iPhone Phail

Friday the 13th: EZpass over the Rip Van Winkle bridge to the Sprint store in Hudson NY. Buy iPhone. Request phone number transfer from BoostMobile to Sprint. Store agent initiates the port and then instructs it will take 2-3 days. I instruct the agent to cancel the port. I am told the port is cancelled. Leave store with new "working" iPhone.

Saturday: Set up the iPhone. Purchase Garageband from the app store. Nice.

Sunday: Attend a lovely sausage making event and lunch with friends at their lovely farm. During a political discussion, using my iPhone, I confirm that Newt Gingrich was born Newton McPherson and his middle name is indeed Leroy.

Monday: MLK day is a bit of a haze but I do remember finally fixing some pantry shelves that took only five years to get to.

Fast-forward...

Tuesday: AM. Wake up. Hand grind and brew my friend Ed's freshly roasted El Salvadoran bean. Drink coffee. Toast homemade sourdough and prepare to field calls and email which I was able to check on my iPhone while drinking the coffee and eating the homemade sourdough w/ fresh butter and local honey. Exhale. All is good.

Until...

I try to call my brother to go over the details of my recently deceased fathers estate and plan to deal with probate, taxes and other stuff.

"We are unable to complete the call"

I proceed to login to my Sprint account to check to make sure there isn't a network outage and notice the device phone number has changed. It's my old BoostMobile #. Wha? Huh?

Doing some online sleuthing I discover I could try resetting the iPhone but decide to call the store to speak with a Sprint rep. My first mistake and probably not my last. They're clearly not pleased to hear from me. They walk me through the reset process which after repeated attempts finally registers the new/old phone #. Took a while but I'm relieved to be back on the Sprint network. Woohoo!

Err not really...

"We are unable to complete the call"

Call Sprint store. Inform them of the situation. The agent says I have to bring the phone in and stresses I should never have left the store until the number port (remember the one I had cancelled) was complete. Translated: I should have come prepared to camp outside the Sprint store over the weekend. Clearly my fault. Clearly! What was I thinking?

Wednesday: Rip Van Winkle bridge. Ugh. The prospect of hours of wasted effort. Ugh. Prepared to just return the device, gird my loins, and get a new one. Start over. Problem solved.

Ah if it could only be that easy...

The agent. She insists she can activate the iPhone. What can I say I'm a wuss plus I need the fucking phone. After various attempts to activate (while I might add handling some other poor schmuck who wandered in after me), and forty minutes later, steam shooting out of both our multiple and tangential orifices, I demand a credit on the phone so we can both get on with our lives. Exhale. Done.

Thursday: Escalation Day.

Countless emails and phone calls within Sprint's customer service and tech support. Countless people with names like Jose K., Peyton C., on and on into an abyss of first names, last initial. Lots more emails, tweets, fb...Sorry call this number. Soory. Sorry. Sorry.

Yes, to their credit Sprint was apologetic. Owned up to their cock-up. What they did not say. What I really wanted to hear was that Sprint would have a working iPhone in my hands the next day.

Friday: Officially mobile phone-less. In fact without two working phones since my old BoostMobile account has been cancelled.

Thursday evening I gave notice of my Sprint account cancellation to Sprint Ecare. Still awaiting confirmation.