Which phone giant will taste your fury? Did FiOS burn down your house? Did Sprint’s wandering CEO step on your toes?
It’s #20 Sprint VS #13 Verizon.
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2009 series. The companies nominated for this honor were chosen by you, the readers, and seeded according to number of nominations. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Download the bracket here.
I choose Vodafone US. When I had their service, it sucked. And that awful red user interface makes me want to claw my eyes out.
I now have two plans on sprint, both with six phones on them, all of them with free blackberries and free service for those blackberries. On one plan i pay 150$ for 3500 minutes and everything else is free, and the other i pay 200$ for 6000 minutes, everything else free
Verizon would laugh if I told them i wanted that deal!
The choice seems clear to me
@CiroRufus: it is only a matter of time before Sprint catches you illegal plan and charges you as a single subscribe on the 6th lines for all family plans were up to 5 lines. If they see that you have free texting and internet on all those phones, they will take that away also. They are cleaning house. It takes time with 50 million plus customers but they will clean yours up soon.
I really gotta go with Sprint on this. For all Verizon’s faults, they do really go to bat for their customers where privacy is concerned. They’re pretty much the only phone company/ISP that consistently fights subpoenas.
I don’t use either one, so I voted for Sprint since those Dan Hesse commercials are, or were, about the most annoying thing on TV.
Constant dropped calls from Sprint. I worked in Downtown Oakland and had terrible reception. No reception in my office at all, a little bit in the park across the street (but still poor)and at home I had to go out on the front porch to get a signal. This is all in East Bay…one of the most densely populated areas in the state! I’ll also occasionally get voicemail messages up to a week later…phone will beep, says I have a message, and it’s from 4-5 days ago.
I’ve had Sprint phones (currently a crappy Treo 800W)for around 8 years but only because it’s what my employer gives us. If it wasn’t free, I’d sign up with another provider for sure.
Verizon keeps taking money out of my account although the service was cancelled almost a year ago. It takes aggravating phone calls and several months to be reimbursed each time. And this happens repeatedly!
Definitely Verizon. I got a new touch screen phone about a year ago and it really sucks. I have been with Verizon about four years now and have never downloaded a song, ringtone, game, picture, or sent a text message.
My third bill or so I see a charge for a downloaded song. I call to complain and they said maybe my friend downloaded it, I said I have no friends. Then they said I did it, which I most certainly did not. Even if I did, why would I pay $1.99 when I could get it for
.99¢? They absolutely refused to budge and said it’s impossible for the phone to have downloaded it by itself because I have to agree twice for the download.
What’s funny is that if you leave the phone alone for an extended period (I work on a computer, so it sits in front of me all day) the screens change all by themselves, as if some had touched the screen.
Anyone else have this problem with the Samsung Glyde?
If Samsung is reading this, how many other people have complained about this?
Verizon, despite its network, is horrible in its hiring practices. I was applying to be a worker at one of their stores, spent about 8 hours with their job fair, actually was told by the people that I was going to get the job, then told by HR (after almost telling me where to go for drug testing), that they didn’t want me. Waste of time, and false hopes.
I vote Sprint the worst because I’ve never had an account with them, yet they charged my bank account three times for services…that I never had and then refused to refund the money OR the overdrafts, bounced checks etc. that they caused.
I hate sprint. I mean absolutley hate them. horrible customer service. outsourcing your customer service to people who have a language barrier….along with no ability to use the service they are actually “troubleshooting” for,or “assisting” with for customer service….lovely, just lovley! They dont even get the concept of basic math down! I get prorated for my husbands plan. ON MY PHONE NUMBER! No changes made to my line or my number. Just to his…but we both got prorated, for a plan we already had! Took 3 people to figure out what the heck I was talking about….thats just one example of the exceptional service I have received from this outstanding company.
i went with verizon.
granted sprint has issues with dropped calls amongst other problems with customer service. fortunately sprint made the effort of making the consumerist hotline which has been a tremendous help.
but verizon really messed it up with FIOS. they handled the situation REALLY poorly and are still currently mishandling it.
Man.. I’m going to go Verizon on this one. Yes, sprint customer service/technical support is well… lacking. But Verizon locks their phones down with special firmware to force you to use their expensive picture messaging. I rank that a worse offense.
I left Sprint for Verizon years ago for cell service and the service is so much better. Of all the major carriers, I would say that Verizon has the worst phone options, and it sucks that they tend to be the most restrictive when it comes to limiting phone capabilities.
Although Verizon is inherently more evil than Sprint, at least the products generally work as promised.
