Well today I took the plunge into Android and Sprint. I recently switched jobs and my new company offers discounts on Sprint services and hardware, so in the interest of saving money I've left my Big Red Blackberry centric homeland and am sailing into new territory.
However, I got an even better deal that I thought I was going to after quite a bit of frustration, but I ended up getting 2 3vo's for only $25 each, so I think it worth mentioning in case it helps anyone else out.
To get my corporate discounts I have to apply through a special link provided from my business (BP.) I went through the entire process of picking on my plan, selected both lines to be 3vo's, billing information, background check, porting over my old numbers, etc. I noticed a promotion code on the frontpage of the link that gave me a $50 credit per line on new activations as well (which was "save50" without the quotes.) The discount was supposed to be $25 off per phone over 2 billing cycles, starting on the 2nd or 3rd bill. So I was pretty excited that I was essentially getting the 3vo's for $150 each.
Well, when I tried to finalize the checkout, my credit card was declined. I double checked everything, tried it a few more times, and it was declined again. Upset (and knowing that it wasn't my credit) I tried 3 other cards I have, and they all failed. After searching around, I found a phone number for online sales problems and called it.
I'm going to leave out the ranting and raving, but after 2.5 hours on the phone with Sprint customer support, constantly verifying my personal information, going over every detail with several people, supervisor after supervisor, I finally spoke to someone who had a high enough pay grade and IQ to understand my problem and help me.
Long story short, Chase (my bank) had haulted the charges from Sprint because after the 1st attempt at paying went through successfully (even though it didn't appear to on the website), every other attempt was also succesful. This sent off a bunch of red flags that were now fixed, so I was good to go.
The icing on the cake, and the point of this post, is that because I called and was polite the entire time, they turned my $50 per line delayed credit rebate into instant rebates, and applied the expired $125 dollar credit for porting your line over from another carried to both lines also. I had been offered the $125 earlier, but now I was getting an instant $175 off the $200 contract price for each phone for my trouble and time. I didn't have to buy any accessories, take any surveys, or do anything silly. I was also given free shipping and a waived activation fee, but I'm pretty sure that's standard treatment.
Also, if you're having problems ordering from Sprint's website, you might want to call your bank and make sure that you're not actually being charged even though Sprint is saying that it's been declined. I was definately charged every single time. If I had given up and seen this later, instead of it working out this way, my intense rage at having a $2000 charge from Sprint could've leveled an entire city. 8)
So if you haven't ordered yours yet, give them a call first. You'll get a larger discount if you're polite and ask nicely for it. You just may have to be on the line for awhile. If they say it's expired, it is, but they gave me the discount with no problems today (6/25) so I'm sure they'd be able to help you too. They were also able to get my corporate discounts applied correctly to my plan, so even though I was extraordinarily annoyed and irritated at my first experience with Sprint, I think they made up for it nicely.
My new phones are set to arrive early next week, and my services switch over officially this next Friday!
