A new cellphone battery in 10 easy steps
The batteries that shipped with Sprint PCS's Sony Ericsson T608's are known for arriving nearly DOA. My phone's battery was no exception. What really got me going, though, was the fact that about ten minutes through a phone conversation at the end of one day my battery died, even though the only prior use was for about two minutes at lunchtime. I resolved to get a free replacement, and had some time to kill on Dec 31. So I embarked on my journey.
1. *2. Called Customer Care and complained about my 10-minute battery life. He walked me through turning off roaming.
"But my phone never roams! I've always got four bars of signal."
"That's all I can do. If you want to know what's going on with your phone, go take it to a Sprint Store and get diagnostics run on it."
2. Go to the closest Sprint Store. A girl named Erisa takes my phone, writes up a trouble slip, and gives it to me as a receipt. Unlike the last time I did this, the MSL wasn't written on it, so I couldn't get it. The diagnostics took an hour, so I wandered to the other side of the strip mall, where I roamed the Home Depot.
I went back to the Store. Erisa went into the back, and retrieved my phone. Both the phone and the battery passed diagnostics.
I was furious. She kept explaining to me that the battery had passed the diagnostics test. I kept at it. "Are you telling me that it's normal for a battery to provide ten minutes of talk time?" After about three minutes of this, I asked if there was a manager, or anyone else who could help me. She explained that she was the manager, and that she couldn't help me any more. "We don't sell the T608, so we don't have any batteries here that I could give you." She gave me a card with her name on it, and wrote a number to call on it: (888) 788-5001.
I went home.
3. Glen. "That's a warranty issue. Can't you take it up with the manufacturer?"
"I bought the phone from you. I've already spoken with two other people; I don't want to get started again with a different company."
"OK. I've been looking through your order, and I can't see your phone. Did you buy it at a store?
"No, I told you I bought it through TeleSales. Or some branch of it. Aren't you all the same company?"
"I think you'd better call them."
4. (866) PCS-AUTO, the number which I used to purchase the phone. "Press 1 to purchase a Bluetooth phone. Press 2 for support." I pressed 2. Bad choice.
Julie: "Is this a car phone?"
"It's a Bluetooth phone, which means it can be used as a car phone, but it's also a normal cellphone."
"I'm sorry, but this is for support of car phones. Did you try calling the number at which you bought the phone?"
5. (866) PCS-AUTO. 1.
Brandy: "Can I help you purchase a Bluetooth phone?"
"Actually, I purchased one nine days ago, but my battery doesn't hold a charge. I'm running out of people to talk to. Can you help?"
"I could help you order a phone, but if you've already got one, then I can't help. Would you like to speak to someone in Accessories?"
"Sure, why not?"
6. Accessories (866) 343-1114. Ashley (a guy) answers.
"Well, what I can do is order you a battery and charge it to your account, then send you to customer support. They'll send out a kit for you to send your old battery in, and give you credit."
"Before we do that, can you check to see if you have a battery for my phone? It's a Sony Ericsson T608."
"Let me search... What did you say? Samsung?"
"No, Sony Ericsson."
"Oh. Can I put you on hold?"
...
"Hello? That phone's too new for us to have accessories for it. Maybe Customer Service can help you. Let me transfer you."
"Sure."
7. (888) 211-4727. Customer Support. Harvey.
"I'm really sorry, sir, to hear about this. Let me call around and see what I can do."
He calls everyone he knows, trying to find someone. He isn't successful.
"I have an idea," I propose. "How about you give me a $40 service credit, and I go buy a replacement battery myself."
"Sir, Sprint Stores don't carry accessories for this phone."
"I know. But the same battery is used for phones of other carriers."
He keeps trying to call other departments.
"Sir, try talking to Telesales (USAATS). (800) 480-4727. Let me transfer you."
8. Brian, at Telesales.
"I'm sorry, but we couldn't even replace the phone if we had to. It was a very limited run."
"But I don't want a phone replacement. I've only had this one for nine days. All I want is a new battery."
"I'm not sure I can help you."
"Perhaps I can get a service credit towards buying a new battery myself?"
"I don't have the authority to give service credits. Customer Service who sent you to me does. Have you talked to Sony Ericsson?"
"I've looked on their website. But I don't want to call them and start all over."
9. Sony Ericsson Support. (800) 374-2776. Sandra answers.
"Who's your carrier?"
"Sprint PCS."
"Have you tried to deal with this through them?"
"Yes. I talked to eight people, of whom none could help. I bought your phone, nine days ago, and I'm getting ten minutes of talk time. I want a warranty replacement for my battery."
