Corp Sprint retail store refuses to sell pre-reserved phone without upgrade.

[sjcdal]

Not feeling the love for/from Sprint today. Pre-ordered a HTC ONE at local Sprint Retail. I am currently not eligible for an upgrade on any of my multiple 13year+ lines with Sprint, so made this reservation to purchase at FULL RETAIL. Get a call last night that phone is in and avail Fri AM. Took an hour off work to go into store and pay the totlal of $650+ with tax and crazy $Activation fee.
Oddly, no line for a new phone at the retail store..I am only one in the place and then told they changed their policy and will not sell the "first shipment" to anybody paying retail. Only upgrades and new lines.
Called my corp account line to try and have them tell the store to release it to me. No joy. Simply told they would make the "super special" exception (because pre-order period has expired??) and ship it to me free within 2-5 business days. I spoke with supervisor, related the whole fiasco again and suggested a somewhat fair solution....ship to me overnight for delivery tomorrow (Sat), and waive the activation fee.
Told that was basically not possible, but at least the manager said he would try and get approval...awaiting an answer.
Is this not crazy??? They are NOT subsidizing the price, the phone was reserved for me (again..13 year+, most of that with 5 lines), I am willing to pay them and the won't take my money.
Well...this may be it, I will have to move to a more responsive company.

 

[Topgonzo]

Interesting especially when t mobile customers are saying they can only process pre orders if its a new line of service.

Sent from my HTC One

 

[Lady_Evo]

I couldn't qualify for an upgrade since I got the LTE EVO last year when it came out. I decided not to deal with the Sprint Retail and went to Best Buy to get mine instead. They price matched, gave me one out of stock and activated it for me. Took all of 20 mins.

 

[rion_j]

that really sucks! it's kinda like buying a car. the dealership loves to get you to finance your vehicle since it's more money for them over the life of a loan compared to paying all cash up front. sorry man, hope you get your device soon.

 

[scorpiodsu]

Not feeling the love for/from Sprint today. Pre-ordered a HTC ONE at local Sprint Retail. I am currently not eligible for an upgrade on any of my multiple 13year+ lines with Sprint, so made this reservation to purchase at FULL RETAIL. Get a call last night that phone is in and avail Fri AM. Took an hour off work to go into store and pay the totlal of $650+ with tax and crazy $Activation fee.
Oddly, no line for a new phone at the retail store..I am only one in the place and then told they changed their policy and will not sell the "first shipment" to anybody paying retail. Only upgrades and new lines.
Called my corp account line to try and have them tell the store to release it to me. No joy. Simply told they would make the "super special" exception (because pre-order period has expired??) and ship it to me free within 2-5 business days. I spoke with supervisor, related the whole fiasco again and suggested a somewhat fair solution....ship to me overnight for delivery tomorrow (Sat), and waive the activation fee.
Told that was basically not possible, but at least the manager said he would try and get approval...awaiting an answer.
Is this not crazy??? They are NOT subsidizing the price, the phone was reserved for me (again..13 year+, most of that with 5 lines), I am willing to pay them and the won't take my money.
Well...this may be it, I will have to move to a more responsive company.

Just go to Best Buy and they will price match it and you should be good. I've never had those problems with corporate stores from any carrier in the past. Pretty crazy.

 

[Awake]

What a lot of folks do not know is, depending on your account history Sprint will fast track your account upgrade eligibility for a fee. I believe it is $75 or $100.

 

[DWS44]

Just go to Best Buy and they will price match it and you should be good. I've never had those problems with corporate stores from any carrier in the past. Pretty crazy.

Agreed...go hit a BestBuy! I know it sucks to be starting at the phone you want and being denied like that...but if someone didn't want to take my money, I'd tend to want to give it to someone else instead!

 

[sjcdal]

What a lot of folks do not know is, depending on your account history Sprint will fast track your account upgrade eligibility for a fee. I believe it is $75 or $100.



