May 15, 2008
Sprint: The Herpes of Cell Phone Companies
Posted by Megan under WTF?, jump aboard the crazy train, stupid assholes, technology/yes I am a geek1 Comment
Oh, Sprint. Just when I thought I was rid of you, you keep coming back to irritate me.
So, as you might recall, after two years of bills riddled with errors, I finally canceled my Sprint service and went over to AT&T (where I planned on going as soon as the 3G iPhone was released anyway. Also, COME ON APPLE WTF?!).
I happened to cancel my Sprint service just a few days after the new billing cycle started, so I knew that I would have one last bill to pay. Earlier this week I thought, hmm I haven’t received my bill in the mail, maybe I should call them. The straw that made the camel cancel the service was that I never could log in to my account to view/pay my bill the last couple of months I was with Sprint, and now that I’d canceled I didn’t expect to be able to pay my last bill online anyway. I tried, just for old times’ sake, and what do you know—no access.
So I called them up Tuesday evening to ask that they send me out a bill. The woman who I was lucky enough to talk to was obviously having a bad day because, holy shitfire, she was a bitch. But so she told me that my bill was $67 and some odd change, and that it was due May 28. Well, that’s about $20 more than it should be, but not wanting to get into the specifics with this wildabeast, I just asked her to go ahead and send me a paper bill so I could see what random charges they were making up this time.
(This is where it gets good.)
She tells me—without laughing or saying “Psych!!”—that because I am no longer a Sprint customer, they can not send me out a paper bill. Ummmm. Ok, I ask her, so how am I supposed to pay my bill?
“Oh, you can pay over the phone or you can go online. Did you look inside your e-mail to pay the bill in there?”
Yeah, that last part made no sense to me at all, either, since even if they DID send me an e-mail telling me to pay my bill, I’d still have to go to their Web site and log in to pay it, WHICH I CAN NO LONGER DO BECAUSE I’M NOT A CUSTOMER. Oh, and does she think e-mail is a box or something? Just look “inside it” and pay it. Yeah, hi, e-mail’s been around a long time now, lady. Learn it. LOVE IT.
So I told her I was not going to pay the bill without being able to see a detailed report of the charges, so she would have to send me a bill. Again, she said they could not do that. Again, I asked her why.
She tells me she has to ask her supervisor, and puts me on hold. For an eternity. So after my arm fell asleep, I just hung up, figuring the bill wasn’t due til May 28, I’ll just call back later in the week and hopefully get to talk to someone who can actually perform his or her job satisfactorily.
So imagine my surprise when I check my e-mail earlier today and see a letter from Sprint. I have to download it to read it (I guess they don’t really understand e-mail, either, and that you can place text in an e-mail; it doesn’t only have to be embedded HTML images or attached Word docs).
What. The. Fuck.
It’s a nasty, threatening letter from Sprint, telling me my account is past due and—wait for it—they are sending me to collections!!!!!
I called them up immediately, and the woman who answered was actually very nice and apologetic, and couldn’t imagine why some dumb ass would tell me they couldn’t send me a paper bill because, you know, how am I supposed to pay my bill?
I know, right?!
So anyway, the woman assured me that she was sending out a bill right away, and it must be coming by pony or maybe even by turtle, because it’s going to take 15-20 days to get to my house. She also told me the extra charges were for roaming, and then (at my prodding) discovered I was charged for roaming while in Nashville. My home network. So she waived the charges, and I didn’t even have to yell or cry! What a concept.
Anyway, I’m supposed to get this bill in a couple of weeks, I guess, as long as the pony doesn’t break its legs—or the turtle doesn’t get run over and made into soup—on the walk here. She assured me they wouldn’t turn me over to collections, but gave me a reference number “just in case.” Yeah, that made me a little nervous. But here’s to hoping, Sprint!
Technorati tags: Sprint, Sprint sucks
