[Lava Lamp Freak]

I bought a new phone two weeks ago -- 16 days ago to be exact. I was double charged for the phone, which ended up breaking my bank account, and finally 6 days later was able to get the money credited back to my account.

Now, another week later, my bill indicates that I owe $218. So, I called and explained that I was charged twice and one of the charges was refunded, but they claim they only charged me once and the refund means I now owe them money. This morning, I stood in line at the Sprint store for an hour, waiting to talk to the store manager, who it turned out wasn't even in the store, and finally was able to see him this afternoon after I left work. He bluntly tells me that he will not help me and said I need to call customer service to work it out with them. I told him that he is the store manager and it should be his responsibility to help me. All he would do is hand me a phone in the store and dial customer service for me. When I mentioned getting my attorney involved he threatened to stop speaking to me, which he wasn't anyway.

As it stands, they still tell me that I owe them $218, even though I have the bank statement in my hand proving they billed me twice, and I have faxed to them. Still, I'm treated like a criminal who is trying to get a phone for free. I believe my favorite statment is "I don't have the authority to do that." I've got that response from everyone except the store manager.

I'm now making it my new purpose in life to spread the word to boycott Sprint. I would if I wasn't under this new contract I entered when I purhcased the new phone. When this account expires, or if by a miracle they let me take it back and get a refund, I'll never set foot in a Sprint store again. I'm a customer of 7 years, and I can't believe I'm treated like this.

Its a Samsung A990, btw.

[Kitschy]

Sorry to hear that.

I've been with Sprint for about 10 years and have been treated really nice.

[JazzCatDRP]

You have a set amount of trial time before you're officially locked into your contract...I want to say 30 days, but I could be wrong. I'd definitely check into it.

[rickey939]

Originally Posted by Lava Lamp Freak

...but they claim they only charged me once and the refund means I now owe them money.

Huh?

[Teronzhul]

Originally Posted by JazzCatDRP

You have a set amount of trial time before you're officially locked into your contract...I want to say 30 days, but I could be wrong. I'd definitely check into it.

I believe the standard for cell companies is 14 days.

[vinster]

You have 14 days to cancel. Take your phone and copies of all the documentation to the store manager who was previously unhelpful and cancel your agreement and tell them you're choosing a different service provider. Contest the charge with your bank (Sprint will probably refund everything once you've informed them you've completely cancelled the contract).

Don't let them convince you to stay.

[Railroader]

I was a Nextel customer until they merged with Sprint. After that the signal quality dropped and the customer service was horrible. I called once about changing my plan, (I wanted to sign up for more minutes, a more expensive plan), and the guy started a new account and started double billing me. It took two months and a LOT of phone calls to sort out the mess. I still think they owe me $20.

I ended up breaking my contract early and paying the $200 early termination fee. Worth every penny.

I now use Verizon and have been trouble free ever since. Their signal strength is better and I have yet to have a problem with billing. But I have heard horror stories about Verizon as well.

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Originally Posted by rickey939

Huh?

That was my initial response. Its been a week since the refund and everything appeared to be taken care of until the charge showed up on my bill today.

I spoke with someone in the billing dept who said she wanted to speak directly with the store manager. I called him back and was told by him that he would NOT talk to them. I said I'd be going back to the store tomorrow and he said he won't be there.

This guy is really shady.

Originally Posted by vinster

You have 14 days to cancel. Take your phone and copies of all the documentation to the store manager who was previously unhelpful and cancel your agreement and tell them you're choosing a different service provider. Contest the charge with your bank (Sprint will probably refund everything once you've informed them you've completely cancelled the contract).

Don't let them convince you to stay.

When I was in the store today I told him that I wanted to cancel my contact and give the phone back but he said that time passed on Monday, the 14th day, and he wouldn't make an exception. That is when I mentioned getting an attorney involved. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I guess I could contact the Better Business Bureau. Is there anything else I can do while I'm waiting for customer service to investigate what is going on?