$200 fee and they REQUIRE that I sell back the Evo LTE for $94. Then they sell the ONE to you at $199. So.....you sell the LTE back to them for 1/2 of what you can get on CraigsL.
Basically that works out to.
$549 list

$199+200+100 lost value=$499 AND I give up the upgrade that will be available for the NEXT hot phone in January. Not so good.
So I was willing to give them the full retail let Sprint make their full retail markup on the phone itself since they are not subsidizing it at all....and they won't take my cash. I may try the BB route.

 

[Awake]

What a lot of folks do not know is, depending on your account history Sprint will fast track your account upgrade eligibility for a fee. I believe it is $75 or $100.



$200 fee and they REQUIRE that I sell back the Evo LTE for $94. Then they sell the ONE to you at $199. So.....you sell the LTE back to them for 1/2 of what you can get on CraigsL.
Basically that works out to.
$549 list

$199+200+100 lost value=$499 AND I give up the upgrade that will be available for the NEXT hot phone in January. Not so good.
So I was willing to give them the full retail let Sprint make their full retail markup on the phone itself since they are not subsidizing it at all....and they won't take my cash. I may try the BB route.

$200 and they said you had to sell back your device? We certainly did not pay more than $100 for each of the lines we used nor did Sprint require us to sell back our devices. Maybe it's different for Corporate (us) as opposed to consumer accounts.

 

[rydubois]

What a lot of folks do not know is, depending on your account history Sprint will fast track your account upgrade eligibility for a fee. I believe it is $75 or $100.

I think it depends on how close you are to an upgrade. They told me they could upgrade me early for $50. They did this for my friend a couple months ago too, they explained it to him that they were cancelling his existing contract and the $50 was an ETF, then they set up a new line of service with the same number. He was also forced to sell his phone back to them.

If they tried to force me to sell them my phone I would tell them to kiss my ***. I bought the phone, it was subsidized yes, but when I'm a month from an upgrade(which is where I am) they have gotten their subsidy back and are not taking my phone too.

Irrelevant for me at the moment though as I am switching to Tmo for better speeds in my area

 

[gameaddict8]

Horrible experience. The phone costs 549 retail on the sprint website, why pay 649 though?

Sent from my EVO LTE using Android Central Forums

 

[Awake]

I think it depends on how close you are to an upgrade. They told me they could upgrade me early for $50. They did this for my friend a couple months ago too, they explained it to him that they were cancelling his existing contract and the $50 was an ETF, then they set up a new line of service with the same number. He was also forced to sell his phone back to them.

If they tried to force me to sell them my phone I would tell them to kiss my ***. I bought the phone, it was subsidized yes, but when I'm a month from an upgrade(which is where I am) they have gotten their subsidy back and are not taking my phone too.

Irrelevant for me at the moment though as I am switching to Tmo for better speeds in my area

In our cases they had nothing to do with the ETF, it's a simple resetting of the contract no matter if we had several months left or a year, we always pay the same fee. I've also forgot to mention that Sprint will sometimes automatically reset the contract date on one of our lines, without us asking, for free.

 

[rydubois]

In our cases they had nothing to do with the ETF, it's a simple resetting of the contract no matter if we had several months left or a year, we always pay the same fee. I've also forgot to mention that Sprint will sometimes automatically reset the contract date on one of our lines, without us asking, for free.

It could be exactly that, I don't know. Honestly Sprint customer service may not be the brightest and just explained it wrong?

 

[sjcdal]

The "Upgrade Now" offer was made both by corporate telesales, and Corp Sprint retail store. It is dependent upon remaining months in the contract. In my case on two of the lines I purchased the EvoLTE on launch day. That was the last of the good 'ole Sprint Premier 1 year upgrades. My new date, 20 months from then= 1/2014 with contract commitment going out a few months beyond that. The Corp Store sales guy tried to just quickly take my EvoLTE and said, "see I cannot sell you phone retail, but I will get it for you for much less", then when he asked if the current EVO LTE phone still worked fine, I was fully alerted that he was trying to use the upgrade now offer...and that is not acceptable.

Oh...and "supervisor" for corp lines that I spoke with while still standing in retail store repeatedly promised to "absolutely I will get back to you by 1PM your time today with something better" of course has not attempted to do that follow up...now 3:28PM...so it is pretty unlikely they could get the phone out overnight like we discussed.

----Sigh....