Yesterday I went to Home Depot to pick up some attachments for my Dremel to do some glass etching. The Dremel attachments were about $8 each and I needed 4 of them according to the project instructions I had; 2 were diamond tipped and 2 were tungsten carbide. I also saw a Black & Decker kit that contained 4 diamond tipped attachments, cutting wheels, grinding attachment, etc. for $10. I bought the Black & Decker kit as well as one of the Dremel tungsten carbide attachments. I got home, used the Black & Decker kit and was able to return the Dremel attachment.

So, the question is, is the Dremel name worth that much more? In this case, the diamond tipped attachments are made from diamond scrap and/or synthetic diamond and how much different can they be? Personally, I’ll buy the cheaper attachment as long as they work as well. It appears that the Black & Decker ones work fine as I had no trouble using them to etch glass.

I looked at my Sprint bill online today as it just became available. I noticed that the balance was twice that of a normal month! Wow, what that Sprint mess up now? After pouring over the bill for about 30 minutes and checking my credit card statement, it appears that Sprint never charged my card for December. What happened was this…I ordered a phone, Sprint placed a $349.99 credit on my Sprint bill as I paid that amount by credit card. Next, when my payment was due on Dec. 17 for the previous month’s bill, I already had a credit on my account that exceeded this, so they didn’t charge me. On the December bill, there is a charge for the phone ($349.99 + sales tax) as well as the normal charges. So, it looks like they’ll catch up next month in billing me. To further complicate matters, there is a charge for $399.99 for the phone they sent me that I didn’t want as well as a credit to offset that.

What a mess! Next time I should buy a phone from an independent retailer and not Sprint itself as this billing disaster has given me a major headache.

I checked my Sprint account yesterday to see if I was credited for the phone I returned (due to them ordering the wrong phone). Well, I had a huge credit, so I call them and after awhile on the phone, found out that they charged my credit card, then issued a credit on my account then bill the phone to my account. I already knew they did this weird stuff; so when I originally ordered my new phone, I didn’t put in my Sprint number so that they couldn’t do this game. Of course, that failed because they sent me the wrong phone. So I checked my credit card statement and found a credit for the original phone. I’m now completely confused and will see what happens when my bill comes. Why can’t Sprint just bill my credit card and not touch my account? Is that so hard to do? Also, why can’t they list detailed charges prior to a bill being generated so that I could see the charges and credits instead of just seeing a -$605 balance? Uggh.

Yesterday, Sprint announced that the new cell phone I want, the Samsung MM-A900, was available for purchase at sprint.com and at their stores. Well, the phone isn’t available online and calling them results in them not having a clue. I took a gamble and went out to another Sprint store today (the closest one is 10 minutes away and they had nothing yesterday, so I went 20 minutes away). I got to the store and found out that they had 2 phones (I basically had to dance around if I was a new subscriber/adding a line just to find out if they had the phone). Great, so maybe I could buy one. Unfortunately they would only sell it if I was a new subscriber or activated a new line as they have to meet quotas. So here I am a customer of 6 years that currently has 6 lines on Sprint and am paying $165 per month and they won’t let me shell out $350 for a new phone (I’m not eligible for a rebate and I wouldn’t take it as it would extend my contract). What kind of customer service is that? The guy at the store said if he had 10, he’d sell me one. My hope is that Radio Shack gets them tomorrow and I don’t have to deal directly with Sprint. Why can’t corporate headquarters make sure that phone stock is available when they make a press release and why can’t they tell stores that they should try to keep customers? Customer service says that it is cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one.If I didn’t have such a good plan with Sprint and we already have the phones, I’d almost consider switching. However, I’m sure customer service is pretty poor in the whole industry.