bad customer service Archives

The Computer Fiasco

September 20, 2011

My relationship with the Computer Store deteriorated over the summer.

I bought one of their top laptops toward the end of April as a graduation present for myself. The laptop promptly broke and I’ve been back repeatedly for repairs. Things got ridiculous during the latest bout of repairs. I had to go back to the store constantly over the past 7 days. First, Windows wouldn’t start. Windows loaded and then gave me a black screen that flickered on and off. The techs in the front of the Computer Store didn’t know what the heck was going on, so they held my laptop for repairs.

2L Summer Summaries

Best Summer Ever Week 11: Balls-to-Wall.

August 1, 2010

Man on laptop at cafe by Tim Gouw via Unsplash.

This week was embarrassingly busy. I didn’t even know what day it was during the beginning of the week.
The beginning of the week is a thick, sticky haze, but I think it had something to do with locking myself in my apartment to write my Physical Evidence paper.

The topic was Field Sobriety Tests. The thesis of the paper was that the tests aren’t scientific enough to form the basis of a DUI conviction. Luckily, the driver usually is usually caught with an open bottle in the car, falling over, or admits to being drunk. And the cops are usually organized enough to perform a somewhat more reliable chemical test (urine, blood, breath).

Of course, the evening after I finished my paper I got a bunch of cases on field sobriety tests. I wanted to scream. Actually, I might have. But it was 11:30pm and I was the only one in the building, so that’s okay.

beginnings / music / software

Buying the APC40

June 22, 2010

After being ignored at the Big Box music section for 20 minutes, I skipped over to the Guitar Center next door.

Just Sayin / Life

The Blackberry Reboot

June 9, 2010

My blackberry’s broadband service disappeared on me so I trekked to the suburbs¹ to the Sprint repair center.

I arrive, explain my problem, and I am told that unfortunately, my blackberry has to be reformatted. I suspect this is what happens whenever they don’t want to spend the time figuring out what the real problem is…but I shrug and ask them to save my contacts.

Since the reformatting would take 15-20 minutes, I fetched a magazine from OfficeMax and shuffled to the McDonald’s next door.

25 minutes and 1,500 calories later, I walk into the Sprint store and meet a very sad looking customer service rep.

Just Sayin / Minneapolis-St. Paul

Bad Customer Service at Sprint II: Resurrection.

March 10, 2010

Sprint customer's service is consistently underwhelming.

I’m furious.

Remember last month’s epic Sprint customer service fail when it took me three hours to purchase my Blackberry?

Well, this morning Madre Jansen sent me an email:

Madre Jansen: “What is this $30 equipment charge on the phone bill? Here is the username and password for the account. Figure it out.”

So I call sprint:

Sprint Rep: “Hi stranger. What’s the 10-digit pin for the account?”
Me: “Erm… I have a password and username.”
Sprint Rep: “Credentials fail. That’s only for online.”

So I hang up, call mom for the pin, and call Sprint again:

Me: “Here is the pin…”

Sprint Rep #2: “Great. Did you call us recently?”

Me: “Yeah, like two minutes ago. I had to get the pin from a parent.”

Sprint Rep: “Okay Shady. So, because you just called I have to have my manager listening in and….”

Me: “Okay. I have a $30 ‘equipment charge’ on my bill, and I would like to know what it is for.”
Sprint Rep: “Yes. You do have an equipment charge. It’s for equipment!”
Me: “…how helpful. But what does that mean? What is the charge for? What equipment?”
Sprint Rep: “I dunno. You bought something at a store. I just have a sku number. It’s a mystery!”
Me: “…well, would the store know?”
Sprint Rep: “Hm. Maybe. Where is the store? What’s your zip? Let me call them. Hold. […] They said you bought a Blackberry and a charger. It might have been for a charger!”
Me: “Hm. I bought a car charger, but I guarantee it wasn’t a flat $30… and I paid for it with a credit card.”
Sprint Rep: “We are only showing one charge on your mastercard.”
Me: “I don’t think I put it on my mastercard. That was just for the blackberry. Hm.”
Sprint Rep: “Check your bank statements. I dunno…”
Me: “I think the Sprint rep was going to give me a $30 credit for it taking three hours to buy my phone.”
Sprint Rep: “Hm maybe. Call us back when you figure that out. Peace!”

