Sprint 'ing To Another Mobile Phone Carrier

Confession time: For the past 12 years I have been involved in a love/hate relationship. We had some good times together and we had some very, very bad moments, but through it all we always were willing to work things out and overcome our issues... that is, until now. We finally hit a roadblock in our relationship that neither of us were willing to budge on. Usually about every two years, we would hit one of these roadblocks and we would bring in a mediator. This year, the mediator just couldn't help us bridge our differences. So, I'm leaving. After 12 years in this relationship, I am finally packing my bags and moving out at the end of the month. As a matter of fact, I have already found a replacement and her name is Virgin Mobile. Yes, I know Virgin Mobile is her sister and they share the same network, but she made me an offer I couldn't refuse so I took it.

Details? I'm glad you asked. For the majority of my 12 year relationship with Sprint I was under a retention plan. The retention department (aka our mediator) always seemed to pull through after the 8-12th call to them. Every 2 years I would get a better plan at my previous price point or I would get the same plan at a cheaper price point.
Currently my Sprint plan is the following:
-Unlimited Data/Web
-Unlimited Texts
-Unlimited Picture Mail
-Free Roaming
-Free Nights and Weekends starting at 7pm
-Free Mobile to Mobile
-GPS
-800 Anytime minutes with additional blocks of 100 minutes for $5.00 if we go over.
-2 lines
This costs us a base fee of $72 something a month before taxes and fees.

What caused us to leave? I'm also glad you asked. We wanted to upgrade our phones to either blackberry phones or Android phones. We currently have the Samsung Ace (Windows Mobile) and a Samsung flip phone. Sprint informed me that I would have to upgrade my data plan if I wanted a smart phone. My Windows Mobile phone (Samsung Ace) is a smart phone and utilizes the web, Windows Marketplace, GPS, etc. just fine on the current data plan but for some reason my data plan wouldn't work with the newer phones. In reality Sprint just wanted me to pay more for the same service I already have by calling it a different name and applying it to other phones. Data is data. I did not want to pay the additional fee and I didn't want to pay an additional 10 dollars a month per phone (if we got 4g phones) as we don't have 4g in our area. This time retention could not keep my bill at the same price point and allow us to upgrade our phones so I started looking around.

I looked at AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cellular South. I really looked at going with Cellular South but they were still going to be more expensive that my current plan with Sprint (all the others were way more expensive) and they don't have 3g data service in my area (7 miles on either side of me, but not here). That's when I thought I was going to have to just grin and bear it and just accept that Sprint had one this battle. That's when I happened across an ad for Boost Mobile. I looked into it and thought it was great. It was still more expensive than Sprint at the onset but after 18 months you get unlimited everything for only $35 dollars a month (it starts at $50 a month and gradually decreases over set month intervals: 6, 12, 18). Plus, there is no contract and the taxes and fees are included in the price points given. Once I started looking at it, I found out they were utilizing Sprints CDMA and IDEN networks (remember NEXTEL?). Ultimately I wasn't impressed with their phone selection... but I read somewhere that new ones should be rolling out in April (it could be nothing more than a rumor).

Then I found Virgin Mobile and saw they use Sprint's CDMA network and they had a little better selection of phones and one phone in particular that has good reviews all around: the LG Optimus.

Virgin Mobile's plans are as follows:
-Unlimited everything: $60
-Unlimited everything except for voice (1200 minutes): $40
-Unlimited everything except for voice (300 minutes): $25

With Virgin Mobile they also have the fees and taxes included so there is nothing to add on top of your monthly bill. And, like Boost Mobile, they do not tie you up with a contract either.

I also checked out Wal-Mart's offerings (Straight Talk) and wasn't impressed with their phone selection. I understand it uses T-Mobile's network, but the phones are less than stellar.

