Sprint screws up Treo 700p orders

I recently ordered a new Treo 700p from Sprint and it’s amazing how screwed up big companies sometimes get. They took the order and $434 later they gave me my receipt. I upgraded from my blackberry and although it’s not cheap, I was excited. We had gone over absolutely everything for almost an hour and I walked out of the store with my receipt and they said they would have to fedex me the phone. I understood as they change so fast that it’s hard to keep them in stock in a small store that sells a lot of different phones. They’re also expensive and relatively light so it makes sense to just overnight them.

Unfortunately the next day when I checked the status after not receiving it, I got a message saying that my credit wasn’t good enough or they needed more information. Now, maybe my credit isn’t perfect but I’ve had a phone with Nextel for years and years, since they came out with the unlimited incoming calls. I’ve upgraded a couple times, and I actually have 4 accounts with Sprint or Nextel all together including all of the cell phones and air cards that I pay for. So it seemed strange that they would have a problem with me. And besides I was in the store and gave them all of the information they needed.

I tried calling the number but got lost in a maze of voicemail options so I figured it’s easier to just go back to the store. Unfortunately they didn’t even have access to the message I got and just called the same number. Eventually we wind up talking to an operator in India, and believe me it was obvious we were calling the other side of the world. The call sounded like she was on the moon more than India and the operators poor English didn’t help things.

Anyway, after I had already paid $434 for the phone and was agreeing to upgrade to about $225 per month for just about everything unlimited, they decided to charge me an additional “service fee”. Actually they had added two additional fees that the store had no clue of and couldn’t explain. The operator couldn’t really explain it either, but said that they were upgrade fees.

I can understand having to pay a significant amount for a good phone. I can also understand needing to have reasonable credit. But I don’t understand why Sprint couldn't tell me the real price up front; why they stopped the order holding it up for almost four days all together because of these mystery fees; and why they couldn’t even explain what they were for. The bottom line is that once you order something it seems like extortion to tack on additional hidden fees. Otherwise you’ve already paid for the phone but they're not going to activate it for you. Actually I had already paid for it, but they weren’t going to even send it to me. And when they did send it, they sent it four days late.

Come on Sprint, ordering a new wireless phone shouldn't be such an ordeal. You spend millions of dollars on advertising and then make your new customer hate you before they even get the phone. It’s not the additional $48 and $15 they wanted to charge, it’s the way they did it that just makes you feel like you’ve been taken advantage of. This isn’t exactly toll free oriented but it’s phone related so I figured it was worth venting a little. I’ll write a review of the actual phone later too.