So my Sprint saga isn’t over…
July 5: Sprint’s website says our contract expired last October. Sprint’s e-mail customer service confirms that they have noted this in our account, even though Sprint phone people have several different answers.
Later that week, we switch to Cingular and the Sprint account gets canceled.
July 18: I call Sprint to make sure that we weren’t charged a fee. First attempt, got hung up on before I even spoke to a live person.
Called back, this person said that we weren’t charged the fee, and we paid off the remaining balance on the account. This should be the last we ever pay to Sprint.
Today, July 30: A bill for $166.33 arrives from Sprint.
10:30PM: I call Sprint. The computer claims the Sprint phone number I entered is invalid, but eventually lets me talk to a person in the customer support dept. That person eventually agrees that there’s a problem, and transferrs me to the “refunds department.” I get a recording saying that Sprint Financial Services closed at 9PM.
10:40PM: I call back, and manage to convince the automated system to let me talk to someone in the billing department. This person also agrees that I shouldn’t have been charged the fee, and adds a “high-priority note” to the account noting this, but is powerless to actually remove the charge from my bill. He — surprise — transferrs me to a different department.
But actually, he just transferred me to a new computerized menu. This one features a male voice, so we know it is Different somehow. It also completely refuses to accept my Sprint number, but it says that it will just have to let me talk to an operator. 5 seconds later, it hung up on me. No operator.
One would think that a telephone company would be able to correctly route more than 25% of calls to customer service.
I am so glad we switched away from this company.
Here’s something funny for you.
I was a Sprint cellphone customer some 7 years ago. After more than a couple really painful billing screwups, I decided to cancel service. But it took me several months to get that done. Finally I had to get pretty mad and spend 4+ hours on the phone, asking for supervisors, managers, etc. You see, I demanded that they straighten it out, then fax me a letter right now (no, don’t hangup!) verifying that I didn’t owe them anything. We did finally get that done.
Story ends, right? Wrong. The following month I get a bill for $3. I call back in, and a recorded voice says I can use the automated system … or be connected to a live person for an additional $3! Argh! I hung up, but later decided to call back and risk the $3 additional for a human to straighten this out. And she did, even agreeing to reverse the $3-to-talk-to-a-human fee.
And to this day I still get a bill from Sprint every month. Except now one month will be a bill for $0.00, and the alternating month will be credit for $4-$6 (it varies).
Knowing that Sprint is probably paying some other company somewhere on the order of $2 each month to print, stuff, and mail these bills, I have never called them back to correct the error. At this rate they’ve already spent $168 mailing me useless bills.
Funny. When I *finally* got Sprint to refund my money, they said there was a $3 balance. I complained, and then they said it was a $3 credit. We’ll see…
I also had the problem with getting unwanted bills (I had canceled another Sprint PCS account years ago, long story).
I like your attitude of not telling them about ’em ;-)