For me, Virgin Mobile allows both my wife and me to have an equivalent plan to what we had for a cheaper price point (she is getting the $40 plan and I am getting the $25 plan) and we were able to upgrade our phones to the LG Optimus V (V stands for Virgin Mobile). We bought the phones through BestBuy for $129.99 a piece which is cheaper than elsewhere at this time and that is about what we would have paid to upgrade our phones with Sprint if they would have chosen to keep us as customers. The only thing that we will not have is the Roaming service as Virgin nor Boost offer that. With that being said, I don't know when the last time it was that I wasn't in a Sprint network area for any length of time.

We picked up our phones a couple days ago and have hooked them up to our wi-fi connection. They are very responsive and seem to be a great phone for the price. (the two cons listed in the linked review above are easily addressed by Skyfire for seeing flash content and Quick Settings for making your phone a wifi hotspot from the Android marketplace)I would definitely recommend the phone and I don't see why I wouldn't be happy with the Virgin Mobile service as it will use the same service that I am used to minus the roaming. We are going to change our numbers over to Virgin Mobile towards the end of the month as Sprint will not prorate service when your 2 year commitment has expired and you are on a month to month plan.

If you run across this, note it was written on March 9th, 2011 and hopefully it will broaden your options when considering your next phone carrier.

Grinding Up Live Hatchlings An Industry Standard

An undercover video shot by an animal rights group at an Iowa egg hatchery shows workers discarding unwanted chicks by sending them alive into a grinder, and other chicks falling through a sorting machine to die on the factory floor.



Here is their video page.

Here is their site with related content.

Some questions:
-Do you think it is okay to eat food that comes from this hatchery?
-Is there a humane way to provide food to the masses that is animal based?
-As a Christian, do you have a responsibility to keep things like this from happening?
-Does this change anything for you?
-Should animals set to be slaughtered be given rights?

EXACTLY! Clients & Vendors

With my videography business I deal with this all the time. Satire is great.

Nalgene Sued For Selling Toxic Sports Bottles

A California mother sued Nalge Nunc International Corp, claiming the company knew, but downplayed risks, that a toxic substance in its popular Nalgene plastic sports bottles could leach into the bottles' contents and sicken consumers.
The case, filed on Tuesday, is believed to be the first consumer class action over the use of Bisphenol A, or BPA, in plastic sports bottles since Canada moved to ban baby bottles containing the substance and the U.S. government expressed concern over its safety last week.

Nalge Nunc, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, said on Friday it will phase out production of its Outdoor line of polycarbonate containers that include BPA over the next several months.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc also said on Friday it will pull baby bottles and other products made with BPA from its Canada stores immediately and phase the items out of its U.S. stores next year.

You can read more here.

Some questions:

-Do you use the Nalgene bottles? Will you keep using them?

-Why do you think they are pulling them immediately from Canadian shelves but phasing them out from US shelves next year? Either their are harmful or they are not yes?

-Should testing be longer and more extensive before it is released for consumers to buy? How long is long enough? A lifetime?

-Why just baby bottles? If it is harmful, why not ban it in all items that contain it that we use for drinking/eating?

Sprint's Customer Service Is Severely Lacking

**Updated in the comments section**

After spending 2 hours and 20+ minutes on the phone with multiple Sprint customer service representatives I was unable to resolve my current issue: namely our bill has an unexpected increase in overage fees on text messages. It has always been 10 cents per text message over our allotted amount until this months bill.

My encounter with Sprint goes like this: I was disconnected while on hold multiple times (1 time after 1 hour and 4 minutes on the phone with a representative I was placed on hold and disconnected). I was told by 3 reps that they could not resolve the issue. One could not access my previous month's statements to verify what I was telling him was true. Another told me my pin was incorrect and placed me on hold for over 22 minutes while I waited to speak to his supervisor. He came back on the line and told me that he could ask me a series of questions to access my account but he could not get the supervisor on the line as he was tied up still with another call. Oddly enough, he said he gathered this information from his supervisor. He stated that the messages were 20 cents and previously 15. There were no 10 cent text message overage charges. I told him that was agreed upon as overage in the retention plan I am currently under. He told me that I was not under a retention plan. I asked to speak to his supervisor and he put me on hold and we were subsequently disconnected.

