This is Round 28 in our Worst Company in America contest, Sprint vs Hewlett Packard. Vote which sucks more, inside…
Here’s what our readers said when they nominated these two companies:
Sprint:
“Thank God I got away…”
“always messes up my billing whenever I make any kind of adjustment to my plan. This usually takes months to fix and many calls to their CSRs.”
“have almost all of their customer service/tech support lines outsourced out of the U.S…often out of the hemisphere altogether.”
“(actually telling their customers to use a competitor!)”
“My drummer has Sprint and his phone is often screwed up, making scheduling rehearsals difficult. “
“service blows and they reupped my contract without asking. Where’s the class action lawsuit?”
“I successfully escaped about two years ago after being with them for over 10 years. I feel like a VIP with Verizon Wireless after Sprint’s horrible service.”
Hewlett Packard
“for moving tech support to India!”
“They will be rising to the top of the bottom very shortly.”
STILL OPEN FOR VOTING:
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Bank Of America vs Toys R’ Us
Toshiba vs Microsoft
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Time Warner Cable vs Radioshack
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Wal-Mart vs TJMaxx
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eBay/Paypal vs COX
Apple vs SallieMae
Diebold Vs Pfizer
MTV vs TransUnion
CompUSA vs DirecTV
Target vs Best Buy
Allstate vs Verizon
DeBeers vs 1800 flowers
Starbucks vs United Airlines
Exxon vs Crocs
Google Vs Sony
Ticketmaster vs Wachovia
Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association
Comcast vs Menu Foods
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Sprint hands down.
I own .0000000000001 % of HP, so I gotta go with sprint.
I’ve never had any problem with HP, to tell you the truth. The times I’ve had to deal with tech support have all been positive experiences. I have to go with Sprint here, used to live in Wake Forest NC where Sprint was the local phone company, and had a Sprint PCS phone that I hated. Couldn’t get out of that fast enough.
Have had the good fortune to never deal with HP, though I have an HP printer (works fine).
On the other hand, Sprint. My family has been with them for upwards of 10 years and CSRs treat us like garbage. Granted, we stick with them (it works for us), so some people will inevitably say “stop being part of the problem”, but really, they do need to improve customer service. The last few times I’ve called, I’ve spoken with people who barely, barely speak English.
I’ve been with Sprint for more than 10 years. I’ve had a few problems, which were solved in a relatively short time. I’ve used my long tenure to get deals out of them, such as “new account” discount pricing plus a rebate (credited immediately, without sending in a rebate form) on a new Blackberry.
Maybe I’m being too easy on them because I’m conditioned to expect some issues (relative to land lines) with cell phones. Is there a national carrier that’s really better?
I ended up voting for HP, but I probably should have just abstained.
With Carly axed, the decision is a bit more difficult. But I still have to go with HP because they ruined the Compaq Proliant brand and they coasted on their reputation for indestructible LaserJets for far too long. Lexmark and numerous others are much better buys for corporate printing.
As a side question: How long is this “contest” going to continue? At this rate, a winner won’t be declared until sometime in October.
I’ve had problems with both companies. However, my vote must go for sprint. A good friend of mine (a Sprint Customer) is from Kansas City, home of Sprint’s corporate headquarters. He tells me that when he drives by the corporate compound, he gets no cell phone reception, making the sprint office an invariable “dead zone” of cell service. What else could you ask for?
I had two bad experiences with HP. I would never buy a computer from them again. They NEVER followed through with their promises. I voted HP. Sprint has been good to me. I have good luck with Sprint CSR’s. I dunno…
I chose HP. For one, I was never foolish enough to be drawn into Sprint’s clutches. Second, for the obvious reason that was omitted:
They gouge on ink costs. Being the leading supplier of office printers in the nation, that’s a lot of gouging. Not to mention their computers are just ok (at least they brought Crapaq out of the dumps), and they load them up with useless bloatware. Say what you will about Dell; they’re definitely the company I have had to least rid of pre-installed crap/bloatware. I once worked on a Toshiba notebook that had both McAfee AND Norton per-installed… What. The. $%^&…
@ milesabove – I live in St. Louis and travel to KC for business all the time, that’s total BS about the “deadzone” around the Sprint compount, C’mon man…
@javi0084: Ditto. So what if HP can screw up making printers (their laserjets are about all that’s still good) and their calculators are a lot cheaper than they used to be, and sure, the tech support and their computers suck now, but … Sprint has SO much more potential for daily-life suckage.
@Pro-Pain: Also in STL and used to have Sprint (switched a long time ago though). They worked fine for me signalwise.
