Presenting: another epic saga of wireless phone company incompetence...bear with me.
I'd had my Sprint cell phone and plan since 2001 - six years of relatively problem free operation (minor billing annoyances aside). And they recognized that I was a loyal customer who always paid my bill on time - in recent years they regularly sent me offers to "upgrade my plan" or my phone and receive a billing credit (but we all know this is because they wanted me to renew my vows and sign on to a new contract).
Recently, I decided that I wanted to look at a phone upgrade. 6 years had taken its toll on my Samsung A500, and I was excited about the possibility of a phone that would better sync up its contacts and calendar with my computer. I had asked Slashdot about such a product a few years ago, but the offerings were much more promising now.
So I went into the Sprint Store. I said "I'm interested in upgrading to a new phone, but only if I'm able to keep my current plan and features at the same price" -- the folks at Consumerist.com have taught me well about what to ask for and how to ask. And it was important - I was using my A500 as a modem for my Mac laptop when I didn't otherwise have network access, and I wanted that to continue. As a part of that feature - it was called Unlimited PCS Vision - I also had unlimited text messaging, which was important for my business use.
The person at the store said "We can do that. You can have this new phone (a Motorola Razor V3M) and the same plan you have now with the same features at the same price, as long as you renew your contract for 2 years." I thought that was reasonable - I'll commit to them, they'll keep things as they are with me, we'll all be happy. And I again had the Sprint store representative explicitly confirm that the above important features would still be present on my new plan.
About a week after the purchase, I tried to use the new phone as a modem. It didn't work, and I called customer service to ask why.
Sprint: "Sir, you don't have that feature enabled on your plan any more."
Me: "Well, the folks at the Sprint Store told me that feature would continue to be on my plan at no additional charge."
Sprint: "Okay, we can go ahead and get that enabled for you so you can use your cell phone as a modem with your laptop. Just wait a few hours for that feature to be enabled and then try again."
Me: "Thanks, I'll do that!"
About a week or two after that, I finally had a chance to try using the phone as a modem again, this time when I really needed it. It didn't work. I called them back.
Me: "When I changed over to my new plan, the person in the store guaranteed me that I would continue to have the same features, including using my phone as a modem for my laptop. I called a week ago and they told me that I should be able to use this feature once it was turned on. It still doesn't work."
Sprint: "Well, actually, you would need to pay for a data plan to do that, and those start at $39/month."
Me: "But what about what I was told when I got the new phone and what I was told since then by customer service."
Sprint: "I'm sorry, they didn't know what they were talking about."
So then I have the choice to make: 1) take my phone back to the store and demand that they give me a refund and put me back on my old plan with my beat up old phone, 2) fight Sprint on their failure to honor statements made by their representatives, or 3) just live with it.
I was doing fine with #3 until today, when the Sprint bill showed up and included charges for text messages. I shouldn't be billed for text messages, because my old plan had unlimited text messaging that I was never billed for, so my NEW plan should have unlimited text messaging too. I called Sprint again.
"We are unable to answer your call at this time. Please try again later."
Their phone system was apparently overloaded. I called back a few minutes later.
"We estimate your wait time to be 3 minutes or less."
And then 3 minutes went by, and their phone system disconnected the call. I called back again, and their phone system disconnected the call.
I called back again and finally get through.
Sprint: "This is Jim, how can I help you?"
Me: "I'm having a really frustrating time with Sprint today, and your phone system just hung up on me three times in a row."
Sprint: Silence. For a good 10 seconds. He wasn't going to respond to my frustration.
Me: "Anyway, the bill and the customer service reps say that I have unlimited text messages, and yet I've been billed for text messages."
Sprint: "You don't have unlimited text messages. Let me see what I can find here. I see what you're talking about, you were billed when you shouldn't be. As far as I can see, you've never had text messaging. I'll give you a credit for the text messages on this bill, but in the future, you should consider adding a text messaging option to your plan, maybe 300 messages or so."
Me: "You don't understand. I used to have unlimited text messaging. I was told that I should still have unlimited text messaging. I don't want to add it on because I should already have it."
Jim took the hint that it was time to transfer me to someone else. He put me on hold. For 10 minutes. And then he came back and said "they" had him on hold, but that he wasn't going to lose me. And so he put me on hold again. For 15 more minutes. And then he came back:
Sprint: "Basically you got lucky the last few years texting for free. When you got a new phone, the system updated and caught itself. You should have been billed all that time."
Me: "When I went into that store and told them that I wanted to continue my past plan for the same price, and explicitly mentioned unlimited text messaging and using my phone as a modem, and when that Sprint representative told me that I *would* have those features, Sprint made a commitment to me to have those features on my plan at the same price. Now how are you going to honor that commitment?"
Sprint: "What if I said 'okay we can do that,' then we'd have to go back and charge you for all the text messaging you used over the years that we didn't catch. I had a supervisor review this and they said there's no way we can give you unlimited text messaging."
Me: "All that time I was told I was getting unlimited text messages as a part of the Unlimited Sprint Vision, so I don't see how you could retroactively tell me that I wasn't supposed to have that feature. Could I talk to that supervisor?"
As I sat on hold again, I pondered how I had predicted this when I walked out of the Sprint Store with my new phone. "Surely it can't be that easy," I had thought. "Surely I will be wrapped up in a long miserable phone conversation with Sprint a few weeks from now." And there I was.
Finally a supervisor, Robert, got on the line. I re-explained the situation from start to finish, and that I expected Sprint to either honor its commitment or let me go back to my old plan and features. Robert said that neither would be possible.
Sprint: "You weren't supposed to be using your phone as a modem or getting unlimited text messaging all that time."
Me: "So the person at the Sprint store who told me I could have those features on my new plan at the same price was essentially lying to me, or didn't know what she was talking about?"
Sprint: "It sounds like that was a miscommunication, yes."
Robert ended up giving me a credit for the billing on this month's text messaging, and added an unlimited text messaging line item to my plan at no charge. I confirmed that if I wanted to use my phone as a modem I would have to pay $39/month more, which there's no way I could justify.
At the end of my now hour-long phone call, I asked Robert how I could register my extreme dissatisfaction with Sprint's service, and in the monotone, robotic voice of someone who had explained the answer thousands of times, he suggested I e-mail the corporate office via "dub dub dub dot sprint dot com." When he asked me if there was anything else he could do for me today, I laughed out loud and struggled to restrain myself from saying anything other than a pleasant good-bye.
Summary: I had a plan and a phone and a wireless company I was reasonably happy with. I wanted a new phone but wanted everything else to stay the same, and was promised by Sprint multiple times that it could, should, and would. I believed them. Time passed, and Sprint came to admit that they could not honor their earlier commitments, that I additionally couldn't go back to my old phone and plan, that their computerized billing system and customer service staff aren't capable of handling such a simple change, and that they don't care enough about their customers to try to do any better the next time.
Is it really possible for things to have gotten so bad?
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Update on 6/28/07: This weblog entry has quickly become one of the more popular on my site, largely due to its tendency to appear high in web searches for "sprint customer service" and related queries. As you'll see if you read the comments, Sprint did contact me as a result of it, and I was able to talk to someone a bit more in depth about my concerns. So as not to leave my original post title's question so open ended - can Sprint really be this bad? - I want to list some concrete steps that I think Sprint should take to "resolve" this particular issue. If they can do these things, I'll be happy to note that here, close the comments on this blog entry and move on.
