Last night I wrote a very long, rambling report about a four month Sprint saga, but I may have been logged out before I was able to send. I don't know if it will show up on the boards, but I believe my experience is important enough for folks to read, so I am going to re-post, but this time in brief.
Feb. my husband and I placed an order through sprint.com website for a 2-year 39.99 plan which included a *free*cell phone normally priced at 250.00. My husband had a sprint account, so we put this one in his name as well. Received email confirmation. Waited a week until receiving a postcard in the mail indicating cell phone was backordered, wouldn't be available for 30 days. Decided to wait it out because the phone had features I needed/wanted and it was, after all, free.
A couple of weeks later, I log on to the sprint website to make a payment on my husband's account and am shocked to see a payment due totaling close to 365.00. Although my husband uses the phone for mainly business, he never goes over his minutes. Details indicate a charge for the cell phone plus a month of service on the new account.
I call a toll free number and go through that fiasco of waiting, being disconnected, etc. Before finally speaking to a human being. I give confirmation number, explain backorder and free cell phone info. I am told there is record of my order that did not include a free phone. I'm told to fax email confirmation and wait for call from supervisor. I never get a call.
Next day, no refund on statement, I call, wait 20 - 30 minutes before human contact. I explain the situation and am told there is no record of my previous call. The billing associate had no idea what I was talking about. She gives me a different number to call and states I would probably get a more immediate response from that department. Well, it was different number, but I ended up at the same destination.
Once again, I explain my issue to the agent. This time I'm given a case number. I ask that the charges on the inactive account be removed while case is pending because my husband is receiving text messages from Sprint saying his service will be interrupted because the charges from the second account are putting him over his spending limit. Agent removes the charge for 39.99, but says her supervisor is only one authorized to remove charge for equipment. I'm told the supervisor would do so by the end of the day and I would get a phone call when resolved.
I did, indeed, get a call and was told it was all good. I told the person who called to cancel the order until further notice (which I had the option to do because the phone was still backordered without a known delivery date.) She said she would do just that - added I was a "favorite" customer and if I ever needed... Blah, blah. A few hours later, I checked the statement over the internet and nothing had changed.
The following morning, I called back and was told the web page wouldn't update over the internet for at least 24 hours. So, I trusted that and didn't follow up.
Weeks later, the husband gets another text regarding his spending limit. Lo and behold, our 2nd account now included another month of service and an early termination fee. So, I never received the equipment because of the backorder; never activated the contract because I didn't receive the equipment; had the option to cancel the order without penalty - which was printed on the backorder postcard - and was being billed for a total of 632.00. Oh, and my husband's service was about to be interrupted.
So far, I've written only what happened the first month. The following three months were just a continuation of the nightmare, so I will recount it in list form:
- I learned a billing supervisor tagged my account because she suspected I had the phone in my possession and instructed billing dept. Not to give me a refund while situation was being investigated
- I was assigned a new case number each time I called and had to tell the story all over again because there were no records of my previous calls - yet they never failed to mention the unpaid balance on the 2nd account.
- At one point, a customer service agent told me she did not work in the order or shipping departments and since my "order" never "shipped", I should be calling them and not her. I asked for their numbers and got two different numbers that somehow brought me right back to customer service.
- In case you're wondering, supervisors never got on the phone when I requested one
I took the advice of the last cs agent and called the number on the postcard that had come directly from the order department. There was no recording. A person picked up on the second ring. I gave him/her a briefing on the situation. He/she asked me for a number that was printed on the postcard. He/she entered it into the system and said the phone was still on backorder. Never shipped. Never canceled. Never activated.
He/she indicated systemwide communication problems between the different departments.in my case, had customer service and billing associates contacted the order department, they would have been aware of the backorder and the number associated with it. He/she said the matter could have been resolved with one phone call.
He/she was correct. I then called billing - as if for the first time - and gave the backorder number to the associate. I said I was being billed in error. The billing agent apologized and completely wiped out the past due account.
If anyone reading this is having similar problems, it means Sprint has not yet addressed the inter-departmental communication issue. Perhaps a software issue to blame insofar as one department is not able to properly inform/update another dept? Also, isn't it customer service's job to attempt to resolve the issue? I couldn't believe - and let them know - I was told I had to call different departments to track down the problem myself.
The husband's contract is up for renewal in just a few months and I am going to be send a certified letter stating we will not be renewing at the end of the contract. I will inform my bank as well, just in case the billing departent tries to access our account. I will not go throught that horror again.
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