I finally get through again to a guy (you have to wait on hold before transferred to a real person that speaks English as a secondary or tertiary language) and explain the situation yet again and am told that "we cannot change the pricing of overage". I told him that they did: 10 cents to 20 cents. He said he understood but he cannot change it back to 10 cents. He then proceeded to ask me if there was anything else he could help me with (Please note here that I was asked this question multiple times by a couple of the reps. It was like they were saying "Okay, we can't address the issue you called about so drop it. What else can we do for you?"). I asked him to resolve the issue or transfer me to someone who could. He placed me on hold and we were disconnected. I then called back yet again and, to shorten things, was told the general business dept. could take care of the issue. I was transferred and subsequently disconnected.

I called back and finally got through to the general business department. He was able to pull up my bill, past bills and see the 10 cent/20 cent discrepancy. He stated that due to the current system change/migration, the system seems to think my text message overage should be billed at 20 cents so it "corrected" it to that amount even though the previous agreement was for 10 cents a minute. He then instructed me to call back tomorrow and talk directly with the retention department as he was unable to adjust the amount. So, after 2 hours and 20+ minutes dealing with something I shouldn't have to, I still do not have this resolved and will have to embark on this yet again tomorrow.

I must really enjoy wasting my time as that is all tonight was: a waste of time. I have subsequently emailed Sprint and will be awaiting their response to this whole debacle. I will report back their response.

Background Information: I have been with Sprint since 2001 and rarely have problems with them unless I have to call them. I have, almost without exception, come away from every phone call to Sprint frustrated or just scratching my head in wondering how in the world they get by with calling that customer service.

Some questions:
-How would you handle this situation?
-What would be your next course of action if any?
-Does it increase the level of frustration for you when you have to ask the representative to continually repeat what they are saying because you can't understand what they are saying and you are constantly wondering why they call this customer service? (Just curious).
-What would be proper restitution given the situation at hand?

Horrors From The DMV

So yesterday I spent part of my afternoon sitting at the DMV waiting for a letter to be added to my license. It only took 2 hours of waiting (a vast improvement from 4 years ago when my wife and I sat for over 4 hours to get my license moved from a different state to my current state). During those two hours I watched a man become so bored with his life that he actually fell asleep in one of those Department of Motor Vehicle chairs- no arm rests, no cushion, nothing to hold you in. He snored for about 4 minutes until something woke him.

You know, it’s funny that they have signs that say “No mobile phones or pagers allowed. You must turn them off or turn them to silent.” Even with these signs in multiple locations it did not detour the masses. Mobile phone after mobile went off. It is always interesting to hear one sided conversations. You really get a sense of how dumb you sound when talking on one in public. A majority of the conversations started like this: “Hello. Just sitting here in the DMV waiting.” I wonder why they wasted the paper and ink (read: taxpayer money) to print these signs if no one enforces the decree?

A young girl who goes to one of our many private schools showed up with her mother. She constantly was grooming herself in preparation for her license picture. You could tell she was excited. Her number was called. (By the way, what is up with the number system? G109, B269, B267, I412… No consecutive order and no way to anticipate the remainder of your wait. I think they planned it that way.) She had her mother to drive the car around to the side while she filled out some paperwork. The mother came back in and sat down and waited for about 10 minutes. Then it happened. The girl came running back in crying and sobbing looking utterly confused. She could not find her mom. I saw her mom shake her and she got up. She was trying to talk to her mother but whatever was coming out of her mouth was not English. They had to go sign for something and the girl never stopped sobbing. Apparently her 16 years of life on this planet was ruined and there was nothing else to live for. No, not even the driver’s test she could take the very next week.

To round out things a bit there was a lady sitting in the back to the left with two young children. Both children were not happy about the long wait and they were the only ones who would publicly display their contempt for the long lines and wait. Okay, maybe they did not grasp the situation but they did understand they did not want to be there and their mom was making them be there. For two hours they cried, whined, screamed, accused their mother of keeping them there, and demanded that she let them down. And yeah, while this was going on, the man was snoring, the 16 year old was crying and sobbing, several people did not allow the boredom to interfere with their public displays of affection and mobile phones were going off like an operator’s switchboard. Then, on the overhead you would hear: “B547 is now being seen at counter 8”.

