Need advice from a Radioshack employee or someone with experience

[LikeAChampion3]

As of Monday morning, my wife will have been without a phone for a week due to the update issue. My local RS has not been able to get a replacement even after calling multiple districts, other states, etc looking for one. I have already been guaranteed that they'll honor the replacement after the 30 days due to the circumstances, but that still doesn't fix the fact that we've been down one phone for 7 days. Today the manager called me and told me that she has special ordered an Evo but cannot guarantee when it will actually arrive. She has also offered to give us a loaner phone in the meantime (which we didn't do). I have been pleased with their effort, but this is starting to get really frustrating.

Can anyone from RS or someone who knows the answers give me some advice on the below questions?

1. On Wednesday of last week, two days after the update/bricking, I was told by the RS manager that the distribution centers had ceased the shipping of Evos due to the update causing problems. This was one day after Sprint/HTC re-released a workable version of the update. Of course, I was more informed than her on this and she had nothing to say except that they couldn't get one. Did RS actually stop distribution because of the update problems? I want to believe that she wasn't just making up excuses...

2. Are there even any rumors about when they'll be back in stock at RS or at least available internally for "special orders"? How can Sprint telesales have them and its taken this many days for my RS to find one?

3. Has anyone else successfully returned theirs to a RS since the update and gotten a replacement? If so, did they have the replacement in stock already or were they able to order one in? If they ordered one, how long did it take to arrive?

4. My local Sprint repair center is all but clueless as to the supposed Evo update replacement policy that was announced on this site last week. I would love some advice on how to get them to comply...of course, should I even try it considering they'll have to wait for stock just like RS?

5. I am going to call Sprint whenever I get the phone back and ask for a week's worth of service taken off of my bill (or however many days we end up going without the phone). My complaint is certainly legitimate, but I was wondering if anyone has already done this or gotten more out of them? I am not the type to call and complain, but this situation warrants it without question.


This whole situation is really starting to drive me nuts, and even typing this post pisses me off a little bit. Thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some decent advice.

 

[storino03]

ummm....WHY didn't you accept the loaner phone? You had the opportunity, but declined and now you want to request credit for the services when you had no phone? Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Okkoto86]

She special ordered you a phone..... Thats literally all we can do. From what I understand it takes about a week to get one in that we special order for a replacement, as long as the warehouse has one. When you buy an extremely popular phone at launch that ends up selling out everywhere these are the kind of issues that happen. You just have to be patient.

Why wouldn't you take the loaner phone?

 

[LikeAChampion3]

ummm....WHY didn't you accept the loaner phone? You had the opportunity, but declined and now you want to request credit for the services when you had no phone? Doesn't make sense to me.

Not that its relevant to the main part of my question, but the reason we didn't take the loaner phone was because we were out of town from Wednesday night through Sunday afternoon. In order to get the loaner, we would have had to get it in person, and she didn't offer it until we were gone. Had she been able to get her hands on a replacement Evo while we were gone, I could have had it sent to a local RS in the town we were staying in. Regardless, its basically been a week and I have no phone.

Since I answered your question, I would love to hear any input you might have that would actually be helpful and related to the questions I asked above.

 

[LikeAChampion3]

She special ordered you a phone..... Thats literally all we can do. From what I understand it takes about a week to get one in that we special order for a replacement, as long as the warehouse has one. When you buy an extremely popular phone at launch that ends up selling out everywhere these are the kind of issues that happen. You just have to be patient.

Why wouldn't you take the loaner phone?

Thank you for answering the post, I was hoping that you would considering you are a RS employee! I really appreciate the time. Regarding the loaner phone, I answered that in another post. I appreciated the offer, but it would have been more helpful to have gotten it on Day 1, not late on Day 3 (and unfortunately too late for me to be able to take her up on the offer). Either way, Sprint's mistake cost me at least two days without service, so I expect to be compensated for it considering that's what I pay for on a monthly basis. Not to mention that we have been Sprint customers for almost 10 years and have never complained or pulled any crap with retentions to hassle better deals out of them.

For the sake of showing that I am not mad at her or at RS for that matter, the only reason that I haven't simply returned the phone and ordered one directly from Sprint telesales is because I care about messing up her sales numbers on this. I was pre order numbers 1 and 2 of a total of 3 in that store. They haven't gotten another one in stock since launch day. Sprint telesales specifically advised that I order one from them and take my broken one back to RS, but I chose not to screw the RS salesperson. I'm not trying to be an ass, and I hate having to complain like this, but it is what it is.

I understand your comments about it being out of their control (and again, I am holding no personal grudges, quite the opposite in fact), but how can Sprint.com and Spring telesales have had this phone available for 5+ days and RS can't get one? Does Sprint really leave their third party distribution partners hanging like that? I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but it just seems crazy to me that a friend of mine (who ordered off of Sprint.com) got his new one delivered in less than 24 hours while an existing customer such as myself cannot.

 

[kenjancef]

Funny... I went to the RS that I bought my phone from on Friday, and the guy there said that if I were to get a replacement, all I had to do was call them, they would order the phone, and it would be in the next day. Unfortunately, due to the Holiday weekend, and not having my receipt and such, I couldn't do it. I will try during this week.

