I went to this Cricket location to activate a prepaid phone after my previous phone was stolen. I explained this to Cassandra multiple times, but she never acknowledged it or showed any empathy toward my situation. This ended up being the root of the issue and ultimately wasted a significant amount of time because she never took the information I was giving her into consideration.
I was immediately told I had to pay a $10 activation fee, which I had never been charged before. I had to drive back home to get the money, and the fee was charged before my phone was even successfully activated.
Cassandra then spent about an hour trying to activate the phone. She repeatedly questioned where I got it, even though I had already explained that I purchased it from Walmart. When the eSIM wasn't working, she started suggesting that the phone was defective and repeatedly told me things like “I just work here,” “go to another location,” or “call customer service.” Ultimately, her attempt to activate the phone locked my account, while I had already paid the $10 and still had no working service.
What made the experience worse was how the situation was handled in front of other customers. At one point, while she was helping another customer whose eSIM activated successfully, she pointed it out to me from across the store as if to demonstrate that theirs worked. I found that embarrassing and unnecessary, especially when we were clearly dealing with different situations.
I have previous experience in AT&T customer service and sales, so I explained that I believed using a physical SIM card would be the better option. Eventually, I had to use the store phone, wait another 30 minutes for customer service, figure out how to get my account unlocked, and then tell Cassandra to try the physical SIM. Once she did, the phone activated successfully.
So after nearly two hours, I essentially had to diagnose the problem and guide the solution myself. The phone wasn't defective—the problem was ultimately resolved by using the physical SIM, after I had repeatedly suggested that solution myself.
The biggest issue wasn't that there was a technical problem. Problems happen. It was the lack of empathy, accountability, knowledge, and willingness to actually help. I was charged $10, my account was locked during the activation attempt, my phone was blamed for the problem, and I was repeatedly encouraged to go somewhere else—when ultimately, the phone worked once I helped solve the problem myself.
Very disappointing experience overall.