What a fun and interesting day. If your DMV is not like this, please go to a bigger city and try to do anything with your license. Please. You have to do it at least once before you leave this world. I was to the point that I was thinking to myself, if my job was to come here everyday for 6 hours and sit and wait and listen and they paid me 1,000 a day, I could not do it. I would have to quit. I wonder if the DMV is a little taste of what a watered down Hell might be like? Hmmm.

Some questions:
-Do you have any interesting stories from the DMV?
-Do you have suggestions for how to increase the efficiency of such a state run place?
-Does my experience seem typical?
-Do you think the DMV employees enjoy their jobs?
-Do you think that since you are legally required to visit the DMV that is why they do not make strides to improve the efficiency of such a place? If you have to go, why improve it?

Sprint's Simply Everything Plan $99

The mobile carrier I have been with for eight years has finally offered a plan that I might be interested in that I do not have to go through the retention department to get. Every two years I call back to renew my plan and I negotiate. This last time we had to have plenty of text messages (my wife is a nurse (physician extender) and speaks in that language back and forth constantly with the doctors for which she works) and we did not want to pay more than we paid for our last retention plan. Granted.

Now they are offering everything but the kitchen sink for $99. Unlimited voice, unlimited data, e-mail, Web surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS navigation and push-to-talk. Considering that their current $99 single phone offering only has 2,000 minutes per month- no extras, that is a big leap for the underdog company that has had issues setting itself apart from the other big name companies.

You can read more here.
You can check out Sprint's website here.

Some questions:
-Do you own/use a mobile phone?
-What do you do most with your mobile phone?
-What would be your ideal plan?
-Are you concerned about the studies that say you risk brain cancer or infertility due to mobile phone usage?

Lady Sues Best Buy For $54 Million Due To PC Loss

Is your laptop worth $54 million? Raelyn Campbell of Washington, D.C., is suing Richfield-based Best Buy for that amount after it lost her laptop computer while it was in for repairs.

You can read more here.
Or you can visit her official blogspot on the ordeal here.

Some questions:
-Does her circumstance warrant $54 million in compensation?
-Is there ever a time when one should sue for an exuberant amount of money?
-If a company (or its employees) lie to you, does this entitle you to sue if "just" compensation is provided? (if it does, I need to sue Gateway before the statute of limitations goes into effect)
-Do you think this publicity hurts Raelyn Campbell more than it helps her case or do you think it brings to light practices employed by big chain retail stores?

Y'all Fat, And Y'all Eat Too Much

Ricky Labit, a disabled offshore worker, said he had been a regular for eight months at the Manchuria Restaurant in Houma, eating there as often as three times a week.
On his most recent visit, he said, a waitress gave him and his wife's cousin, 44-year-old Michael Borrelli, a bill for $46.40, roughly double the buffet price for two adults.

"She says, 'Y'all fat, and y'all eat too much,'" Labit said.

Labit and Borrelli said they felt discriminated against because of their size. "I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain't that fat, I only weigh 277," Borrelli said, adding that a waitress told him he looked like he a had a "baby in the belly."

I like the verbiage of a sign they now have displayed in their restaurant: Food is for eating, not toys for your child or 20% is added.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Does a restaurant have the right to keep customers from coming back because they take advantage of the offerings of the restaurant?
-How would you have remedied this if you were the restaurant owner?
-Did Mr. Labit handle it correctly?
-Does our culture discriminate against those who are overweight? If yes, in what ways?

Askville From Amazon.com

I recieved this in my inbox this morning and thought I would share. I am curious to see if it is just a knock-off of the now defunct Google Answers or the still up-and-running Google Groups or if Amazon has come up with some improvements to the peer answer system. It is going to be hard to beat threaded responses in my opinion.