Edit: The person I spoke to in billing is aware that I'm not happy and at this point just want to take the phone back to the store. She said she'd let me know what she could do after she spoke with the manager. I'm not holding my breath, though, since I'm betting she is gonna have a hard time getting in touch with him.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Lava Lamp Freak

Is there anything else I can do while I'm waiting for customer service to investigate what is going on?

Actually get an attorney involved. Seriously. Have him send a threatening letter and watch how fast they scramble to get the problem resolved.

[vinster]

Originally Posted by Lava Lamp Freak

I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I guess I could contact the Better Business Bureau. Is there anything else I can do while I'm waiting for customer service to investigate what is going on?

I wouldn't spend money on an attorney for a $200 billing dispute.

There are options. First thing is to document everything you can about this issue (all discussions with representatives of this company, etc.), make sure you can relay it clearly to someone. I would also get an address where you can write a letter (try to get this from their web site or general information number - as customer service may give you an address where your complaint might get lumped with others and not receive proper attention). Send a well-written letter, preferably to the attention of a high-ranking individual, describing your issues and treatment by the store manager. Be professional. Letters carry more weight than e-mails or telephone correspondence.

If things aren't resolved to your satisfaction after a reasonable amount of time, make sure any standing debits with this company are cancelled and terminate the contract (you may have to accept and pay the early-termination fees). Then follow up by filing a report to the better business bureau.

[Kevin Moon]

You should try to get ahold of executive services and get everything taken care of. I believe the current number for them is 877-875-7505. This is a direct number to them so you shouldn't have to deal with standard CS. You can also just ask for retentions when you call standard CS and they will usually take care of any problems you have. I have recently had issues with sprint CS which is getting taken care of after talking to retentions. Also I would ask for compensation from the person you talk to for your troubles. Usually they will make it worth while to stay with them. I have found that www.sprintusers.com is very helpful for issues that come up.

[driven]

I had an incident with Sprint a few months back. (Too lazy to look for the thread) but it sounds similar to yours. Reasonable customer service people, horrific store management. In my case it was a customer service issue which bordered on racism with my wife. I complained to customer service and got out of my contracts with Sprint. Apparently Sprint corporate has very little (if any) control over the stores.

FWIW: I recieved a call from Sprint this past Saturday asking me about my experience with their company and why I left. (Doubt it will do any good, but it's the first time they showed ANY interest.)

Their service is decent, their prices are fantastic. If they can clean up the customer service issues they would be a no-brainer. What they did in my instance (my wife's actually) means that I'm done with them ... for a VERY long time.

I'm almost equally pissed off at Verizon wireless for very different but even more personal reasons.

My wife is currently very happy on t-mobile. I'm on a Cingular corporate account.

[Kevin Moon]

Sprint doesn't really have any control over what goes on in the store. Each store can have different policies on how to handle things and sprint can't say a thing about it. This is one thing that needs to change because it has caused me and many others problems. I suggest the op to file a complaint against the store. I did this and so did the rep I talked to after the people at the store hung up on her several times. The problem was taken care of as the district manager and store manager have been replaced.

[vinster]

Originally Posted by driven

I had an incident with Sprint a few months back. (Too lazy to look for the thread) but it sounds similar to yours. Reasonable customer service people, horrific store management.

I don't think it's just Sprint that has retail problems. It seems like all of the cellular providers' stores are not on the same page with customer service. The stores are set up only to sell new contracts. Management and employees are pressured to meet quotas and there are no resources except a courtesy phone for post-sales issue resolution.