- A representative of the local Sprint store, where all of this began, should contact me to apologize for giving out incorrect information.
- Sprint should communicate what specific actions they've taken internally as a result of my concerns about customer service procedures.
- Sprint should communicate what specific steps they're taking to improve the quality and humanity of their customer service procedures overall.
- Sprint should compensate me for the time I spent dealing with this issue. Since I don't want to bother calculating what that translates to in terms of my normal wages, I'll suggest a $250 donation in my name to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
What do you think, Sprint?
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It's epidemic. There is no use in trying to change to a new service provider as they all have the same issues. I spent an hour of my Saturday on the phone with VerizonWireless trying to convince them to honor the phone price (a $50 instant rebate) they had on their web site that I was promised by their representative when I was forced to call to place the order because their web site was unable to process my request. My conclusion is that it is necessary to get any agreement in writing (ask the representative to send you an email while you are talking with them to confirm the features and prices you have agreed to) and to file a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's office regarding these practices. We consumers need to begin to assert our right to expect these companies to fulfill the verbal contracts to which their representatives have agreed.
I agree with Jane. I have had MAJOR hassles with Verizon (including the whole "that person didn't know what they were doing" thing). I did have good interactions with Cingular and would have switched had Verizon not been threatening to charge me $280 for my dissatisfaction.
time to start our own company. a cell phone cooperative.
D
Cant resist noting your Google ads for the day. LOL. Very nice subversive way to counter product complaints. LOL.
"Sprint Cell Phones
Online Only Prices and Rebates. The Smarter Way to Buy Sprint "
Hi, I'm a customer service rep, I just wanted to tell you exactly what happened, you had a good plan and wicked features, it all has to do with evdo, getting a new phone which is fater means getting the new 'power' vision plan instead of that cool old one which did include unlimted text and the ability to have phone as modem useage. I wish I got you as a call the first one, I would have told you right off that you could have returned the phone (EVDO) and got a regular lower speeds but still good quality like he katana and kept everything. Yet, that's the truth now nothing we can do now, phone as modem needs pam basic service and that code won't go on our system unless we add that darn plan. So that's it, the big thing. Stay away from phone as modem, I've seen that screw up so many times it's not funny. The best way to lodge a complaint is actually http://www.sprintinnovations.com but make sure you make it like a positive 'idea' so that the big wigs well take it seriously.
Hope you do better with the sprint in the future.
Yes, it's very possible they are this bad. I canceled my account 7 months ago. Even though I had been a customer for over 5 years they charged me a cancellation fee because I had tried a new phone and took it back within 3 days. They had assured me there would be no charge for that. I was charged $159.10 which I tried for 5 months to have credited. After hours on the phone (being constantly disconnected), last week I finally received a check for $159.10. However, two days later I also received a bill saying my credit card would be charged $159.10 !!! When it does appear on my credit card, I will dispute the charge, but this is a never-ending battle. I could have gotten a part-time job and worked fewer hours to earn the money to pay this bill, and it would have been more pleasant and taken fewer hours !!!
The A500 did not have text but wireless web messaging. Your old plan include the web which you had to accesss to send a message. The razor has text messaging which you do not access the web to send a message. So you need text as an added feature. Again, the A500 did not have this capability so when you sent a message it was through the web. And like I said, the web was included in your plan.
Mr. Hardie,
Chris,
I recently noticed your message on your webpage and as an employee for Sprint Nextel, I wanted to reach out to you in an attempt to resolve this issue. I work on a team which champion’s customer causes in an attempt to rectify Customer Service and Network Issues. If you are open to it, will you allow us to investigate this issue further? If so, please contact us at customerassist@sprint.com so we may begin gathering additional details in order to conduct an investigation.
Thank you for being a Sprint Nextel Customer.
Sincerely,
Larry P.
Sprint Nextel
Employees Helping Customers (EHC)
For anyone following this thread: after Larry P.'s message above (it seems he found my site by searching on Google for "sprint service"), I was contacted by the special executive-level support team and talked through the experience I had. While they still couldn't offer me the "phone-as-modem" feature for free, they did offer a significant discount and a one-time service credit. And whereas other reps had said I couldn't go back to my old phone and plan, these folks said they could make that happen if I wanted. Perhaps most importantly, the person I talked to said she was authorized to pass along my comments about the disappointing experience I'd had. Of course, that implies that the people I had talked to previously wouldn't have been able to get my feedback to the right place...but I'll take it.
Thanks, Sprint, for at least having some part of your operation devoted to making things right.
SPRINT CUST SERVICE IS PATHETIC, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, EVERYTHING SAID ABOVE IS CORRECT AND MORE , 20 MINUTE WAIT TIMES, MULTIPLE PHONE DISCONNECTS, MULTIPLE TRIPS TO THE SPRINT STORE TO FIX THE SAME ISSUE UNSUCCESSFULLY, BEING MISLEAD AT THE STORE AND PHONE REPS THAT HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS FACTUAL , THIS COMPANY IS A JOKE...GO ELSEWHERE !!!
Sprint customer service is by far the worst that I have ever seen. Starting from the CEO on down to the crackhead in the call center. Because they hire who ever they can find and never keep in mind the customer. This is why they have stock prices dropping daily.
I would never go back to sprint ever and anybody thinking about switching to sprint keep in mind that even with sprint offering low prices on data and phone they are still losing money and customers or leaving in bunches.
I have filed several complaints with the FCC and would ask for others to do so as well if more people switch to t mobile or at&t
Do yourself a favor and leave sprint and never go back
I would say you are lucky if you're only experiencing 20 minute wait times. And I completely agree with you that their customer service is horrendous. In the past 8 months, I have blatently received conflicting information from 3 different account representatives and when I asked for the "notes" that were made to my account to document our conversations, i was informed that it would not be possible for them to provide those to me. I don't understand how a company can legally get away with blatently and repeatedly misinforming its customers. I have now been entered into two new service agreements without my consent and misinformed about my ability to add text messaging without initiating another two year agreement. I would love to take legal action but i don't know if it would mess with my credit. Does anyone have any idea about this?
For anyone considering various service providers - I would recommend that you RUN from Sprint. Despite my previous 5-6 years of satisfied service, the mishaps I have experienced in the last year have turned me off from Sprint as a provider forever.
My phone is cloned, someone is illegally making calls to places I don't even know anyone. My bill is 3000 dollars. I've spent over ten hours on the phone in total waiting to speak with people who are all giving me different answers. My phone keeps getting suspended because bill i so high. Yesterday i was on hold or talking to sprint from 9 till 3 am yesterday, spoke to several people only for someone to tell me that they cant do something about it because the dept that can is closed. Its the next morning and someone should have called me. my phone has not worked since yesterday afternoon its nine a.m. this morning. Sprint has caused me a lot of stress. If someone has done something to my phone and is looking into my problem isn't it common courtesy to call the customer and tell them that service will be disconnected? This is so rude. If you where in my shoes what would you do?Sue the company?