Hopefully this is true, and he was not joking around....


Ken

 

[LikeAChampion3]

Funny... I went to the RS that I bought my phone from on Friday, and the guy there said that if I were to get a replacement, all I had to do was call them, they would order the phone, and it would be in the next day. Unfortunately, due to the Holiday weekend, and not having my receipt and such, I couldn't do it. I will try during this week.

Hopefully this is true, and he was not joking around....


Ken

May I ask what city/state you are in?

 

[chaosrecords]

I guarantee if you contact Sprint Retentions you will get a bill credit.

Actually If the Radio Shack store has the IAE involved, I would go directly to the IAE (Indirect Account Executive) They dont have the direct power to credit a bill, but when they put requests in 99% of the time as long as the story is legitimate ( and it looks alot more legit coming from an IAE than a random phone call to retentions) you will get credit.

Sometimes depending on who you get they will throw you extras also, like bonus minutes, or pick 3 to call unlimited.

 

[LikeAChampion3]

I guarantee if you contact Sprint Retentions you will get a bill credit.

Actually If the Radio Shack store has the IAE involved, I would go directly to the IAE (Indirect Account Executive) They dont have the direct power to credit a bill, but when they put requests in 99% of the time as long as the story is legitimate ( and it looks alot more legit coming from an IAE than a random phone call to retentions) you will get credit.

Sometimes depending on who you get they will throw you extras also, like bonus minutes, or pick 3 to call unlimited.

I'll give that a try. I don't need extra bonuses, I'd just be happy with my bill reduced to reflect the time I wasn't getting service. Thanks for the input.

 

[kenjancef]

May I ask what city/state you are in?

Attleboro, MA

 

[bp3dots]

Funny... I went to the RS that I bought my phone from on Friday, and the guy there said that if I were to get a replacement, all I had to do was call them, they would order the phone, and it would be in the next day. Unfortunately, due to the Holiday weekend, and not having my receipt and such, I couldn't do it. I will try during this week.

Hopefully this is true, and he was not joking around....


Ken

It probably wouldn't be next day.. but should be a few days turnaround.

 

[powrman811]

I work at a Sprint Repair Center. Bottom line is this: stores really DO have the ability to do an advanced exchange even if the customer is under 30 days. Now these replacements are refurbished (so far) but honestly don't see the big deal with that.

A repair center won't help you when you are under 30 days for one simple reason: you went to RadioShack to buy the phone.

If you can go to a repair center and talk to a tech who would be willing do to a warranty replacement then you are lucky. I just want to let you know if the tech says "they can't" then they are lying.

 

[LikeAChampion3]

I work at a Sprint Repair Center. Bottom line is this: stores really DO have the ability to do an advanced exchange even if the customer is under 30 days. Now these replacements are refurbished (so far) but honestly don't see the big deal with that.

A repair center won't help you when you are under 30 days for one simple reason: you went to RadioShack to buy the phone.

If you can go to a repair center and talk to a tech who would be willing do to a warranty replacement then you are lucky. I just want to let you know if the tech says "they can't" then they are lying.

Do sprint repair shops share inventory with the corporate sprint stores?

 

[Shenaniguns]

Real quick before I head to work, I had the same issue and RS finally got a replacement in this Saturday for me. I was offered no loaner phone and Sprint basically told me to get bent.

 

[LikeAChampion3]

Real quick before I head to work, I had the same issue and RS finally got a replacement in this Saturday for me. I was offered no loaner phone and Sprint basically told me to get bent.

Where are you located? Maybe I can tell my RS to order one from wherever yours did....

 

[powrman811]

Do sprint repair shops share inventory with the corporate sprint stores?

Yes... but Indirects obviously do not.

Edit: However, don't expect to get a replacement from the sales inventory. Very (very) rearely happens.

 

[chaosrecords]

Do sprint repair shops share inventory with the corporate sprint stores?

Depends.

Alot of people dont understand the differences between store types.

you have sprint corporate which can do anything even talk about bills and pull your billing info

you have sprint affiliates that sell sprint and other carriers

you have indirects like BB, Radio shack, and if you have 5 sprint stores in your town, odds are ones a corporate and all the mall, plaza surroundings are indirects.


Some indirects look exactly like a corporate store, difference is how they get paid and how they deal with inventory.


Most indirects wont advance exchange unless they are preferred retailers.

So not every store is the same, depends on where you live.

Theres nothing I hate more about being an indirect and having NSS (National Sales Support) tell a customer to go to a "Sprint Store" to get their phone swapped when we have no power to do so.

 

[Shenaniguns]

Where are you located? Maybe I can tell my RS to order one from wherever yours did....

The store is located in Elk Grove, CA but they had to special order it from somewhere in Texas IIRC.

 

[LikeAChampion3]

Went into the RS today and was told that the RS distribution center has 500 Evos, but they are being held due to issues with last week's update. I find this incredibly hard to believe considering sprint has been shipping units and others have stated that RS has facilitated exchanges. Can any of the RS employees confirm this?

To make it worse, there was a returned Evo sitting behind the counter which I thought was my replacement for a brief second...the manager said they got a few more sold during the second round of pre orders,and that was one out them. Of course I couldn't take that one.