An example with Cingular: my friend lost his phone (an AT&T phone before Cingular bought them). I sold him an old GSM phone that I had and told him to go to a retail store, tell them what happened and get a new SIM card to use with the phone. He's not very savvy about how this all works and the person at the store ended up putting him on a new 2-year agreement that was a worse deal than the one he was on previously (this would have come with a free phone too, defeating the whole purpose of replacing the phone w/o renewing his contract). I went back to the store with him and approached the lady who contracted him to explain to her what happened. As soon as I told her that he does not want a new contract/obligation, she became closed and unhelpful. She showed us the courtesy phone, which was in terrible condition and kept shorting out, and when customer service asked to speak with her she got angry when the CS rep. told her how to handle this situation (i.e. activate a new card on the Cingular plan but with no commitment). She told the CS rep., I'm here to sell new contracts not to do this. We got the CS rep's direct number and called her back while we were in the store. She sorted everything out on the phone and we left. The sales person was not happy.

There definitely needs to be improvements with retail telecom. If you're selling stuff retail, then you need to be prepared to support it in the same venue.

[His Dudeness]

I told Sprint to shove their account up their ass one day. I bought a new phone and wanted the number switched over from the old one to the new one. So the guy takes out the hand scanner and scans in the new esn number and deletes the old one. He then tells me that will be a $50 charge. I looked at him and said "What?" He says there's a charge to switch numbers. I then went on to explain that I just bought a new phone from them and it should be a free thing to switch numbers.

He says he can't refund the charge. I then go on to explain to him that I pay, then, about $150 per month for service, I multiplied that out by 12 months, and told him this is how much money they will lose from me if they don't cancel that charge. He says he can't do it, so I cancelled my service right then and there. I will never use that **** hole fly by night service provider ever again.

[Big Mac]

We can all commiserate over how crappy cell phone providers are. Verizon had my mother and brother jumping through hoops to get the phone my brother wanted. They ended up mailing two phones when only one was ordered, but since there was no bill in the box we assumed the second phone was part of the free second phone promotion they were running at the time. After three months there was a bill for the phone that was ordered and an even larger bill for the second one they sent in error, and Verizon put up a fight with my mom over the return despite the fact it was stored away completely unopened. And although they finally authorized the return, the account has yet to be credited.

[Cody Dawg]

Thanks for the heads up.

My husband was considering moving a very large company over to Sprint (about 500 phones would be purchased) and now he won't.

I have AT&T and they sucked when they sold to Cingular because all the AT&T customers are screwed over when our phones quit...Cingular says, "We're sorry, but we don't have any more phones for AT&T customers so if your phone quits you need to sign a new contract with Cingular and then we'll be able to sell you a phone."

Out of principle I will not do that.



To make matters worse, I had the freaking phone insurance and they were charging me for phone insurance fully knowing that they couldn't replace my phone!



But, now I'm happy again because about the time my contract expires AT&T will have taken over Cingular again since AT&T bought Cingular.

[]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

My husband was considering moving a very large company over to Sprint (about 500 phones would be purchased) and now he won't.

These stories are a dime a dozen in the cell phone industry. To base a corporate purchase on the story of one consumer isn't a smart business move.

I worked in the cell phone industry for about 5 years and I could tell you a horror story about every single one of the big providers.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

But, now I'm happy again because about the time my contract expires AT&T will have taken over Cingular again since AT&T bought Cingular.

Except that the AT&T that bought Cingular isn't the same AT&T that Cingular bought.

The "real" AT&T went bankrupt and was bought by SBC, which then took the AT&T name.

AT&T Wireless was a spinoff of the original AT&T, and shortly thereafter became wholly independent of the original AT&T.

Cingular was started by SBC, which is who the "new AT&T" really is. In other words, expect no miracles.

tooki

[Cody Dawg]

I just received a notice in the mail that says that "Cingular to AT&T conversion is in progress and will be completed by September." It also tells me that my bills will then come from "the new AT&T Wireless."

I'm not expecting any miracles, but I'm happy that Cingular is gone if only in name.

[himself]

Originally Posted by tooki

Except that the AT&T that bought Cingular isn't the same AT&T that Cingular bought.

The "real" AT&T went bankrupt and was bought by SBC, which then took the AT&T name.

AT&T Wireless was a spinoff of the original AT&T, and shortly thereafter became wholly independent of the original AT&T.