You have no idea what I've been through for over a week. I do not have a land line. For me this is a safety issue, if something happened to me, would you not feel a little responsible if i could not call the police etc?
Adila Cokar
The only question is have can we kick their ass. every time different representatives have different answers and don't talk about the holding time. no one really knows whats going around they just kee on transferring from one dept to the other. And any changes you make in your plans automatically extends ur plan for 2 freaking years and i you wanna cancel it pay 200$. this was so annoying and i was so freaking frustrated with the service. the worst part is i am stuck with sprint for 2 years of crontract and they still dont allow me to pay my bill online. i have o go to sprint store every time pay 5$ for transaction and so on.
Believe me Dont ever go with sprint.............jus sucksssssss
There are ways to combat this problem. One is definately to have a written document or recording of the conversation. Give them the same warning ,"This call may be recorded to ensure contractual compliance." As an employed representative of that company, the company that employs that representative is required to honor the agreement made with the customer. Even if it is outlandish. Many companies complaint departments employ service centers in other countries not only to handle volume (at a substancial discount) but also to be able claim " ignorance" of the actions or term promised by the sub-contracted company. The company also knows that you don't have the time to effectively persue legal action let alone the financial resources to endure the process required to actually resolve the issue.
If there were actually a class action suit, or a number of publicized suits ( ie. peoples court, eye for an eye, judge joe brown, etc . . .) then the courts will have a precedent by which to hold the company accountable for their representatives' claims. I am thinking of doing this for almost all of the media and comunication services that feel that they are above their half of the verbal contract that we are obligated to fulfill.
( I am guilty of " letting it go " as well)
I just found out Sprint customer service is this bad. I was thinking maybe it is better to pay $200 cancellation fee and start someplace else, and it would still save me a lot of money. NEVER NEVER go to Sprint. Whenever I think about how I was tricked (almost scammed) into this contract, it gives me a nightmare.
I am an ex-Nextel now Sprint customer. I was with Nextel for 5 months before switching to Sprint. The Nextel reps (though connected with Sprint yet very different) were very good and the billing was superb--no billing problems. With Sprint, so far I have been with them for about five days and so far it's been hell. Let me explain: via http://www.sprint.com I ordered a grey razor phone. I ordered on a Sunday (was supposed to be 3 business days) and it arrived Friday (five business days). They also sent me a MotoQ (wrong phone). I went to my local store to have them take the MotoQ and give me the Razor to make it right but was met with a: "There is nothing we can do; call the 800 number." I called Sprint on Monday to cancel my service (30 day no risk guarantee). They promised to over-night my razor and promptly send me a pre-paid return packet to mail back the Moto Q so i can get credit for it and erase the stupid $220 charge. Oh yes, I paid the $74.99 for the razor but because sprint messed up and sent me the Q, I am now being charged an additional $220. Oddly enough, I received the grey razor the next morning as promised. Sprint came thru. Acticated service and things were peachy. Still haven't received the pre-paid return packet so I called em up. After 5 min of saying the same thing over and over to the sprint cust rep about how I need the return packet so I can get a refund, he finally put in the order. I'm dreading my first real bill.
Is there anything I can do to have a normal cell phone experience? LOL
I am currently on hold with Sprint right now. I have been bounced around for 2.5 hours as of right now trying to port my old Nextel number to my Sprint account.
I keep getting bounced from jamoke to jamoke. They barely speak English & their equipment they are using is so awful I can't understand two thirds of what they are saying.
I was a Sprint customer from 2000 to 2003, but switched to Nextel because I was not satisfied with Sprint's customer service. I had no problems at all with Nextel customer service or otherwise from 2003 until March of 2007. I decided to switch to Sprint service in March of 2007 because I wanted a Blackberry 8703e for work, and because I assumed that since the two companies had merged, the customer service had improved on Sprint's side.
Right after I ordered the Blackberry from a Sprint sales representative via their 800 number I started having problems. When I received the device in the mail I tried to activate it, but when I called in the 800 number I was told that the account had to be paid down before the Blackberry could be activated. After paying, I called in again and was told the service had been cancelled. I didn't realize that the sales rep had even started a new account in my name, meaning that I had been billed for two different phone numbers, one with Sprint, one with Nextel.
This simple fact took weeks to resolve. I was passed around to seven different customer service reps on May 21, 2007, and during this time, was disconnected 3 times with 3 different reps. At the time, I had a Bank of America online banking service rep on the line with me (3 way calling) to help me resolve the matter with Sprint. We wanted to make sure that they had received all the payments into the correct account since January of 2007. We were finally transferred to an Escalations Trainer or Manager who wanted to transfer me one more time to another department. Her name was Isabella or something close to that. I tried to explain to her why I didn't want to be transferred, for fear of getting disconnected, and she followed the Sprint tradition of being rude and not understanding in the matter.
It took me another 3 hours and 5 customer service representatives on May 25, 2007, when I called in to dispute charges that were made on the account I wasn't even aware I opened in March, 2007. I was again transferred many times and had to re-explain my case to every rep with whom I spoke. The issue was finally resolved and I paid $212.56 on May 25th, with the authorization number of 125495.
Last week I paid $400 via online banking with Bank of America. This morning (June 12, 2007) I awoke to a disconnected phone. When I called Sprint customer service, I was told that I owed $284 on the account to bring it current and get the phone turned back on. Upon further inquiry, I was told that half of that amount was for the June bill that I have not even received in the mail yet. The remaining $100+ was for a charge she could not explain. After this we got disconnected somehow. When I called back a little before 8:00 this morning, I was automatically placed on hold and have been holding for exactly 3 hours and 4 minutes. I'm writing this letter as I am on hold with Sprint's customer service, and my service is not yet restored.
My request is to drop my new contract with Sprint with no $200+ charge. It is absolutely infuriating to go from a great company like Nextel to a company like Sprint in hopes that Nextel's great service and customer care has influenced the merger. I have already taken 2 half-days from work on 2 separate occassions since March of this year to resolve issues with Sprint. Today will be another. I cannot afford to deal with this company anymore.
Wow. I am just feeling better that I am not the only one. I had such a horrible ongoing issue with Sprint and I will NEVER be a customer again. I was lied to by the store and by the customer service reps- I had bought a phone with a $150 rebate and it took about 9 months for it to be applied- if I had not kept all of my paperwork from the store I would have been SOL because the sales girl at the store flat out lied to me and I really didn't qualify per the supervisors, but since I brought them the paperwork she gave me regarding the rebate they honored it. Although the issue was eventually taken care of by Corporate after I filed complaints with the BBB and local agencies, I will NEVER be a customer of Sprint again.
I went back to T-Mobile, and plan to stay with T-Mobile. I have never had a customer service issue with them...when I did experience 1 billing problem, it was taken care of immediately in one quick phone call, which is unheard of with Sprint.
