sprint iphone unlocks are only for international gsm use right?
It still wont work in the US with any US domestic carrier.

 

[Caesars]

Could have just hired a new group of cc reps, you know how that goes. That or they don't want people unlocking the phones. I'd assume they were just new :-(. The One and only time I've called sprint about unlocking my ip5 for international, they were very knowledgeable.

 

[eyoungren]

You want to call and ask for international services. That's the department that does the unlock. And as has been previously stated, it's only for international.

You can beg, plead, threaten, cajole and otherwise make a grand ruckus, but Sprint under no circumstances ever unlocks for domestic use. Not even Executive Services (dan@sprint.com) will allow that and they have more authority then CS.

Incidentally, SIM cards have only been a recent thing with Sprint since 2011. The iPhone is the only model that Sprint sells that has a SIM card and at least in the case of the iPhone 5 it's only for LTE. You can operate an iPhone on Sprint on 3G without the SIM.

By the way, the average turnover for the gatekeeper CSRs is about 6 months. Just enough time to learn the script before they leave.

 

[tremlock]

There is no possible way for Sprint to do a factory unlock. And I believe it is true that the iPhone 4S was at launch unlocked.

 

[2298754]

Incidentally, SIM cards have only been a recent thing with Sprint since 2011. The iPhone is the only model that Sprint sells that has a SIM card and at least in the case of the iPhone 5 it's only for LTE. You can operate an iPhone on Sprint on 3G without the SIM..

You sure about this?

When VZW went LTE, they switched to a SIM authentication system (like GSM.) You can swap out phones on VZW, like AT&T/TMobile. The VZW iPhone5 gets no signal without its SIM.

 

[ZombiePete]

Sprint lost me when my wife's phone started connecting her to random strangers when she would call people in her contacts list, and when people would try to call her they would get connected with random people about 50% of the time. Also, sometimes she would text someone and that person would get the same message, over and over again, for hours. Sprint tried to fix it, but ultimately told her she just needed to change phone numbers. Well she'd had the number for almost eight years; she uses it for work and has tons of contacts with the local dog rescue community and she needs that number. No dice; that was all the troubleshooting they were willing to do at that point. That's when they started getting really rude with me; one guy told me I was stubborn and being foolish for not letting them change her number.

I left after that; I paid my ETF and moved on even though I felt that I really shouldn't have had to. They have, hands down, some of the worst customer support in history and they treat paying customers like they're a nuisance. The one good guy I ever dealt with there, who I sought out for help whenever I could, even got exasperated by the experience; he works at my favorite Apple store now so in that regard it was a happy ending.

 

[eyoungren]

You sure about this?

When VZW went LTE, they switched to a SIM authentication system (like GSM.) You can swap out phones on VZW, like AT&T/TMobile. The VZW iPhone5 gets no signal without its SIM.

No, I'm not. I am sure about the LTE part though. Thanks for catching me on that.