I pull up my bank statements online. The car charger was on my Visa. The blackberry was on the mastercard. Sprint was full of crap, and the $30 charge was still a mystery.

I call Sprint back.

Sprint Rep #3: “Yes, we see that you have a $30 charge. Let me look into that. Hold.”

Me: “… ”

Sprint Rep: Yes. It looks like your blackberry was $291.51 and you only paid $261.51 with your mastercard. That’s why your account was charged.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure the $30 was the “pain in the ass/incompetence” credit the store rep. offered me for waiting 3 hours at the store.”

Sprint Rep: “Oh, well let me contact that store. Hold. […] it seems like Hank, the rep that helped you, is not in today. The store will call me back tomorrow and I’ll follow up with you and we’ll get this resolved.”
Me: “We have to wait for him to go into work?”

Sprint Rep: “Yes.”

Me: “This is frustrating. The point of the $30 credit was to compensate me for his bad customer service that caused me to be in the store for 3 hours and now I’ve wasted 30 minutes dealing with this.”

Sprint Rep: “Sorry that you’ve spent thirteen minutes on the phone. I’m going above and beyond here because normally you would have to deal with the store.”

Me: “Oh, I’d love to give them a piece of my mind. And I’ve only been on the phone with you for 13 minutes but you’re the third person I’ve talked to today. I’m taking this pain in the ass in aggregate. I just feel further inconvenienced by the store’s incompetence and I’m frustrated that I have to wait to get this resolved. Whine-bitch-moan, boom-shaka-laka, laka boom.”

I was seething by the end of the call, and then called Madre Jansen:

Mom: “So grasshopper, how’d it go?”

Me: “BAH!! Next time I need something from a Sprint store, I’m going to Wisconsin.”

Note: the conversation is obviously condensed and paraphrased. The point is, that I’m only a Sprint customer because of my parent’s longstanding relationship to the company…otherwise I’d already be with AT&T.

Life

Getting a Blackberry

February 4, 2010

The Sprint customer service rep chuckles and says, “If you were here any longer, we would give you a shirt and an IRA.”
I smile, but I am tired, irritated, and ready to defect to Verizon.

I spent about three hours in the Sprint store on the day Gertrude ate my phone. The plan was to pop up to the Roseville Sprint store during my lunch break, buy the phone, and drive back to school for Family Law.

I had insurance, so a replacement phone would only cost $50. How long could it take?
I make it to the store and a hunky Sprint customer service rep tells me that the $50 replacement plan includes an upgrade to a Blackberry.

I have never owned a phone with internet access before, so this is exciting! I can finally play foursquare! It’s a whole new world, and not in that scary-Alice-in-Wonderland, “What the hell is that cat?” sort of way.

Hunky leads me to the Blackberries and I feel like doing an Ashlee jig.

Two hours later, the Blackberry is not exciting anymore. I am STILL in the Sprint store and the hunky Sprint rep is no longer hunky. He is now short, balding, incompetent, and officially renamed “Hank.”

It takes Hank 20 minutes to realize that the first Blackberry he showed me (the $50 one) doesn’t work with my phone plan. Fail. Hank then convinces me to buy a generic-PDA, also $50, but subsequently realizes (oh, just kidding!) the generic-PDA is not in stock. Epic fail.

Finally, Hank suggests the Blackberry Tour, which is older than the first Blackberry he showed me, and $100 more expensive. I am tired, late for Family law, and just want to leave so I agree to the older, more expensive phone.

I then watch Hank spend a half hour trying to set up the Blackberry.

Hank gets frustrated and has to call a tech support line… then something still isn’t right so he calls them again… then the internet on the phone doesn’t work…and, and, and. The customer service at the Sprint store makes health care reform look like a scene from Crank.
Once we hit the two hour mark, Hank sends me off with the Blackberry. The internet doesn’t work yet, but he says it should magically pop-on at any moment. If not, then call him.
So after my Family Law class I call Hank because (surprise!) the internet does not work. Hank tells me how to refresh the phone’s settings, which doesn’t work, so I drive back to Roseville (which isn’t terribly close to school) and waste another hour watching yet another customer service rep fiddle with my overpriced-yet-not-working phone.