I too am going through hell with Sprint over a billing dispute - literally hours on hold, disconnects when "holding for a supervisor", being told the "notes" don't say things I KNOW were addressed when I called previously, essentially being accused of lying by customer "service" reps, being interrupted, "talked over", and told "this case is closed" by a supervisor, being told my husband called when actually it was me they spoke to (because that's what the notes say). Here's the thing - if the notes are so inaccurate as to not even get the name and gender right on a caller - how on earth can they be trusted to contain all pertinent information on the actual issue? Today I had a rep tell me he could see that I called yesterday (for an hour and half) but that there weren't any notes on the call. When actually I was promised adjustments and two supervisors were allegedly involved - and one day later there aren't any notes? It seems quite convenient for them. AND there's no accountability or recourse for the lies and the mistreatment - today I told a rep I had never been treated so poorly by a customer service dept. I was told I could "write a letter on the website". He did not apologize. Where's the follow-up?
I would LOVE to terminate my contract but I don't want to pay the fee. What I want is for them to admit they're wrong, give me my credit (less than $20) and get that supervisor to apologize. Yeah, right.
How can they be aware so many people have so many problems and still be in business? I'm telling everyone I know so they'll avoid Sprint. I can't wait for my contract to be up.
I know how everyone feels and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. Back in march, I moved to a location that does not have sprint coverage. I called and talked to a representative, who said to fax in a bill, or proof of residence, to get the early termination waived. I did. 4 times I did. I call today to see if it has been resolved, and after being disconnected twice, and transfered who knows how many times, I have a representative tell me that the other ones gave me a wrong fax number to send the proof to, and that she had the "right one" and the "specialized" team that handles this, would need to see it. Again I fax, and I wait. They also told me I'm being put on collections, for something they "promised" would be taken care of months ago. So my credit will be shot, the bill is now 250 dollars instead of 200 and all because someone gave me the "wrong" number.
Customer service to me would have called to tell me, known what to do, and would have taken the time out of there paid day at work to make sure it got resolved.
Thanks sprint, never will I return.
I, too, am on hold with Sprint Customer Rapage. I mean Service. I'm about to talk to the sitxth person in an hour.
About three weeks ago, I walked into a Sprint store to upgrade my phone from the ancient A620 I was using for a new M500. I was quickly and corteously handled at the store. However, what they didn't tell me is that my next month's bill would be prorated. I don't understand. I've been a loyal customer for five years. I agreed to two MORE years, and bought a new phone. In exchange for my continued loyalty, they cut my phone off.
I was supposed to have unlimited data. I ordered this for my account years ago. I've never been charged for wireless web or texting. Suddenly, I get charged. I speak to them about this, (yesterday), and they agree to credit the data usage back to my account. Today, there is no record of that conversation.
I'm at the end of my rope. I would go to another provider, but all I've heard is the same. How the hell can a company get away with such horrid treatment of it's lifeblood?
I too have had problems with sprint. Today i was on the phone with them for an hour and 34 minutes, trying to get my bill back to how it was. First off sy plan was changed from 800 - 1400 minutes without me calling, me or my wife never called to change this which scares me! Then a month after we get our new phones places we used to not roam before we are now roaming in. So at work, at home, at 4 of my friends house's i am roaming when before with the same phone...i wasnt? How can that be? Then the bill is for $280 instead of 140 like it always has been for the past year and a half, Charges for extra items that were added to our new plan (that we never ordered in the first place). After getting nothing resolved with customer service i am going with at&t and paying sprint the charge to cancel 2 phones of $400 bucks. It will the best $400 i have ever spent!
never again will i use sprint
I'm so frustrated and angry with Sprint right now that I can't sleep. So I'm sitting here in the middle of the night drafting letters to the Public Utilities Commission, Attorney General's Office, Better Business Bureau and local news stations.
I came across your blog with a Google search. Here's my entertaining contribution:
In May of this year, I travelled to Peru. My Sprint cell phone was stolen. This was reported, and I replaced the phone when I returned to the U.S.
However, on my June bill there are charges for 272 international roaming calls made from Lima.
My conversations with customer service have been like something from Candid Camera. I am being told that the calls "fit (my) usual calling pattern". An investigation has determined that I made them, and "no credit will be issued".
Although I travel internationally for a living (airline pilot), I literally never use my cell phone overseas. Surely they can verify that by looking at my history for the last decade or so. Saying that 272 international calls in one month - to numbers I've never called before - fit my "pattern" is breathtakingly ludicrous. And of course the implicit accusation is offensive.
I have gone so far as to fax airline records and pages from my passport showing that I was not even in Lima when most of the calls were made. For the last several, I wasn't even on the South American continent.
T-Mobile, here I come.
If Sprint messes with my credit rating, I'm wondering if a lawyer could go after them for damages and expenses.
I got locked into a two year deal with sprint and within 3 months i wanted out.
I got stuck with the a900(not the a900m), what literally happened is that the a900 hundred had tons of bugs in it. It randomly shut down, it dropped calls for no reason, it had slow load times and slower menus. Samsung or sprint updated the phone due to the bugs and came out with the a900m.
I went to the sprint store prior to knowing about the a900m and complained about my phone crashing on me around 3 times a day. They ran there test, told me nothing was wrong, and there was nothing they would do. Basicly, i was just some guy trying to get over on them.....
I got really mad because i know the phone was crashing, and thats when they brought out the store "debater" i assume, he comes out and says "Your phone might be acting up, but our test prove that it isnt"
I start to get loud with the guy cause by this time, ive spent 3 hours too many to simply hear him say "you dont have a problem, stop lying"
He then goes on to say "Listen, you might have a virus, youve been going to untrusted websites, have you downloaded anything?"
I downloaded one ringtone, a direct file, and if he, or any one knows about computers, if you make a file and send it straight to your phone from the hosted link, there is no room for error
*www.hostedfile.com/suchsong.mp4
He says, "See you have a virus, either you can get a new phone, or we can rerun our test"
Knowing the last test toke an hour and a half alone, i leave.
Then i find out about all the bug fixes in the a900m and that sprint discontinued the a900......
I cant wait till i leave sprint, and honestly, i want them to fail as a company because they failed me as a provider.
Ive directed all of my friends to anything but sprint, and hope no one i ever known gets stuck with these guys.
______________________
And i havent even mentioned the missbillings, nor the *2 support which always ends with "take out the battery" no matter what problem you have or how many times youve called
I've been trying to contact Sprint for the past 2 days about my inability to login to their website so that I can pay my bill. Yesterday I was on hold for over 1 hour and eventually hung up. Today I've been on hold for at least 45 minutes and have yet to speak to a single person. Did you lay off too many people this time Sprint?
I right now am having problems with sprint it seems every week i have a new problem my bill is always higher then what it supposed to be i never can get straight answer its always let pass you to someone else i was so mad today if i could have reached through the phone and punched this lady i would i wanted 20min to have hang up on me this crazy.
I have been with Sprint for over six years, and I've rarely had problems with them until now - though I think that's because I never had to talk to anyone in Customer Service before. Their cell phone plans, coverage, and options are actually pretty good, in my opinion. If I never had to deal with Customer Service, I'd be almost completely happy.
Here's a time line of my first major issue with Sprint, which is still on-going.
Sunday, July 1, 2007: Since it had been over three years since I got a phone upgrade, I decided I would use my $150 discount. I ordered a new phone off of the Sprint website, and I was given an order number.
Monday, July 9, 2007: After several days of checking my order status on the web site which constantly said, "Your order is in process," I decided to call Customer Service. They told me they didn't sell the phone I ordered anymore. I had two questions - a) Why was it for sale on the web site? and b) why did no one call or e-mail me to update my order? They don't have answers to these questions. In any case, the woman I spoke to cancelled my order, offered me a different phone, but I said I wanted to research the other phones out there. End of discussion.
