Monday, April 7, 2008

In Which Michael Almost Smacks the Crap Out of an Alltel Salesman

I really don't like stupid people. Stupid people who try to make me feel stupid when I'm correct make me even angrier.

So I went into Alltel today to get a new cell phone. Mine runs out on Thursday and I had talked to the sales people from Alltel, AT&T and Verizon on Friday and from what I was told by the salesman at Alltel on Friday, he said I could get this monthly plan for $39.99 a month with 500 minutes and unlimited texting. The same plan at the other two places cost $20.00 a month more, so I was all but ready to sign up for Alltel especially if I could get the phone price that it shows online. So here's my conversation with the salesman in the store, semi-paraphrased:

Me: I'm here to get a phone, I like this one and online it goes for $79.99. I just wondered because I couldn't find the plan that we talked about on Friday with the unlimited texting.

Salesman: Plan with unlimited texting?

Me: Yeah do you have a brochure, I'll show you.
(Open Brochure, read closer, no texting listed at all, guy on Friday was talking out of his ass)

Me: So what would it cost with unlimited texting

Salesman:(does a lot of rounded calculations on a calculator) around $64 a month.

Salesman: are you sure that you found that phone for $79.99 online? that's much less then what we are charging(yes he actually said this)

Me: Yeah pull up your website
(Salesman takes five minutes to pull up the site on his crappy Blackberry device that he had tried to sell me on earlier, with the $90 a month fee for apparently shitty Internet. He verifies what I had told him)

Salesman: Well here it says its $179.00 with a $100 mail in rebate

Me: Well if I buy in the store its $129.00 with no rebate correct?

Salesman: Yeah.........

Me: So its still $50 cheaper

Salesman: Yeah........but I know you have to pay shipping
(We check, you don't)

Me: (Remembering) You're probably going to want to charge an activation fee too right?

Salesman: Yeah..........
(AT&T told me they would drop theirs, but I'm ready to go as long as.........)

Me: So can we do the online thing here? or can you give me the phone for that price?

Salesman: No you would have to do that online at home to get that price (he goes on to say something about them being a retail location compared to an authorized dealer or some bullshit that basically means that giving me the online price would be too much work for him)

Me: So is there any retail locations around here for me to talk to?

Salesman: Well yeah..........but they might not have the same prices.
(Yeah they might actually sell me the phone for what the Alltel company says to sell it for instead of marking it up)

Me: Well I'm not going to pay you $50 extra for the same phone, but thanks for the help.

I walk out, swearing under my breath, wishing I could throw a couple of their overpriced phones in my wake, especially the nice pretty iPhone knockoff that I could probably get to shatter. So now I am fairly torn about who to go with because now they all cost about the same per month and if I go online I can get the phones for all about the same price.

So which is it going to be: MOTOROKRTM Z6m vs. LG Chocolate™ vs. W580i Walkman®
Your vote could help me decide.

6 comments:

Marth said...

OMG I hate salespeople like that! They annoy me so much when they're like "welllllll....let's see" and just waste your time. So lame.

I'm on Verizon and getting service at their retail outlets is quite a pain. Other than that, though, I like them. :P

-P said...

Go for the Chocolate!

Mike Robertson said...

in that case your votes sadly had no effect on my choice, but thanks for the info. I went with the AT&T Walkman phone, its pretty snazzy, its cool so far

-P said...

Ouch. Another blow to Democracy.

Mike Robertson said...

this isnt a democracy its a cheerocracy

-P said...

Well I would have made a different cheercision.