Ugh. Over the weekend I was scanning through my spam folder before cleaning it out when I found a message from Sprint regarding my SERO plan. In short, they’ve been having problems fulfilling my order:

Thank you for your order! Reviewing your credit score is taking longer than expected. As part of processing your credit application, one of our representatives will contact you for additional information required to complete your order. Based on your credit history, a refundable service deposit may be required to activate your phone.

This is odd because: (1) we have stellar credit, and (2) we’ve had service with them for over 5 years and have never missed a payment. Anyway, they also provided a phone number as well as an order number to follow up with them.

When I called, I was told that the problem wasn’t my credit, but rather that I already had an account with them, so they couldn’t create a new one. No problem, though. He offered to cancel the order and put me through to their employee sales line to straighten it out (remember, the ‘E’ in SERO stands for employee).

Once on the line with the employee sales rep, I was told that: (1) they couldn’t add a SERO line to my account, and (2) I couldn’t add a separate account for this line. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the phone rep said that nobody else could do anything more then she had.

When I insisted (politely) on speaking to a supervisor, she relented. And it’s a good thing she did… After a brief hold, I was put on the line with a “floor sales specialist” who was able to fix the problem and transfer me back to the original sales rep.

The next problem was that the phone number that she wanted to assign to me was from our old area code. While we first started our Sprint service in that state, we’ve actually lived in two different states since then. Clearly, an area code from two states ago won’t work. Unfortunately, the best they could do was to give me the phone with the old area code and then have me call back to customer service to change the number when it arrives. While this is far less than optimal, it was pretty much the only option available, so I agreed.

From there on out, it was smooth sailing. They waived the activation fees, applied the promotional code (URANG) for the $50 statement credit, and so on. I gave them a credit card, they gave me a confirmation number, and it should arrive in 1-3 business days.

Total time on the line: 64 minutes