I went back on the web site and ordered a different phone that afternoon.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007: I received an e-mail stating that my second order had been cancelled. It suggested that if I believed the order cancellation was in error, I should give Customer Service a call. I did so. The woman I spoke with told me I did not give them a shipping address to send the phone, so that is why they cancelled my order. I didn't understand this concept since they have my address to send my bills, and I am positive I submitted my order correctly. After asking me for my shipping address and other information, she put me on hold for a few minutes, and she told me there were no sales agents available to take my order, and that a sales agent would call me on my cell phone in the next several hours to verify my order. I was irritated by this point, of course, but I said okay. She never gave me any kind of order number.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007: No phone call to verify my order. And no order number for reference, I suppose because the order wasn't "verified" yet.
Thursday, July 12, 2007: I went to the local Sprint store. I figured it was easier to get a new phone in person. They were great, though I had to pay the activation fee since the no activation fee is only an on-line deal. I just dealt with this, happy to have a new phone in pocket. At this time, I figured the drama was over. Wrong.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007: I receive in the mail the phone I requested in the second "order" that was never verified. Great, so now I have to call Customer Service to return the phone. When I did so, I was on hold for 15 minutes to get the first representative. Over the course of about 1 hour 15 minutes, I was transferred to a different person 4 times. The first representative told me that a fellow sales agent would handle my return request. Five minutes go by. I was transferred to a sales agent, who told me he would transfer me to the Returns Department. Ten minutes go by. I was transferred to some random person who didn't give me his name. He said my account had been moved to an upgraded system (what the hell does that mean). I asked what he meant. He repeated what he said. I asked him if this was the Returns Department. He said no, and repeated that my account had been moved to an upgraded system. He told me he was going to transfer me to the upgraded system. I was on hold for another five minutes. He told me he could not connect me to the upgraded system, and he gave me a phone number to call.
I called the phone number he gave me. After going through the whole "What's your phone number, what's your name, and what's your password" thing for the fifth time or so (I stopped counting, actually), she asked me for the model number of the phone I received in the mail in error. I gave her the model number, and she said there was no record of them mailing a phone to me. She put me on hold for another ten minutes - she actually didn't even tell me she was going to put me on hold, there was just ten minutes of silence. When she returned, she asked me for the model number again. I told her the model number again, and then all of a sudden, her voice faded and turned into a strange electronic/robot kind of sound. Bad connection, I guess. It continued like this for several seconds, and I just hung up DISGUSTED.
Now I don't even know what to do. I figure I'll call Customer Service again to attempt to get a return kit. I'd just let the issue go and keep the phone since they told me they had no record of sending me a phone. But I'm sure that it will end up on my bill, anyway. I just hope some Customer Service representative will eventually be able to get me a return kit for this phone that I never really ordered in the first place.
I am very close to quitting Sprint and just paying the termination fee, if this issue doesn't go away or gets worse.
The problems with Sprint customer service are many and exist at higher levels than just rouge reps. Sprint's customer service dept. is broken up into numerous subdepartments and intercommunication is poor. When customer care reps tell you they can't do anything for you other than transfer they're not just trying to get rid of you-- they literally cannot help in many instances. Reverting back to an old plan (especially one as good as you had, with unlimited phone-as-modem services) is actually very complicated with Sprint's computer systems and can rarely be handled by the first person you talk to when you call customer care. You've also got to realize that the care reps are often employed by call centers that Sprint outsources to and are not actually Sprint employees. These are people who aren't exactly big earners and who take eight hours of abuse every day. The bottom line is that the people handling your calls have no investment or personal attachment to Sprint (as their paychecks often don't even say 'Sprint' on them). Sprint's corporate values have to trickle down through quite a few layers before reaching the people who represent the company in the most tangible way to its customers and thus are often watered-down or altogether absent at the customer care level. Sprint is a massive and multifaceted company-- providing outstanding customer service to all 55 million of its customers is quite frankly unrealistic when you look at the way their customer service is set up. Sprint's attitude toward customer service will change only when it makes a big enough impact on the bottom line.
I can understand what everyone feels about Sprint Customer Service. I am also going through hell with Sprint with billing problems. Our bill is always higher than it is supposed to be and nobody is getting a straight ansswer. I am with Sprint for the past two months and I really have no idea how to manage with Sprint for the next two years. Their Customer Service is pathetic and the representatives have least idea about solving the problem with billing. I have received just two bills, but hell lot of mistaken additional charges in these two bills. Whenever I call Customer Service, the representatives are just giving rough figures roughly reducing the extra charges. When I ask them to send a new bill with appropriate charges or atleast to send an email with corrected bill amount, they are refusing to do so. And, I need not have to tell about the holding time. I am trying to reach them for hours and hours. To top it all, once a representative told me that there is a problem with the system and will call me later(taking my number) and never turned up. Is this the wicked way of getting rid of customers' calls?
When I try to email them through their website. After entering all the necessary information, when we click "Submit" button, the website address becomes invalid and we could do nothing beyond that. I don't find anything professional in their way of handling problems and I would suggest anybody anything but SPRINT.
I just got a new phone and was promised by Sprint that I would keep the same plan. I hope I don't have to go through the frustrations you went through. All they need is to treat their employees well and have a good training program. I think they have a high turn-over rate which is why nobody knows what is going on.
Hey guys if you are sick of Sprint and want to get out of your contract call them over and over again until they drop you as a customer!
http://www.azcentral.com/business/consumer/articles/0710biz-sprintnextel10-ON.html
http://consumerist.com/consumer/one-way-contract/sprint-drops-you-because-you-call-customer-service-too-much-275178.php
Actually T-Mobile's customer service was 1000 times better than what I have come to expect from Sprint. I have better luck with the Sprint phone representatives than I do with the store customer service. I would rather die than to ever have to step into a Sprint store again. I hate them with a burning passion. I swear they are the worst. I have a friend on the network who I talk to frequently. If I could get her to switch, I would leave sprint immediately.
Sprint is horrible. T Mobile is a million times better.
Sprint has uninformed customer services reps.in their stores and the customer service group on the phone is a real joke. You can get 10 different answers from anyone of them.
We terminated service with them after 7 years - and they failed to cancel one of our 3 phones.
we are getting billed monthly and have held on the phone for 20 minute intervals after being disconnected each time to resolve this issue -
What kind of customer service group is this - I would rate them way below average. What a joke.
MY advise - do not ever become involved with Sprint.
I think I will revert to one of Jane's comment (1
I think sometimes people forget who's on the other line. I work at a call center for sprint.. I listen to your complaints, I do my best to help you, I actually care about you're issues. Today I had a cust who was double charged by mistake and there wasn't anything I, or Sprint could do.. it all had to do with her bank. I sat there for 1 hr n 1/2 trying to help her, talking with supervisors, researching, everything to help this woman.. I gained her trust and it was basicly thrown away when she hanged up on me.
I want people to realize that its a job... EVERYONE goes to work some days not wanting to give 100%. I can't say that isnt true.. I know theres people who dont give that where I work too. but theres also people learning, people trying to help, sometimes it doesnt sound like it but there is. theres people who give a damn at the end of the day.
