So, I headed out to my second most hated place 2 to wait in line. I verified with the overly happy Sprint rep that my account qualified for a rebate IF I purchased a new phone with a specific type of service plan. No problem. I just had to fork over the full price of the phone up front, and then the rebate would be forth coming after XX weeks of waiting.

So, happily buy my phone, fill out the paperwork, migrate my old plan to the new phone and await my rebate.

Sprint is nice enough to post your rebate status online. How nice! So, I have been checking it every few days to see its status. Today the status changed from "processing" to "INVALID - Incorrect service plan"

WTF? I specifically bought that service plan to get the rebate.

So I call Sprint, wade through about 10 levels of automated menus and finally crash out to a real person. I am not even going to comment on how clue less this person was. Suffice to say they were a few DNA strands short of being a human. After about 10 minutes of this nimrod telling me "Hold on, I think I can find the information over here.." and "Please hold while I ask somebody" Asshat. I was ready to reach through the phone and hand this a fist full of clue.

Finally, dorkwad decides he can't help me, and transfers me to the "business accounts dept" because for some reason my service plan is now classified as business plan (who knew!).

So, Mr. Business Plan gets on the line. I have to go through the whole explanation again. He is able to verify my phone number and service plan type (ding!). He then tells me the reason my rebate was invalidated was the plan I chose is so new, that the computer hasn't associated that particular plan as a rebatable plan. But it definitely qualifies for a rebate. So he fiddles with with his computer and tells me that I have to resubmit my rebate form. "But," I say " I already sent in my receipt and original rebate form" "Oh don't worry, just go to the Sprint store or a RadioShack and pick up another rebate form and submit that".

Ok. what ever.

Luckily there is a Ratshack 3 just around the corner. I pop in to grab a new rebate form. The poor Ratshack employees can't seem to understand why I want a rebate form with out buying a phone from them. After some discussion, I finally am able to coax the hallowed rebate form from the store manager.

I get home to fill out the rebate form. And I notice the form is slightly different than the one I filled out originally. Turns out this one is for purchase dates between Feb 1, 2004 through April 2004. Damn it! I have a receipt that has Jan 27th on it. The original rebate form was good through Jan 31st, 2004.

So, already I know that I have to go back to the dreaded Sprint store and hope they have some older rebate forms that I can use. Because I *know* that if I submit my Jan 27th receipt attached to the Feb 1st rebate form it will get denied again.

The games that these companies play 4

1 I am the poor fool who will burn through 1000 minutes in a few weeks. Its insane. Luckily its mostly work related calls.. but still. My brain should be fried by now.

2 I only hate Banks more than the Sprint store. Banks are NOT there for the customers. Access fees, crappy lobby hours, pisspoor customer service, etc. Fskin' banks. The closest I will get is a credit union.

3 While I was in there, I picked up a sweet digital multi-meter. My poor analog one was well used well beyond its designed lifespan. So, my trip to Ratshack wasn't completely in vain.

4 When sitting in traffic, sometimes I will call the automated voice activated customer "help" line and talk with 'Claire' the automated attendant. I am slowly working my way through the system, trying various hacks trying to get to a higher level access menu. So far I can get to a prompt that asks "Please say your supervisor code word". I'll get it eventually. Sprint doesn't have that much imagination.