Sprint FTW.
I’ve had every major carrier. I can easily say that Sprint was by far my worst experience in every single category.
Verizon, other than being a bit more expensive than the rest, put Sprint and AT&T to shame in every category from customer service to hidden fees and call quality. The only reason I left them is because I really wanted the G1 phone from t-mo!
I can’t say I’ve had any bad experiences with Sprint – the SERO plan is the best deal I’ve ever seen for a cell phone plan. The only times I’ve had to deal with Sprint customer service (only once, maybe twice in two years) were painless – I actually got a $5 credit that I wasn’t even asking for. The coverage can be spotty in more rural areas (I travel between Northwest Ohio, Southern West Virginia and Western Maryland regularly), but never anything terribly contrary to their coverage maps.
We use Sprint here at the office and their coverage, prices and choice of phones is fine, but their customer service is terrible.
I would have to go with Sprint on this one. While my service, call quality, and things like that have not been a problem, the customer service is awful. First, when I opened my account they somehow mixed it up with someone elses..I had to spend countless hours on the phone and emails back and fourth between the higher-ups. I have had other problems requiring tech. support too and each time has been an awful experience. The only reason I’m with them is because I’m on an insanely cheap SERO plan that nobody can match.
I am not a fan of either company, but having worked for another Telco. I have an extreme dislike for Verizon. They have a flair for disrupting other Telcos services and delaying fixes or pointing fingers at others when the problem is actually theirs. They have been around in various forms since Ma Bell was broken up so they should have a jump on all network coverage phases, but still seem to not be the best in many areas.
They carry a lot of their competitor’s last mile data links and charge extremely high prices for them. It is sort of like owning FedEx but not being able to deliver to a building. You would have to use the USPS delivery people. Good luck getting them to fix the link also. I have even seen them intentionally take down competitors’ links while they are fixing their own issues.
They also have the best propaganda system of lobbyists in Wash. DC to keep their profits in place. They push the FCC in ways that really are not in the best interests of the country and keep a lock on some of their revenue streams. Look at the way Sprint had to spin off their data services when they merged with Nextel. Verizon has both data and wireless services without restrictions. Sprint had to form Embarq to get the okay from the FCC/Govt to buy Nextel. What is the difference? Look at the new 4G systems coming out. WiMax is open sourced (Sprint, Intel and others), LTE is proprietary. Verizon will do what ever it takes to keep protecting their profits from a real competitive market place.
Verizon is an arrogant bully of a company that will keep their prices high and offer the least service they have to, in order to keep the FCC/Govt in their pocket and on their side. They point fingers at every other company first, then look to see if they have a problem, then they delay the repairs and report the problems as someone else’s problem. How do you think they get the best reliability rating?
Verizon has a bad name in the north and in the south. Sprint may have some challenges, but no company cares for its employess and customers as much as Sprint. In Ok. they rock the state with the most dependable network, i get to shoose a plan that fits everything i need. I have no complaints. Verizon from what I have heard is the pits.
I use Sprint, and can honestly say that I’ve been a satisfied customer now for 3+ years. Although I have never had a Verizon account, I do have family that uses them, and they are NOT as happy. In fact, I think they are planning on making the switch to Sprint.
After working at a Sprint call center, I can say hands down that Sprint has terrible customer service. It starts in the classes and continues out to the main floor. I have never worked anywhere in my life where it was all about meeting METRICS and not about helping the customer. Employees would hang up on the customer or transfer them to someone else to meet their Average Handle Time. The employees will only help a customer if it will help their METRICS which is a sad way to do business. People in here bragging about the SERO plan…well, that is all they can brag about. If you read between the lines, they are really saying that if they could get the same plan elsewhere, they would jump ship but they are STUCK at Sprint with the plan unfortunately. I worked at the Orlando call center and I was appalled in my training class to be taught by Sprint Trainers that we could sell or upsell anybody if they could verify the account, even if it was the 7 year old child calling in. We could even extend the contract by 2 yrs for a 7 year old child. Then Sprint turned around and taught us on internal fraud for they do not want internal fraud but it was ok for us to defraud the customer? Then I am now going through all my training papers from my classes and when they taught us in class, we were given copies of real Sprint customer accounts with their Social Security numbers visible and you have a class of 20 at a time reviewing this and then they photocopied it and sent it home with me. Scary to say the least!! Keep in mind when employees are fired, most are either fired for points meaning too many absences or they are fired for FRAUD. But I sit here staring at somebody else social security number from North Carolina.