[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S 4] Skipjacks:
Last weekend I visited T Mobile and Sprint.

Here's the contrasting experiences...

T Mobile

My wife needed her first Smartphone. (Big day! She's joining the 21st Century!) We go to T Mobile to look at the new Samsung Galaxy Light. Great little affordable but shockingly powerful device. We walk into the store. The guy asks if he can help us. He points us to the Galaxy Light and leaves us alone until we need further assistance.

My wife and I play with the various smartphones as I show her the differences, we settle on the Light after about 25 minutes. I go to the guy int eh store and tell him I want one. He looks up my account, goes in the back to get the phone, registers it with her account, activates the SIM card, I swipe my credit card, the clerk and I make fun of my wife's texty phone from 5 years ago, and we leave. My total time with the clerk is MAYBE 5 minutes after I settled on buying the Galaxy Light.

No changes were needed on my plan. We have the simple 500MB data plan already. Just needed to buy the phone. Couldn't have been a better experience.

(I've had the same experience with the last 3 phones I've bought for myself at T Mobile. In and out no problem)

Sprint

Later that same day I take my mom to Sprint to get her first Smartphone. (The women in my life are really behind the technology curve. I don't knwo what to tell you.) Mom has a Sprint contract that she's only 4 months into so we're really stuck with Sprint for her.

We got to the store, we have to sign in so that we can speak with a cleark when they are ready rather than when we are ready. "Fortunately" there is an hour wait to speak with someone so we have time to show mom every smartphone in the store. We finally settle on the new Google Nexus 5. It's a good option for mom.

The cleark finally grants us the honor of speaking to someone about buying it. They give us a good option of selling her existing flip phone (Yup. I said flip phone.) back and getting a $10 credit on her bill for it for 24 months adn then charging $15 for the phone, then updraging her to a smartphone plan with mobile data...blah blah blah for a final total of $65 a month plus taxes. They go get the Nexus 5 and try to activate it. The system won't let them do it. The manager gets involved. No luck. An hour and fifteen minutes later (Total time in the store is now 2:15) the manager says we were quoted the wrong price because mom is not eligible to take advantage of that offer to sell her old phone back unilt January 1st. Then they basically show us the door.

I couldn't believe it. They wasted nearly 2 and a half hours of our time. Quoted it wrong. Then instead of finding a way to make an exception to eligibility rules and letting my mom buy the $450 phone and more than double her monthly bill like she wanted to (and was happy to do!) and told us to take a hike. They literally wouldn't not let mom switch her contract to a more expensive one and let her spend $450 on a phone. Refused to allow her to do this. Then just "See ya..." Not an offer to credit her bill $10 or something just to apologize. Not an offer to give a discount on the phone when we come back. Not a free case for it. Nothing. Conversely in T Mobile I've gone in with issue and they offer to give me a credit or something just because I had the problem.

These two stories happened on the same day. Two totally different results. I recomended that mom just suck up the buy out fee in her Sprint contract and move to T Mobile. It's worth it to avoid ever having to deal with that store again.