I usually vote on the impact of the suckage. HP moved its call centers to India, but I think all of them probably have by now. It makes sense off-hours to have somebody for whom the sun is out when you call, so to the extent that it improves service at dark-thirty, I’m all for it. I had better be talking to someone within three time zones of me during the day. Otherwise, you suck, HP.
Sprint probably sucks about the same amount as AT&T and Verizon. Put those three head to head to head, and the winner will probably get no more than 35% of the vote. AT&T sucks because they conveniently forget to stop debiting your credit card when you cancel service, which means I have to engage in guerrilla tactics to recover that which they stole from me. Verizon customer service consists mainly of a computer that you have to talk to as if you were talking to an autistic four year old. If Sprint exceeds that level of suckage, they deserve every bit of scorn and derision Consumerists can dish out.
So who do I vote for? I probably need phone service more than I need my laptop to work, so Sprint gets my vote.
@milesabove: Could be the phone he has, too…
@Buran – Small world. I live in a valley in SoCo and I get one maybe two dropped calls a month where I can’t even get a signal here with AT&T or any other GSM network. Sprint has been great and my plan is dirt cheap. I really don’t understand all the negative fuss about Sprint.
@Pro-Pain:
Sprint has a reputation for having the most lenient credit requirements of the major carriers. This could be an indication that they have the mindset to nickle and dime customers with extra fees to make up for a higher rate of defaulted accounts.
Or, it could also mean that they have more than their fair share of um… “less-sophisticated” customers who are more likely to get in trouble with their account, whine loudly, and disavow personal responsibility.
we are talking about the same HP that sells replacement print cartridges for half the price of the printers!?! did you forget to mention/remember that bad deed? what was the cost of HP ink? somewhere in the thousands per gallon?!?
I’d have to say Sprint. Sister’s on them, and it’s just ugh, ugh, ugh.
HP, on the other hand, I like somewhat. I loved their laptops and I say if I had to pick a laptop OTHER than a MacBook, I’d go with an offering from HP/Compaq.
Wow @ all the Sprint hate in this thread. Sure, their customer service is close to useless, but it’s not all bad.
I’m on the Sero plan and I have reception everywhere, even places I didn’t with T-Mobile. The internet is super fast, and I haven’t had to call customer service for anything so far. I guess YMMV.
Sprint. No doubt in my mind on this one. My friend has had Sprint for years and has gone through three different phones, all of which get poor signal and don’t receive some incoming calls.
@jonathan: agree completely. I have been with Sprint for 6 years now and never had a problem with coverage, customer service, or billing.
when do they end the voting/announce the results/update the competition ladder graphic?
Why is HP in the competition? Some very weird choices of matchups.
Sprint is absolutely abysmal. After my friends dropped them, Sprint said they would be getting a $45 check from Sprint since they were canceling after a month to month. Sprint went ahead and billed them again for the next month and wanted $60. This is two months after he canceled service with them.
It’s hard to keep track. Help, people!
Is Sprint one of the telecoms that sold us out so that Washington bureaucrats could listen in on our calls?
AT&T is the poster boy for that, and Qwest & Verizon told the lawbreakers to take a hike, but I’m unsure of Sprint.
@Bladefist: Yay for us HP stock owners XD
Anyone ever tried getting a replacment install CD set from HP(since they don’t even include those with computers, CD’s costing nickels each, big expense). Its hell. I went through 2 months, wrong CD’s sent the first time, all 14, yes 14 CD’s! and the thing has a DVD drive! Try going through those 14 CD’s 3 times before you figure out it is the wrong set. That’ll get your blood boiling. Ordered again, and they delivered them. To someone else on the other side of the country. Ordered AGAIN and they never showed up. So the guy I was fixing the computer for said screw it and bought XP in a store. HP SUX.
@Jonathan, @David–
You are correct. Their CSRs are very poor. Thats why you always call retentions. Where else can I have 1000mins-4 lines/unlimited text on one line /unlimited data on another for the low, low price of $75 after tax.
I love you Sprint!!!
@nyaz: My dad keeps getting his $0.17 dividend check from HP every year. sigh
So far, I haven’t had any significant issues with Sprint. (Knock on wood) I have the Sprint SERO plan and I don’t make a lot of changes or have excessive activity on my account.
As for HP, we’ve had more hardware problems with our HP servers than our Dell servers. And if you make any modifications to a base machine, they send you the parts separately and you have to install them yourself. Dell will at least build-to-order.
@Bladefist: lol
i like my HP. no real problems here…i went with sprint
@ShortBus:
I worked for over a year as a Sprint CSR and can vouch that a vast majority of calls I took were from lower credit folks, so you’re dead on the money there.
