How to lose a customer

I'm on Sprint.

We switched to Sprint in the fall of '06 when we moved to Stepford, as it was supposed to be one of the more reliable carriers down there. Now that we're back in the city, we're looking into whether we should stay with them. They've been pestering me with regular phone calls touting their new phones and plans, so I think they're as aware of this as I am. On the one hand, we have a good plan, but Sprint doesn't work in the subways. Also, the Mister's phone has been on its last legs for a while and we want to figure out our best options before making our move. As I said, we have a good plan with Sprint and we would probably pay more if we switched, so it might be worth re-upping for another two years.

Our research-our-options plan fell apart when the Mister's phone died completely.

No worries, a friend who is also on Sprint sent me a Treo that's been taking up space in a drawer since he got a Crackberry. Totally peachy ... until I called to switch the service over.

Sprint's system automatically resets the clock if service is switched from one phone to another. The plan of switching my line to the Treo and giving the Mister my old phone would set us both back at square one with phone rebates. I asked if there was a way to file some sort of formal feedback to complain about this policy, and was transferred to a line where ... I was placed on hold for more than five minutes. I don't know if they just have so many people complaining or if someone decided that the best thing to do with mildly annoyed customers is to annoy them further. I eventually spoke with a nice gent who assured me that they could put a note on our account that would possibly let us get the discount if we re-upped, but there were no promises that this would have any effect. Call me cynical, but I don't put much faith in "let me cripple you today in the hope that we'll give you a crutch tomorrow" assurances.

But here's the crux. We'll both need new phones eventually, and we'd probably want to keep *those* phones for two years also. But now staying with Sprint means that we'll have to pay retail, losing $150 in the two-year re-up rebates *per person* that we have genuinely qualified for, rebates that every cellphone provider offers new customers. Forget their phone calls asking me to stay, this is a $300 incentive that Sprint just gave us to go somewhere else.

And the Mister has some serious iPhone envy.