NorthofDetroitGuy's Blog

I have been a firm supporter in Americana.  Other than my vacations to Mexico, I consistently tried to buy American.  From Clothes to cars to cell phone service.  I have a Verizon Wireless account and recently tried to order a Blackberry.  I patiently waited 45 minutes or so in a local store.  This store is always busy, so I expected that type of delay or worse.  Of course when I got up to the counter, they were out of the blackberry I wanted.  They could order it, or I could try other stores that carried Verizon products and such.  So I went to the other local stores and all of them were out.  The first store gave me the toll free number to Verizon to order it if I couldn’t find it.  I called later that day, and upon doing so first I get a rep that says my service is $69 a month (states Blackberry data on their website at 44.99 plus number fee if not using an existing voice account).  I wanted to keep my cell phone separate so I can receive E-mail or be on the internet at the same time.  After a few minutes showing that rep the website she finally says let me transfer me to a sales rep (she didn’t tell me she wasn’t one).  So then I get Joe Cool on the phone who quotes me $106.94 a month for service.  I said, “I don’t need a voice plan”.  He says you have to get it in order to get the blackberry at X price.  I said, no you don’t it’s on your website.

Why didn’t I just order thru the website?  Because none of the providers let you order data only products thru their website so people aren’t confused and think they are getting voice and data and such.  So you have to call.  Which is what I did after hanging up with the Verizon folks.

I called the nice people at Sprint IN INDIA. (Verizon call centers are in Michigan and Ohio). 

The nice lady at Sprint who’s English was very hard to understand confirmed everything with me several times over (Thank god for that or I wouldn’t have known what I was getting for sure) and called me back the next day to confirm my order had let me know it had shipped.  They originally quoted me a Monday delivery and it arrived today (Thursday).  All communication was done with India.  It has kept me awake for days.  I absolutely hate even with the very difficult accent, I not only got better service from India, but there was no argument.  They were well informed and got me what I wanted within minutes.  Piece of cake because I already did my research on line.  I had model numbers all the way down to the last letter and my prices and service fees pre-calculated. So when Sprint gave them to me, it was just a validation.  It absolutely annoys me to no end that I had to give my money to India. Verizon left me with no other choice.  AT&T is price out of the market when it comes to Wireless Data so they weren’t even an option.  Metro PCS and Alltel don’t offer true Nationwide service for data.

Why does this bother me so much?  Sure, I see 50+ year old union workers driving their big SUV’s and supporting Arab countries by not driving economy cars.  I also see many with their Honda lawn mowers instead of Briggs and Straton.  I also hear people say “It’s a global economy” etc. etc.

So how come so many charities have to focus locally?

And most importantly in today’s market WHY IN THE WORLD DID I GET BETTER SERVICE FROM AN INDIAN THAN 2 AMERICAN’S COMBINED?

P.S. does anybody know when the next Red Crescent blood drive is?