This is the match I’ve been waiting for, if I could vote for Sprint 1000 times I would because they suck beyond belief.
Aw, I kind of <3 my HP printers! They are so cute and work just fine for longer than I want them too sometimes (hehe, I like upgrading every few years). Plus they sell ink at Costco… WIN!
Spring = boo.
It seems that cellphone companies always win over computer companies.
HP has no customer service whatsoever, they follow a strategy of stopping support on products fairly fast (e.g., no drivers to Vista for popular printers) assuming that people will just buy new ones.
I’m a Sprint customer and I’ve had good luck with them, even with their CSRs.
I’ve had good experiences with HP products as well.
My vote is for Sprint, though. The stories of customer service horrors has really made me think twice about my choice to go with Sprint.
And yes, I went with Sprint before I came across “The Consumerist”
Both are evil in my eyes.
But HP is far more evil. Yes, their products are great. But you pay and arm and a leg for toner, not to mention all the waste that goes into them!
Especially their laser printers!
@nyaz: its a great stock. mine almost doubled.
I just left Sprint yesterday but have to vote HP. Their support has become bad enough to drive my customers to tears. My personal favorite is their heavy push to sell extended service contracts, even to customers trying to get their computers back from the black hole in HP’s service dept.
“Your current warranty expires next month which could mean your service won’t be covered.” Umm, say again? Playing the fear game? And should we pay for another year of sh*t service? I’ve heard the line from two of my customers with vanished computers so not likely it’s isolated.
Whether fraud or just incredibly sleazy, it’s enough for my vote even before we get to the damage I’ve seen from their techs.
@falc: You think that is bad? I have to spend $20 on the only cartridge my printer needs for a printer that cost me $15 on Black Friday!
Three years ago this month I had a battle royale with HP. In honor of that battle, I have voted HP.
I’ve had Sprint for about the last 5 years or so.
Had a little snafu last time I wanted to renew my contract, but a call to customer service resolved it quickly.
Also, I recently tried to change part of my plan online (for texting) and it didn’t work right, so I got to talk to “Mary” (probably not that nice Indian lady’s real name) and it also was resolved right away.
As for HP, I think I had one of their printers about 5 years ago, had Canons ever since though.
Not heard much bad about HP other than a few friends having HP laptop hard drives suddenly fail. However that was a few years ago.
I think Sprint has too many dead-beat customers (they also run the MVNO Boost, by the way, so what do you expect). People with shoddy credit tend to think the world is out to get them when they’re the ones who don’t seem to understand what 30% APR means.
Both of these companies seem to have problems, but neither one seems terrible to me, so I’m abstaining from voting this go-around.
Every HP product I’ve ever owned has broken within three months. In the repair process, they did some pretty egregious things as well. My friends with Sprint haven’t had any problems. I’m voting HP all the way.
Sprint… HP is just … well, being HP. They always stunk
HP printers may be cheap ink-guzzlers, but they put out the only printers which consistently have working linux drivers. Probably because they want it to work with the .001% of computers running HP-UX (HP’s Unix for servers product)
I made the mistake of signing up with Sprint several years ago, and immediately learned that Sprint has the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced anywhere. My bill was paid via auto debit, so from day one my history of bill payment was flawless. They thanked me by giving me too many bad billing and customer service experiences to describe here, but I can summarize it as a culture of meanness with customer service reps and store salespeople that seemed to be playing a game of “beat the customer.”
@razremytuxbuddy:
As former CSR, I can tell you you’re about the “beat the customer” remark. It’s pretty much true from what I experienced.
I don’t understand all the Sprint bashing, I mean sure they’ve probably done worse than HP but I don’t see how they’re any worse than T-Mobile, Verizon and especially AT&T.
I like Sprint service, fast EVDO internet everywhere, decent reception (beats T-mobile) and very cheap monthly plans. (SERO baby)
I’ve had my billing messups, but I never had to go through these wild chases that some people went through.
I’ll abstain from the voting as well though.
HP all the way. Evil evil customer service I can’t even understand.
Steals laptops for months at a time and magically “delays” them and doesn’t bother fixing them in the first place. And in my case, having it for a month, turning it on once (the day after it arrived) and just letting it chill in a storeroom for the time being.
And there’s no warranty info anywhere it seems, so sending in something for repairs is like playing Russian Roulette with their repair service.
I agree Sprint CS is terrible, however they seem more ahead of the curve compared to other providers in our area.
Data service is fast and easy to use.
HP on the other hand, they sure know how to keep releasing crap product after crap product. (I miss the old HP battletank printers).
Sprint.
HP, my computer is still doing fine.