Original Post
Ok, so. I was at school minding my own business dialing a friends phone number into my cell phone while leaning over the railing on the top floor at my school. I finished dialing the number and turned to rest my elbow on the railing while I talked to my friend but in between dialing the number and getting my elbow in the rail something terrible happened. For just a moment, I fumbled my phone... Then it was gone. It fell 4 stories onto pavement. Needless to say my cell phone is in bad shape. I was able to tape the pieces I recovered back together so I can turn the phone on, but I don't get service and the microphone part doesn't work. So yesterday I called up Sprint and asked how long I have had this phone and if I could get a new one at no cost to replace my old one. Turns out I have had this phone for a year(this month, lucky me) and I could get $75 off a replacement phone. Today I went to the Sprint store and showed them my phone and told them what the people that I called yesterday said. They were all fairly impressed by my new duct tape phone, but unfortunately its useless if it can't get service. So I start talking with this one lady who was going on about how this replacement stuff goes and we start looking at new phones. The cheapest phone they had there was $150. It's an average phone with no features really other than text and phone calls. I asked her what the deal with that was(I know a phone like that isn't going to be that expensive) and apparently I need to add two years of service onto my current plan and I will also get that $75 off, bringing the total to 3 more years of Sprints service and $75. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to add 2 years onto my contract and wasn't in the mood to spend $75 on a crappy phone like that so I asked why I can't just get my phone replaced without hassle. Everyone I've talked to said they will do that without a problem. This lady tells me that I can get a replacement phone for free or really cheap. So she gave me a phone number that I need to call and told me I had $50 to spend towards a new phone.(apparently that $75 is for upgraded phones + 2 more years of service). So I get home and call up this phone number and get this lady who seemed to be having a really bad day already. I tell her I need a new phone because I dropped mine and she asks for my phone number and password for my account and then she tells me I don't have any money towards getting a replacement phone and they can't give me a new one unless I want to pay full price for it. "Well isn't that a bunch of bullshit?" I asked her, and I told her what the people that the sprint store said and what they pulled me through to get me to continue on with their plan. There was nothing she could do about it(which I could understand) so I hung up and now I'm here. I don't know what to do... I don't REALLY need a cell phone, but if I'm going to continue paying for this last year of service I should damn well have one, shouldn't I? I always thought they toss those phones out like candy, and make the real money through the plans that they have. I'm thinking of buying my own phone and seeing if I can get it activated with my old number and and everything but I thing Sprint is all proprietary with all that SIMM card business(I don't know how it all works) and even if they can activate a 3rd party phone I think activation costs $40. So what can I do to spend as little money as possible, while keeping in mind I should have AT LEAST $50 going towards a new phone(according to these people who don't really seem to know what they are doing). I know one things for sure, once this contract is up I'm either switching to a new provider or getting a "pay as you go" phone.