"Have you tried conditioning it?"
"What?"
"Fully discharge and charge the battery three times."
"Well, every time I use the phone it gets almost-fully discharged because the battery is so weak. But, no, I haven't explicitly conditioned the battery."
"Try that. If that doesn't work, just call back, and refer to case #00000000."
Over the next five days, I charge and discharge. No help.
10. Sony Ericsson Support. (800) 374-2776. I wait on hold, and listen with the speakerphone. When the man answers, I switch off the speaker. I miss his name.
"My T608 came with an almost-dead battery. I called earlier, and was told to try to recondition it. I'm sorry to say that it didn't help. This is in reference to case #00000000."
"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. Can I get your name and address?"
I give him that info.
"Due to a backlog of orders, this won't ship for 10-15 business days. Is that all right?"
"That's fine."
"Have a good evening."
"You too."
Easy, eh?
Comments
Easier way
SKIP TO STEP 10 !!!!
Posted by: Erick Hartung | January 5, 2004 9:22 PM
I went through a similar process with Verizon and a seriously messed-up DSL order about two years ago. You have my sympathies.
I see you did the same thing I did, which was to keep a record of all calls, phone numbers, names, and so on. In my case, after two months of phone calls and talking to at least 20 different people, I finally found someone who gave me Verizon's super-secret last resort customer service number, and the fine folks at that number solved the problem. I'm never going to get rid of that number. :)
Posted by: Eric | January 6, 2004 1:21 AM
I just wanted to thank you for posting this information. It was truly helpful!!
Posted by: vporter | January 6, 2004 3:17 PM
on the phone with them now. but i started at step 10. painless!
Posted by: Dan | January 7, 2004 1:16 PM
Wow, I guess all wireless carriers CS suck these days. I've been pretty happy w/ T-Mobile, but AT&T Wireless was pretty much crap. That was one of the main reasons I switched to T-Mobile. That and the fact that I was able to uptrade to a T610, and keep my number. Now if I could just get FaxMail to work, I'd be all set.
Posted by: Chuck Plater | January 16, 2004 3:22 PM
If the reasoning for shipped dead batteries is that they've been sitting in a warehouse, who's to say the one's shipped by the accessories dept haven't sat in the same warehouse for the same duration?
Posted by: David Westman | February 1, 2004 9:11 PM
Because the batteries are used by several models, and as such have had turnover, while the phones were sitting there.
Posted by: Avi | February 1, 2004 9:18 PM
Can anyone tell me if the new battery has fixed the battery life problem or not?
Posted by: Frank | February 16, 2004 12:23 AM
Yes, the new battery works wonderfully.
Posted by: Avi | February 19, 2004 12:09 AM
THANK YOU!! I skipped to step 10 as well, that was wonderful.
Posted by: Robert Henriksen | April 2, 2004 2:07 PM
yes works perfectly (thought there is a new number to call, but the will redirect you).
The service reps are getting a little bit tricky though and asking a bunch of questions and suggestions of things to try first, even when i had told them i had already done the "reconditioning". very helpful though and gettin ma new battery.
Posted by: GQmacguy | April 16, 2004 6:44 PM
Yes, they are getting trickier, my guy made me go to Sprint directly, I told him Sprint doesn't have it (He didn't seem to have a clue), He was nice, but clueless. You need to mention the BST-25 specifically, or else they might not help.
Posted by: Bob | April 28, 2004 12:37 PM
The phone number has been changed. Try 866-766-9374. You actually can use the original posted number and it will forward to the new one.
The customer service rep was very friendly and processed my replacement in a matter of minutes. However, he informed me that it was on back order and there is no ETA at this time for delivery. I was given a case number.
Be prepared to take the battery out and to read back a couple of numbers. The first is one above the top barcode, to the far right. Mine was 03W25. The second item is to verify the battery model, which was BST-25. He did not ask for a serial number.
By the way, I took command of the phone conversation (in a kind and gentle way) and told him what I did to make sure it was a bad battery, by letting him know that I reconditioned the battery at least 3 times, read the manual to turn off unused features, such as Bluetooth, etc. It did not take him long to figure out that I already did a fair amount of troubleshooting and a replacement battery was required.
I asked about proper disposal and he indicated that I will probably get some mailer to ship the battery back and shipping will be paid for.
I anxiously await for my replacement. Right now, I am lucky if I can get 30 minutes of talk time on a full charge.
Posted by: Rene | June 11, 2004 1:21 PM