The new rep gets frustrated. He calls the Sprint tech support line. He fiddles with phone. Reboots it. Looks into the distance… and then finally gives up, reformats the phone, and it worked!

New Rep: “Sorry it took so long!”
Hank: “Yeah, you spent like all day here!”
Me: “Erm…I guess the bright side is that I missed rush hour…”

Right.

But I finally have a functioning Crackberry. Behold:

I barely know how to use it, but I like it. This is the start of something dangerous wonderful.

2L Winter / pictures

Viva Miami, welcome Minneapolis

January 12, 2010

The pilot came on the intercom.

Pilot: “Do we have any MDs on board? If you are a MD please touch your flight attendant call button. A passenger is ill and we need your assistance.”

Everyone looked around. No doctors aboard. A flight attendant rushed by with an intense looking oxygen tank.
The pilot repeated his request, and then asked if any nurses or medical personnel were aboard. No takers. Vet techs? None.
I felt pretty useless – “I can offer qualified legal advice!”

We arrived in Minneapolis and waited for the paramedics to fetch the ill passenger. I then stormed to baggage claim and wandered the parking garage¹ for my car.

I hadn’t slept in 24 hours and was in a vicious mood.

I went to the University of Miami the night before. Trisha and I visited our old dorm and caught up on the student-life drammy.

The RAs chirped about homecoming and were freaking out about decorating their floors. Trisha and I looked at each other and laughed. We are both in professional school now, but just two years ago we were fumbling with construction paper and rubber cement. How bizarre.

I think I horrified one of the RAs who is thinking about applying to law school. Gloomy tales of the legal job market – dum dum dum!

After the dorm visit I went to South Beach for Lady Gaga² night at Twist.

Ben and I were posted at the main bar again. Blaring house music, strobes, bodybuilders, and periodic visits by the club’s manager and owner. Ben and I insisted on having a 4-hour³ conversation over the music, so I’m croaking like a seasoned smoker today.

I left the club around 5 a.m. and had a terrifying ride with a cab driver who was more familiar with the gas pedal than the road markings. I then showered and packed for the airport.

The airport was a disaster. The Delta Airlines area was understaffed and chaotic.
The baggage drop line was 100-people deep and crisscrossed the self check-in line. The result was that no one knew what line they were in until waiting in the wrong line for a half hour.
The lines moved at a glacial pace and we slowly realized that there was no way we would make our flight.

So many of us were late that they held the plane for us, but they didn’t tell us that the plane was waiting, so a pack of us tore down the terminal like we were being chased by zombie TSA agents.

After the airport sprint in Miami, the medical dramatics on the plane, and the 30 minute car seeking expedition in the Minneapolis Airport’s parking garage, I was so relieved to pick up Harley from the pet hotel and crash.

I slept for 8 hours, did laundry and some minimal cleaning, and I am going back to sleep so I can make it to work early.

It was a fun, exhausting trip.

Viva Miami, but welcome Minneapolis.

¹ Parking was close to $75…bejesus.
² Unofficial Lady Gaga night… they played “Bad Romance” at least three times, “Telephone” twice, “Love Game” and “Poker face.”
³ As opposed to the stand, pose, and smile routine that Carlos and I have mastered.

2L Winter / pictures

Brickell and the pissed off manager

January 8, 2010

These are some pictures of Brickell, which is apparently overrun with Publix grocery stores. The neighborhood has three Publix stores so far.

Mom and I went to the P.F. Chang’s in Mary Brickell village. A waitress told us to seat ourselves, and on our way to a table we passed a manager talking to a chef.

The manager was annoyed when he saw us:

Manager: “Next time when you come into the restaurant please wait to be seated.”
Me: “We were told to seat ourselves.”
Manager: “WHAT?”
Me: “They told us to seat ourselves.”
Manager: “WHO?”
Me: “A waitress. I dunno.”
Manager: “Well they are smoking crack!”

The manager then stormed off as if he was going to beat the waitress. The chef was mortified and approached our table.

Chef: “Thank you for coming to P.F. Chang’s. We appreciate your business and hope you have a pleasurable dining experience.”

The message was clear: “Sorry the manager is a hot mess. I’m not involved in this.”