I'll be honest, if I had your situation, id do my best to help you, but at the end of the call, if ive done my best and your still yelling at me.. calling me a bitch or an idiot, or just not understanding the situation and start to yell... stop. i get this everyday. its like ive built an emotional sheild. i just think people forget that the people they talk to are human.
ill feel horrible if someone goes to a sprint store and gets crappy service.. i feel horrible if someone calls customerservice and gets crappy service.. but i dont represent them.
i try to help u
Wow, what can I say.I am actually on the phone with Sprint right now. I decided to go wtih sprint after being with cigular, now att, that was back on the 16th of last month. That was where it all started. When I first received the phones, I called to get them activated, one would be a brand new line and the other would be ported from ATT. I sat on the phone for 3 hours the first night, of course also getting disconnected several times during the process, to try to get the number ported over from ATT. They told me that they did not see where I had put the information in on the internet to port my phone number over, but yet ATT had already disconnected my phone because of it being ported. After much reprogramming of the phone, they told me to wait after midnight and it should work. Well, I woke up around 1:00am and my phone was working then. GREAT!!! I can finally receive calls, especially since this is my business cell phone and the way I make money is by customers calling me. 1 week goes by and my business partner calls me from his home and states that his phone has been turned off. I call the Sprint "no service" line and of course I was on the phone for hours at several different times that day trying to get this issue resolved. They told me that my phones were over the limit that I could spend. How is this possible when I just received the phones. Well, come to find out that they showed that I did not make the $100 deposit for each phone on the account and I did not pay for the phones. Well, when I had placed the orders online, I was using my tax id number for the account instead of my ss because i am trying to get my business established away from my personal credit. So they required a $100 deposit before the order could be placed. I paid for the deposits with my credit card and for the phones, they would not send those out without them being paid for. They gave me the confirmation numbers and I wrote them down. Well, I gave them the confirmation numbers and the rep told me that they were not valid. I had looked on my account the day after I purchased the phones from sprint and remembered seeing the charges there. I looked up my account and saw that the amounts were still in pending and never actually posted this was late at night. The next morning when I was ready to call sprint again, the charges had fallen off so I had no proof that they had ran my credit card for the phones and for the deposit. They said to give it a couple of more days and that they would leave the account activated, because they deactivate accounts if they do not receive the deposits within the first five days. During the mean time of watching the account my business partner calls me again and says that his phone has been disconnected. I called decided since the payments had not gone through that I would go ahead and make the deposit payment at least. Well, after this I recieved a bill in the mail showing that I owed for the phones and for the deposit. So I decide to login on the sprint website so that i can view the bill and make sure that this time there is a deposit shown on the account. Sprint does not recognize either phone number as being a sprint phone number. I cannot login. I call and the rep tells me that I need to wait until I am with sprint a month before i can access my account. But then they tell me that they will go ahead and get me access. Well they said that it should work in 24 hours, well it does not work. I called back about 5 days later because having the access to my account wasn't a big enough deal that I wanted to spend hours on the phone with sprint. Well, I had to make the phone call yesterday after our phones were disconnected again in the middle of a conference call with my business partner and a possible new client. This was not a dropped call this was complete disconnection. I got back to my office and called sprint. I finally got to someone that could tell me something. the rep said that they sent us dummy phones, display phones. That is why if I try and connect the usb cord to my phone and to the computer I cannot download anything. That is why I cannot login to the internet. How stupid can you get.This is the craziest thing that I have ever heard of.
I just had to ell my story
I think I have one of the best stories yet. I had been with Sprint for over 7 years and was an exemplary customer...always paid my bills on time and signed up for new services etc. About a year ago I needed another line for work, and signed up for a family plan. I recently left my job and wanted to switch back to a single line.
I called Customer Service and they told me that even though I WANTED TO STAY with Sprint they would not waive the $200 early termination fee, I decided to take my chances and go into a store. The employee there initially said she would see if there was something she could do, her manager came up and immediately barked at me: "No, we cannot do that!", I said that there was no incentive for me to stay if I had to pay a termination fee and he said "then leave." So I did, I switched to Tmobile and the money I am saving makes up for the termination fee in two months and their customer service has been incredible.
So, I logged onto my account to see what my total due was and was not able to because they had locked me out of my account online. Apparently after you've canceled you can't access your account online. So I called customer service and they couldn't tell me anything because my bill had just been created? I called three days later and was on hold for over 45 minutes, then hung up on. After three calls I was able to talk to someone and they were nice and waived the 89.99 they had charged me wrongly. I wanted to pay my bill and close everything out but the representative said I had to go into the store to do it.
I went to the store and waited for about 20 minutes while the employees were looking at computer screens, then when one of them so kindly granted me audience I explained what I needed to do. He told me he couldn't do that and I HAD TO CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! I explained what customer service had said and he said he couldn't help. I asked for the manager and the guy from before came out, didn't ask for my account or anything and just said he couldn't do what I wanted. I became increasingly frustrated and explained my ordeal and he with nothing but arrogance said he would not help me. I said the f work and informed him that his customer service skills were awful. I told him I wanted his manager's name and his and he responded with "I'll give you all of the info you fing want", I reminded him about the rule of not saying the f word and stomped out.
I called the regional manager and she in a more patronizing and fake apologetic way basically told me that her employee couldn't do anything and neither could she. She gave me the number to you guessed it.....CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!! I cannot believe that I cannot just cancel my account and pay my bill without atleast ten steps and headaches. So, I get to wait on the line for looks like another day to hopefully get this whole mess behind me. What infuriates me that there is no way to get someone to listen and acknowledge your valid issues. So frustrating!!!!
After reading all these comments, I thought I would have an equally compelling story to tell - but - with a happy ending. I've been a loyal customer for over 5 years.
My experiences starts like all these and has all the similar traits of long wait times, disconnections, poor store customer services, inflexible phone toll free customer service. As customer services was repeating over and over the same words, I said "well maybe I should consider another provider". With that, I was transfered to a customer solutions group. And, my problem was solved! I've left out all the gory details and numerous phone calls up to this point. Today's adventure was only 53 minutes but worth the satisfaction! Thanks Sprint.
I just changed from Sprint to T-Mobile. I felt like I was chained in prison to Sprint because of the way they lock you into contracts if you even speak to them. I have spent many hours in tears repeating the same story over and over to sprint representatives over many issues. I then called and spoke to them before I stopped service with them to make sure the contracts were up on all of my lines and was assured that everything was fine and that I owed nothing. I came home from work yesterday to find a bill for $200 for an early termination fee on one of my four lines and once again had to get upset and stay on the phone an hour and a half after work.They said it was taken care of once again, but I have come to not beleive anything they say. I hate Sprint with a passion and if they were the only cell phone providers in the world I would do without!
I am a Customer specialist from SPRINT, regarding your concerns that you had with our Company, i do apologize for that, but what i now know is that this year Sprint together with Nextel is trying to correct the casual way on how they conduct Customer Service. They are on the tip of trying to give out best customer sulotions. They are also innovating things just to give out best Customer Satisfation. Now they are also multiplying number of Staffs and facilities just to make sure that they could cope with customers needs..