Cingular was started by SBC, which is who the "new AT&T" really is. In other words, expect no miracles.

tooki

Palm?

[driven]

The AT&T to AT&T Wireless to Cingular to "new AT&T" name thing is confusing as hell. Almost comical. ... nah, erase the word "almost".

Anyway: I'm very very happy to be fortunate enough that my company now pays 100% of my cell phone bill and even lets me keep my personal number. It's nice to have someone else deal with the cell phone company BS. Even better, when we have 900+ phones I'm sure that they have some pull that I don't. But, even when I go into a Cingular store now and they pull up my account they almost trip over themselves trying to be helpful.

It's a shame they can't treat everyone like that.

[tooki]

I call it the "incestuous telecom soap opera".

I should take OmniGraffle and draw the cell company family tree. It'd be amusingly complex.

tooki

[CMYKid]

Originally Posted by Railroader

I was a Nextel customer until they merged with Sprint. After that the signal quality dropped.......I now use Verizon and have been trouble free ever since. Their signal strength is better...

It doesnt really make any sense that "signal quality" would change when they were purchased, the towers, etc are still all the same. Also, in all but very unusual areas Sprint and Verizon use the same towers so reception is pretty similar.

Sprint actually IS a very good company if you know how to deal with them. One thing you seem to be confused about is the fact that you can actually get ANYthing accomplished in a store. Crazy concept, eh? As a general rulle you should NOT believe anything that you are told by anyone in a store and only believe about half of what CS tells you on the phone. They're definitely not obligated to honor whatever you're told in a store, however if you ARE in fact promised something and there's documentation then you'll usually be able to work something out. What they are allowed to offer you is determined by the value rating on your account screen, its not really up to the regular reps to decide.

"Retentions" ceased to exist quite a long time ago, and if you ask you'll either be told they cant put you through or they'll just say ok and put you through to a regular rep. If you PM me I'll give you a direct number, bypassing the hold queue, for the department you need to speak with.

The ESN swap fee is $18 or $36 depending on whom you get in a store and again its not always something they have the ability to not charge you for. Yes, paying it sucks, and there's no actual cost to making the change, HOWEVER, they started doing it because of the huge amount of money that they lose on every handset that they sell, as a deterrent for people that change phones often. I've never paid one though, you should just call and have the change made by a phone rep. Stores really have very little power.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by CMYKid

It doesnt really make any sense that "signal quality" would change when they were purchased, the towers, etc are still all the same. Also, in all but very unusual areas Sprint and Verizon use the same towers so reception is pretty similar.

I know it doesn't make any sense... but it's true. My signal strength dropped just about everywhere I went. I even switched phones. Also quite a few peope I know had the same problems. I'd say about half the people I knew who used Nextel have switched since the merger.

[CMYKid]

Hmmmmm, interesting.

Probably better in the long run anyway, iDen will go away in a few years. Besides, all the high-speed data comes via CDMA, though Verizon restricts it pretty heavily and cripples their phones unless you pay for it.

[Kevin Moon]

Signal on sprint for sometime is going to be up and down while the 20,000+ towers nextel has slowly get cdma panels added to them and are incorporated into the network. This is probably why some people are noticing the signal go from good to bad to excellent. I experienced a signal decrease for about a month then bam went to full signal everywhere. Sprint is going to start upgrading to 4g next year so signal issues will probably happen again during that transition. Sprint does offer great service if you can get it but like all wirelss companies CS could be better.

[Lava Lamp Freak]

The charge is finally taken care of. After going back into the store today, the store manager pulled up the account and noticed there were comments posted to my account that the store manager was not helpful and was rude. Suddenly he was very nice, and said he'd get it taken care of, and filed a complimentary payment to my account in the amount that was marked as due. Its amazing what the store manager can do when he wants to. I wish he had just helped me in the first place and saved me the needless worry and waisted time on the phone and in the store.

