After merely one year of absence, I come back to Sprint.
In my fieriest attempt to avoid losing an entire day of my life, awaiting my turn to be served at one of the Sprint local stores, I opted to self-serve myself. Thus, placed my order online.
Much to my surprise, I found the service to be absolutely WONDERFUL, only because it was being produced, written and directed by my fingers on the keyboard! Now this was refreshing service!
I was offered a great promotional value! A brand-new Katana phone, ($249 value) absolutely free with a two-year contract! And no activation fees! The hardware to be dispatched my way via 2nd day air shipment.
Days after, when the 2nd day air shipment turned into a 7-calendar day wait, I felt compelled to suspect that the Katana phone was not arriving at my door anytime soon.
I called Sprint, was greeted by their automated assistant, advising the amount of wait time to be expected due to high call volume. Now call me cynical, but I bet my next 10 paychecks that these numerous calls are not thank you calls from the consumers.
As a matter of fact, this amount of wait time, should be used as a measuring rule to determine the degree of customer dissatisfaction.
When I finally get to speak to a live one! I am told that there is no evident record of a phone order. My service, however has been set up, not even a phone number, much less a phone! But my service meter running!
Finding myself back to square one, I opted to follow their suggestion and present myself at one of their local stores, take a number and await service. After all, is there a better way of spending two thirds of a Sunday?
But lets move on with the story, hence I bring you to the present day!
After 3-4 weeks of being unable to access and/or manage my account online or via my phone. I am finally able to access my current usage information, only to find out I am the proud owner of a second phone number.
Upon contacting Sprint customer service, I am told the initial online order was never canceled/superceded by the one established at their local store. Thus, I was set up with two billing accounts.
The customer service rep I spoke to assured me she would cancel the extra number set up initially in error and advice me that they would graciously waive any early contract termination fees. No comment on that one!
Well, lets move up the story to the present time!
I am in receipt of a bill for an outrageous amount of $ 396.00 for the period between July 7th and August 28th!
It took a total of approximately 28 hours spent on the phone, speaking with 12-15 different representatives. No one could do the math, much less explain to me what the extra charges entailed. So I took it upon myself to do so.
In addition to the duplicated lines, and in conjunction with several other charges that were clearly in error I was being charged for activation fees for both numbers, even though free activation was part of the initial promotion!
I was told they would be more than happy to provide me with the credit, but in order to remain in line with their procedure and company policy, the credit would be reflected on next months billing!
It was right here and then, when I understood many a folks out there that have gone literally POSTAL!
I concluded our conversation with a request to close my account, forget the math, the credits, and expect a check from me in the amount clearly owed and take my business elsewhere. Not Verizon, Not Cingular, I told them I am headed straight onto Metro PCS! For both Sprint and Nextel, together or apart, are suddenly making Metro look like the royalty of wireless service providers!
P.S. After 28 hours or more and 15 reps, I finally got my credit. My bill was in actuality $91.07 vs. $396.00! But only after I threatened to close my account.
