I posted this in a sprint thread a while back. Probably a month or two before the iPhone 5 was released.
Sprint has the worst customer service I have ever encountered. I dealth with them on behalf of my girlfriend this week. Her iPhone wouldnt get calls 50% of the time. Nothing, no voicemail, no missed call notification or anything. I began calling Sprint last Friday, and called probably 5 or 6 more times. I was told that the towers were 100% functioning in our area, and that it must be a phone problem. So on there recommendation, I took my phone to Apple, and I was told by the genius that it was a service problem. I called back Sprint, was taken through the same process again, and told to go back to Apple. At that point I demanded a supervisor and got one. She told me that I would receive a call back within the hour from her manager. That call never came. Upon calling them back, a supervisor hung up on me, because I wouldnt take, "Our towers show no problem in your area," as an answer.
At that point I did some research, and emailed
Dan@sprint.com. That is the actually CEO's email address. I sent a formal, yet pushy and frustrated message. I received an email back within 20 minutes, telling me to expect a call the following day. I did receive that call the following day, and I was told that she DOES see they are doing tower maintenence in the area. Funny since thats a complete contradiction of what I was told when I called customer service. It was at this point I lost it, and demanded to be let out of my contract without paying the ETF. She told me she would have to call me back. I received that call yesterday, and I proudly state that I was let out without an ETF. Perfect timing. Gonna go to Verizon, provide a phone, and then when the new iPhone comes out, use my contract upgrade.
EDIT: And here's another story of when Apple sent me someone else's iPhone 5. (This happened on release day but I copied and pasted from an older thread.)
Summary of my story: I went through hell these past couple of days with Apple and ATT. Preordered my iPhone, got it delivered the 21st. It was someone else's phone. When I tried to activate it, the number listed was an area code out of state. ATT tried to just switch the sim, but in order for this to work, the phone first had to be activated. This wasnt possible as in order to activate it, I needed the last four of the social security and billing zip from the random number on the phones account holder. Went to Apple store on ATT's recommendation. They couldnt do anything. Had a manager helping me, and even ATT employees, as they had them in the store for launch day. Told me they couldnt do anything in store because it was an online order. Left, called Apple support, and although they were nice and apologetic, they again had no fix for the problem. They forwarded the problem to engineering, and I waited. The guy told me he hoped to have the problem resolved by next Thursday. I just laughed at this, as either I was returning the phone, or having the problem resolved one way or another by the next day (yesterday). I figured it was a simple solution, manually reprogram the IMEI and serial number on Apples end to match my number and not the number of the random guy in a different state.
I decided to call the number that kept showing up in my phone. Turns out he had the same problem as me, and he had my phone, in Virginia. After endless calling between each other, Apple and ATT, our only solution was to exchange the last four digits of our social and billing. Activate each others phones, and then switch the sim back to our own lines. Finally, just finished dealing with everything, and can finally enjoy the new phone.
Note: Apple and At&t did not even resolve the problem. Myself and the other person who had my phone in Virginia did.