[tooki]

When I was with Sprint, at one point they goofed up and were billing me for a plan $40 more expensive than I wanted. The operators kept trying to adjust it for accurate prorating, but it never came back right. Finally, one operator must have realized that it would cost them more to have me on the phone with the operator than just to credit the account for the balance, so she did that, zeroing out the account in my favor. I think they gave me around $70, basically, and with no real hassle.

While the Sprint stores are awful, my experience with Sprint's telephone customer service as well as with signal quality were excellent. I switched to AT&T Wireless because of Sprint's dismal selection of phones (*cough* Bluetooth *cough*).

tooki

[rickey939]

Originally Posted by Lava Lamp Freak

The charge is finally taken care of. After going back into the store today, the store manager pulled up the account and noticed there were comments posted to my account that the store manager was not helpful and was rude. Suddenly he was very nice, and said he'd get it taken care of, and filed a complimentary payment to my account in the amount that was marked as due. Its amazing what the store manager can do when he wants to. I wish he had just helped me in the first place and saved me the needless worry and waisted time on the phone and in the store.

Wow, it sounds like that manager is bi-polar.

[tooki]

Probably more like a greedy jackass.

tooki

[vmarks]

Who is and why do keep following me?

I had Sprint. I went through three handsets that failed and were replaced until they said they didn't have my model any more and would ship me a newer model. Ok. Which somehow incurred a new contract, and I was on a corp accnt. No thanks, good bye.

Moved to Cingular. No real headaches other than them forgetting my corp discounts. Or wanting to give me a crap motorola phone when my SE t616 died. (I bought a nokia from mobilecityonline.com and popped in my sim. Someday when the motos get out of the refurb stream I'll ask them to honor the insurance again over the t616 and see what they'll offer me. They don't seem to understand that I get to be picky- it needs to have bluetooth and iSync just as the SE did.)


Sprint, by the way, stands for Southern Pacific Railroad Intercontinental Network of Telecommunications.

That's right. The railroad.

[driven]

Originally Posted by tooki

When I was with Sprint, at one point they goofed up and were billing me for a plan $40 more expensive than I wanted. The operators kept trying to adjust it for accurate prorating, but it never came back right. Finally, one operator must have realized that it would cost them more to have me on the phone with the operator than just to credit the account for the balance, so she did that, zeroing out the account in my favor. I think they gave me around $70, basically, and with no real hassle.

While the Sprint stores are awful, my experience with Sprint's telephone customer service as well as with signal quality were excellent. I switched to AT&T Wireless because of Sprint's dismal selection of phones (*cough* Bluetooth *cough*).

tooki

Your summary of Sprint phone service vs. the store service mirrors my opinion. In fact, I told them as much when they called me for a survey.

as for your second comment with phone selection: Yes: All CDMA vendors (VZW and Sprint) are behind on Bluetooth. But .... it's getting better. And they are ahead of the curve with 3G at least. (I kind of like that thin Samsung phone they have.)

[driven]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Sprint, by the way, stands for Southern Pacific Railroad Intercontinental Network of Telecommunications.

That's right. The railroad.

You *ARE* kidding, right?

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by driven

You *ARE* kidding, right?

Nope.

History of the US phone network by acronyms.

AT&T = american telegraph and telephone company. Who used the telegraph? operators at railroad depots.

SPRINT = southern pacific railroad international network telecommunications.

Why is it that the railroads played a role in telecom? Because they already had the right of way to lay track across the country, putting up poles with wires alongside was relatively easy.

[tooki]

And by contrast, MCI was born as Microwave Communications, Inc., because they actually didn't use cables, but rather land-based microwave radio relay.

tooki

[Love Calm Quiet]

I've *finally* got Sprint service working right for us... but even on such details as getting the right account to have the right Caller-ID info to *numerous* tries (for three family #s). But the account person in the store kept re-entering the information several times (over days) until it was right.