And with that I do hope we could try to get things Rigth this time..
But what i Assure you is that this coming year SPRINT together with NEXTEL will have a new approach on how to deal with you Guys
Sincerly,
Joether John Portugal
SPRINT Customer Service Rep.
Teleperformance, Philippines Manila
My husband is currently on the phone with Sprint customer service, we estimate that within less than one month of service he has now spent a total of 8plus hrs on hold or being transfered for a basic family plan for he and I. After all that we just received our first bill for $455. when it should be $69. We would love to cancel, but we're frightened about the new round of holds and tranfers that action would cause. I think there was a class action lawsuit against US Worst for lousy customer service, anyone interested?
I'm filing a complaint with the Attorney Generals office.
I would just like to add my story.I can see that we all seem to heve similar problems so I won't bore anyone with more details than necesasry. I have been a Sprint customer for over 6 years. Since I was 18, I have been on some kind of plan with Sprint. My story begins at the time of Sprints introduction of the $5 charge for 100 extra minutes feature. A family member became very ill at that time and I knew that I was going to exceed my minutes allowed so I called Customer Service to change my plan to the newly available one. I was informed by the representative that my plan changes would go into effect the following day and that I would not need to worry about overages. I understand now that this was a mistake on my part to even believe this because my next bill arrived with $400 worth of overage charges. After a very long BATTLE with Sprint, I was forced to pay the charges and just deal with the fact that the representative I spoke to "didn't know what she were talking about" and "there was nothin they could do." Fine. I paid, reluctantly, and vowed to leave Sprint as soon as my contract expired. Well, there were several more instances where I had problems with CS reps after that, but this next one was the icing on the cake for me. I was on a shared minute plan with my mother because I was caring for her because of her illness. She passed away on May 10, 2006. I called Sprint on June 1 to change my plan because there was obviously no reason for me to be sharing minutes anymore. I changed my plan to the lowes possible plan and was informed that I would have to begin a new 2 year contract. I challenged this because I didn't change my contract out of desire, but out of a death of their customer. I spoke with a supervisor that seemed sympathetic to my situation and agreed that I would not have to sing a new contract and that my contract would expire as planned on June 1, 2007. OK, great. Two weeks later, I received in the mail my BRAND NEW TWO YEAR CONTRACT set to expire on June 1, 2008! I called them back, played the hold/disconnect game for a couple hours and finally someone told me that they would correct the problem an I would be set back up to expire 6/1/07. March of 2007, I called to confirm that my contract was going to expire on the correct date, and I don't think I have to tell you what they told me right? 6/1/08!!! I was fed up. I cancelled my service on the spot by signing up with a new provider. I ignored Sprint call and bills containing my early termination fee. I allowed the bill to go to collections. TIP: THIS IS A LITTLE KNOWN FACT, A COLLECTION AGENCY CAN MAKE ANY DEAL WITH YOU THEY WANT. I got the agency to waive the $150 fee because I wasn't paying a dime until they did. I recommend this to people that are not afraid to live a little on the wild side. Let the account problems go to collections. They don't file it on your credit report until they can't get the money out of you. They buy your debt for pennies on the dollar so they will take anything the can wotk out with you. Just take care of it immediately with the collection agency so they do not file it in your credit report.
Sprint sucks, they have the worst customer service of all the wireless companies. i was promised a call back on my issues from six differen reps, guess how many calls i got back?
they suck.
I'm a long time Sprint customer, and my account is due to have a phone upgrade. I've tried to buy a phone upgrade online for their "Web special" price. Funny, every time I try, it tells me that I should call a number. I called the number, and she couldn't give me the web price. After a bit of a run around she agreed to transfer me to the web support group. Well, I'm convinced there are NO human beings there. As of right now, I've been listening to the same classical music for 1 hour and 42 minutes. Verizon and Cingular are looking real good to me right now.
i just got a sprint phone 3 days ago. they have given me 3 different actuivation numbers and still i cant place a call. oh, and I called the latest number assigned to me, and a guy answers, saying he's had the numbers for 6 mos! fffing sprint bozos
I was parked on Sprint Cust Svc hold for over 2 hours this past Monday. Having plenty of time I started videotaping the phone display after an hour and captured the annoying on hold message. My experience was a new 2-year contract with phones verbally promised at $0 -- but billed at $744.
Who thinks this would edit into a nice YouTube video with keys words: Sprint customer service
I have been on the phone and sending certified letters to sprint since May 06. and to date have not received a reply. I've got their wireless broadband card service for 59.95 and the 500 minutes free incoming for $59.95. My first bill I received after less than two weeks of service was over $300. As I called them and stated the plan that I have and considering that I did not go over my minutes and paid for my equibment at time of purchase via visa I was: disconnected many times, hung up, transferred, on hold for hours, received multiple reasons for the overbilling but it was never corrected. I today spoke to an account excecutive and he was telling me that the charges were partially because I was charged for services from the time of order and they do not prorate. I explained to him that I already mailed a copy of my last bill from Nextel (I was with them for 6 years and never had an issue)showing that I still had sevice with them while sprint was charging me too. I also informed him that I ported my number at the time of service. I informed him that I am paying my monthly non-disputed charges but they continously shutting my phone off while my account is in dispute. H explained that the only difference was that they charged me for an activation fee and he would give me a credit. I stated that there should have not been an activtion as it was waived when I signed up. But, the bill still does not add up. He smiled and explained as he could hear my polite frustation that if I cancelled I would owe the early termination fee and can trash my phone that I paid for as it was not transferrable to another provider. When I told him that I feel hyjacked he laughed and said I am trying to help you?????? Nothing has been resolved and now they are charging me a late fee for the disputed portion of the bill even though I pay every month. I've been in tears and need my phone for business. He even told me that I could not switch back to Nextel. When I asked for his supervisors name and number he told me that the complain would stop with him and that his supervisor was not to be bothered---he refused to give me his boss contact info.
I have been a Sprint customer for about ten years. I've never had such bad customer service than my last few couple of years(of going over seas).
They can't understand me because of the bad connection or they don't understand hillbilly (I'm from Nashville).
I can't pay my bill on line, upgrade my service, let alone get them to tell me why I'm still under a contract for another 10 months. Sprint and Nextel and their payment processing centers don't talk to one another either, they just transfer you.
After a few minutes with some in Asia I was transfered to India. An hour later nothing.
I hope this link helps understand the service I've had over the last couple of years.... Cut and paste it....
http://www.despair.com/ap24x30prin.html
I have/am experiencing the EXACT problem with Sprint with the customer service department. IN FACT, I am on a neverending hold for a suprevisor to complain. Their new thing is to claim to transfer you to a retention group who's job is to do what it takes to keep the account. I like you have been with them since 2001 and did not start having connectivity issues until late 2005 and have had ZERO resolution to date. THe only thing they want to do is "renew" my contract for another two years. TOday, a guy gets on the phone and promises me the world to keep my account. He went as far as to tell me he was going to replace my aircard and phones for free and if I was satisfied after 160 days the problem was solved I would agree to a new 2 year contract. He then told me he had the deal all worked up and was transfering me to a "higher" group for approval. When he transfered me I was RIGHT back in the same group and the lady told me there was nothing she could do for me and that the person I spoke with before was "full of it". I am giving up as of today and switcing to another provider. I wish there was a way to get our complaints to an official Company person....UPDATE. Finally got through to a "floor supervisor" while I was typing this. He is now going to send me a new air card with NO contract renewal to solve my problem. I told him I wanted it in writing so he is sending me an email (Will see if that happens) However, he did not address my overall concerns just provided a temporary solution to a permanent problem. I told him to google this blog and he would see the same verbage on here that I was telling him. I also told him his CSR's were as bad as an obnoxious used car sales man. ( no offinse intended for non-obnoxious used car sales men.)