Here is message sent to me: You're Invited! As a valued Amazon customer, you've been specially picked to get an early look at a new website Amazon has just launched called Askville. Askville is a place where you can ask any question on any topic and get real answers from real people. It’s a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know. You can learn something new every day or help and meet others using your knowledge. It's new, and best of all, it's free!

You can visit Askville here.

You Won A Million Dollars, But We Are Not Paying!

Gary Hoffman is suing the Sandia Resort and Casino after finding out that his Million plus win on a nickel slot machine was said to be a machine malfunction. He has a picture of himself in front of the slot machine with it reading his grand total winning. Patrons congratulated him, a marriage proposal was made and even employees congratulated him, but that was all short lived. Soon after he was pulled into a room and told rather forcefully (according to Hoffman) that he did not win anything and the Casino was not paying him anything as the machine malfunctioned. Later he was offered a free meal and the machines maximum payout of $2,500.00.

On the machine is a disclaimer stating that no payout will be granted if the machine malfunctions. The Casino says it was a malfunction (there are two different opposing conclusions on how it malfunctioned) while Hoffman contends it went into bonus mode therefore allowing him to win more than the maximum.

Hoffman is going to take this to court but there is an issue with that; this hotel and casino is owned by an independent Indian nation. They are their own sovereign nation and on few accounts can they be taken before the US court system. So, there is no guarantee that Hoffman will even see his day in court to plead his case.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-What are your thoughts on gambling?
-What do you think is the right thing to do here?
-Do you think Casino was right in not paying out the winnings?
-Does the disclaimer hold weight in this scenario?

Can I Get A McSalty Super Sized?

That is what a police officer received when going through the drive through at a McDonald’s in Union City, GA. Kendra Bull, an employee at McDonald’s for 5 months, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor due to the saltiness of the burger served. When questioned about the burger she stated that she told a co-worker and her supervisor who tried “thumping” off the salt before serving them. She said she didn't know a police officer got one of the salty burgers because she couldn't see the drive-through window from her work area.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Should an over-salted burger result in jail time and charges?
-What would happen if a patron took this to the police to file charges? Would they be taken seriously?
-Do you think other officers laughed at officer Wendell Adams when the burger was sent off to the crime lab for tests?
-It has never crossed my mind when I ordered some food without tomatoes and received food that clearly had tomatoes on it, but was removed (I know due to the remnants of tomatoes left on the food) to get the police involved. Have you?

O'Charley's Restaurant Closed Due To Roaches.

The local O'Charley's was closed after failing health inspections over a two week span for the same violations. "There were some critical violations," Bell said. "When we inspected there was a presence of roaches, a problem that had not been fixed when we did a follow up." When the restaurant was called by the Jackson Sun to inquire about the report, the only comment given was that the restaurant was closed for remodeling and construction.

You can read more here.

Some questions:

-Why does the Health Department allow restaraunts to remain open when such violations occur?

-Would you eat at a restaraunt knowing that roaches were present in the cooking/prep. area?

-Two weeks went by before reinspection and the problem still existed; do you think the public should have been notified before the second inspection?

-If you live locally, does this affect you eating at O'Charley's?

Dell Tech Support

My brother is about 10 years younger than me and heading off to college this fall. In preparation, he bought a Dell desktop PC for school. After he received it he noticed that whenever he pushed the power button, it would shock him. He told me about it and I told him that since he had just purchased it to call Dell and have them to fix the issue. He called Dell Tech. Support and after waiting on hold and following the prompts, he got through to a Customer Service Representative. He explained the issue and the service rep. told him that it was static electricity. My brother explained to him that it was not as it does it everytime you touch it, not just once until you move again. He was advised to wear a glove whenever he turned it on and if he still felt the shock through the glove to call back at that point in time.
Great customer service. I have long since promised myself never to buy a Gateway and now Dell has made it on that list. For the past 7 years or so I have resorted to just building my own systems anyway and am very happy with the tech support I provide myself. :)

Some questions:
-Is this typical of your tech. support scenarios?
-What is your worst customer service story?
-Do you have difficulty understanding the person you are speaking to on the other end of the line?