QA is sukky with these big corporations. One daughter just completely refuses to touch Sprint because of how they took MONTHS to remove overcharges to her. The rest of us have been similarly scrood trying to end (without overcharges) accounts with ALLTel (aka ALLHell) [ which is about to merge with SOMEone... ?cingular? ]

Whatever. The days of guaranteed positive customer service with ANY company are probably history. We're all pawns / commodities to them: where they seem to be just hoping that most of us will give up and just pay the overbilling.

I hear Ross Perot's giant sukking noise. And it's not coming from Mexico.

[driven]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Nope.

History of the US phone network by acronyms.

AT&T = american telegraph and telephone company. Who used the telegraph? operators at railroad depots.

SPRINT = southern pacific railroad international network telecommunications.

Why is it that the railroads played a role in telecom? Because they already had the right of way to lay track across the country, putting up poles with wires alongside was relatively easy.

Wow.... I did not know that. I also didn't know Sprint was that old.
I relayed this information to my sister and she called me Cliff Clavin. (Character from Cheers with a bunch of useless trivial knowledge). I guess sometimes knowing this information isn't good. hahaha.

[hayesk]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Nope.

Why is it that the railroads played a role in telecom? Because they already had the right of way to lay track across the country, putting up poles with wires alongside was relatively easy.

Not only that, they have the right to dig up under the tracks to lay optical fibre. Another odd transition was that during the tech boom many cities and sewer line contractors started to get into the communications business because they also had the right of way to lay optical fibre.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by vmarks

Nope.

History of the US phone network by acronyms.

AT&T = american telegraph and telephone company. Who used the telegraph? operators at railroad depots.

SPRINT = southern pacific railroad international network telecommunications.

Why is it that the railroads played a role in telecom? Because they already had the right of way to lay track across the country, putting up poles with wires alongside was relatively easy.

Interestingly enough, SPRINT is quite likely a "backronym", since Sprint started operations in 1899 as the "Brown Telephone Company", then changed to "United Utilities" in 1942, then to "United Telecommunications" in 1972, and only launched service under the Sprint (not SPRINT) name in 1986.

See: http://www.sprint.com/companyinfo/history/ (especially the timeline)

tooki

[CMYKid]

Originally Posted by driven

Your summary of Sprint phone service vs. the store service mirrors my opinion. In fact, I told them as much when they called me for a survey.

as for your second comment with phone selection: Yes: All CDMA vendors (VZW and Sprint) are behind on Bluetooth. But .... it's getting better. And they are ahead of the curve with 3G at least. (I kind of like that thin Samsung phone they have.)

I avoid verizon but SPrint has had a few choices for bluetooth phones for quite some time now....I'm using it to post now...

Remember that CDMA providers have also had a lot more to potentially lose since they're also the leaders in high-speed data pathways. Providing the ability for people to connect via Bluetooth can erode their sales of PC Card options and plans for network connection which they make tons more money on.

[driven]

Originally Posted by CMYKid

I avoid verizon but SPrint has had a few choices for bluetooth phones for quite some time now....I'm using it to post now...

Remember that CDMA providers have also had a lot more to potentially lose since they're also the leaders in high-speed data pathways. Providing the ability for people to connect via Bluetooth can erode their sales of PC Card options and plans for network connection which they make tons more money on.

Yeah ... much better to lose the entire customer to someone else.

Cinguar's 3G network is in wide deployment now, and while not quite as fast as EVDO at the moment, it's fast enough with the potential to go much faster. .... and they don't cripple their phones.

(Not promoting cingular ... replace their name with your GSM carrier of choice.)

[MDWeezer]

I had a poor experience signing up with Sprint. But once I got it all straightend out I've had a great experience.

I got a Treo 650 with them and I went with them mostly for their unlimited data plan for $10 and I absolutely abuse it; constantly on my phone reading news or chatting on AIM when I'm stuck somewhere. I only have a 200 minute/month plan and my bill is just about $50 a month.

No other carrier could touch that cheap of a rate; especially for the unlimited data plan.