Sprint termination
Tue Feb 05 09:39:00 CST 2008
Sprint is hell-bent on getting rid of my wife and I as customers.
Our account has not survived the transition to the year 2008. (I expected glitches at 2000, 2012 and 2038). Something has initiated a termination, and customer service can't seem to figure it out. Around Jan 2 and Jan 3, I tried making calls to my wife, and to the feed store, only to get a recording about how my carrier had not set up my phone or if I was a Sprint customer, I should call Sprint PCS customer service. It happened again on the way home and since I needed to talk to my wife, I called customer service (*2) and asked them what was up.
I got some questions about a refurbished phone.
"Uh, no, this is the phone you sold me."
"Oh, we're very sorry about the inconvenience I have reactivated your phone."
"Oh, Really? Why was it turned off?"
"I duh know. Looks like a refurbished phone."
February rolls around and the bill comes in. Wife IM's me:
You canceled Sprint wtf?
You guessed right if you guessed "early termination fee." My wife spent hours on the phone with the service rep who still was not able to provide an explanation. He did manage to get most of the charges reversed but was still wrestling with prorated charges when he and my wife ended the call.
Still no explanation on what triggered the termination. I am a software developer, and I want to hear about the bug, the solution, and the goin' forward.
It is bad enough that Apple and AT&T are spanking the industry with the iPhone, that Gizmo, Skype and Vonage are dipping in to all phone business. Treating customers like this just doesn't make business sense. Spontaneous termination drives paying customers away. I am lazy and I don't want to make the leap to a new carrier. It means putting a $300-$400 repeater on our home mast. Sprint and its customer service are forcing us farther down the plank. At the end of that plank is a luxury yacht.
When ever she gets a chance, she waves her StarTac hand-me-down phone at me and says, "Andi's died. This could die at any moment." One of these days, she's going to hurl it into the stone hearth. If that happens, I will not be angry. I'll hold her hand because I'll know she understands.