Trying to get Sprint to admit, correct or in any way rectify their errors is a nightmare. The problem started when I moved. Sprint took down my new address incorrectly. I did not get a bill for a couple of months. The first realized there was a problem was when Sprint threated to cut off phones. All attempts to get copies of the bills failed. But I paid some $350 to keep the phones on, and I gave them the corrected address. Unfortunately, some one at Sprint put "a hold" on sending me any bills. So I still have not gotten any bills in over five months. In attempting to straighten out the problem, I have waited on endless cueues, been put on hold, only to have the calls dropped and have to wait again. Have been transferred to numbers only to get a records that the department was closed, or to be told by department one that only department two could help. When I call, wait for them once again, they say only department one could help.
So since I decided that I was not going to continue to pay amounts without checking a bill, my phone were shut off (after being promised they would not be). I lost lots of important calls. I have been promised credits, only to have them taken away. I have finally figured out that I could look at old bills on line, after being told that I would not be able to do so. I looked on line, and found $270 of bill for one of my three numbers, and about an additional $115 per month for each month I did not get a bill. ut this number was for a phone that I had purchased about a year ago from Sprint for that line had stopped working. Sprint had refused to stand behind the phone and I had to buy a new phone and a new line. I paid some $400 and am still waiting for the rebate that has never arrived.
Communications have been extremely difficult, especially by telephone. I have been communicating by e-mail to keep a record and actually to get a response, but the responses have been still been one sided and heavy handed. I have wasted a huge amount of time trying to get service, and have gotten very little. The phone selection at the store for the new phone I had to buy was very poor.
I have read in the Huffington Post that Sprint deliberately treats customers poorly. I believe that they do since I have witnessed it first hand. Some one should do a class action law suit against Sprint for these practices, if this is true. It is gross incompetence at least, and perhaps gross intentional misconduct.
I am about fed up with Sprint/Nextel. I have been a customer for almost 7 yrs. and I recently upgraded to the Moto Q. I was told my a CSR that with an upgrade plan that I would have Sprint TV and Sprint Music. Let me tell you that the phone cannot provide Sprint TV. My second complaint with Sprint is that when you call to order or check on accessories for your phone - you speak to someone who is not even in America. Yesterday, I spoke to a guy who was in Panama City, A lady who was only God Know and another man who was in the Phillipines. This is ridicous! They can't understand me and I sure as hell can't understand them. I am about ready to throw in the towel with Sprint. I think we need to get a class action suit going.
I have been experiencing problems with Sprint once I decided to switch services providers after two long years with sprint. Below is an excerpt of the issue. It is absolutely absurd what they are able to do. There customer service reps., if they speak English, never have a clue and give contrastingly difference information each time you call about the same issue. What can we do?
10/07--SPRINT obviously refuses to take responsibility for an error made by SPRINT representatives. The first being that I was never informed, either over the phone or in writing, that by increasing my minutes I was agreeing to a new two year agreement, and secondly, that on August 27, 2007 a Sprint Representative said that she had reverted my termination to the original date of September, 2007. Whether she erred in that information is not my problem. While my information has remained consistent, SPRINT's has not. I will GLADLY pay the $60 I rightfully owe SPRINT. Your customers OBVIOUSLY do not come first, but rather are finagled into bogus charges.
I have had Sprint for 21 months. I cannot make / recieve a phone call in my house. Sprints answer is they do not guarantee that calls can be made / recieved inside bldgs. When I explain I have to go outside - not just under a porch - but away from my house in snow and rain to get / send a call they (at cust un-svce) acknowledge it is awful...but cannot help me out. I have hit the glass ceiling w/ sprint...frequently I hear "we apologize for any inconvenience" and "We appreciate your business." Couldn't proove it by me! I am held hostage to a contract that just enables them to get my money, but does not require them to provide me service worthy of that money. And for every dropped call (even happens regularly while outside) I am furthur inconvenienced to take 2 minutes to call Sprint and go thru the rat maze to get a 20 cent credit / tho some other rep said it was 50 cents. The disrespect for customers is so great that I believe they will not be around in 2 yrs when all contracts expire...people can run away fast enough. I have had 6 phones and the reception is no more than 2 bars outside...which promptly goes to 'no bars' when the call is connected...and then frequently 'call was lost' or 'signal fade' appears on the screen. I also predict a class action law suit will occur. Come on cell phone subscriber bill of rights! It is in the works in congress, thanks to Sprint. Sign me as held hostage by a horrible American Corp. Daniel
As a long time T-Mobile customer (5+ years), I would highly recommend that you all switch to T-Mobile. Over the years their customer service has dealt with my calls regarding a stolen phone, fears of identity theft, and numerous account changes and phone upgrades. I can honestly say I've NEVER had a bad experience. Currently my boyfriend is going through hell with Sprint after his first phone upgrade in over 4 years (rebate problems, billing, and flat-out lying by Spring customer service).
It's no surprise to me that I just read Sprint tops the Customer Service Hall of shame: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/TheCustomerServiceHallOfShame.aspx
WOW! I thought I was the only person who on multiple occasions had the same experiences w/Sprint. I was just in there last week and ended up swearing at the manager. I couldn't believe I allowed myself to get that angry. However, I am tired- physically and mentally of calling and going to the store everytime I get a new bill to battle with them. If I had $500 to spend (which I don't because I pay my own tuition) I would spend $200 to get out of my contract and the rest to buy a phone out right without a contract. Then when I threaten to take my business elsewhere, I actually can. I thought about trying to start a boycott of Sprint, but Verizon is just as bad from my experiences. I actually said to the clerk at the store last Thursday as I was alos on hold for 30 minutes w/customer service that if they paid me what I currently get paid at work for the time I have spent just trying to get what I was told I would; I could retire at 25.
I tried to cancel my servise. It took a total of 7 calls. Long story short, call #3 ended with them removing the charges for ring tone down loads I never made. Call 4 finally canceled my service. Call #5 pertained to the bill I recevived after I paid off the $200 penalty for canceling the plan along with the last months bill. Her is the KICKER: The 'voice" told me I would have a 15 to 20 min wait. Call #6 I called right back and when the voice asked what I wanted to do, this time I said "Upgrade service" Surprise! I was connected with a live person with in 10 seconds! What happened to th e15 to 20 min wait becase the operators were busy??
They were now telling me I had subscribed to a ring tone service and had monthy charges associated
with that. They told mw I needed to go to their website and un-subscribe. Why couln't they do that? I never subscribed in the first palce! I told them I visited their site and did not have the time nor the patience to create a user account with them and then go in and cancel. The rep who was so limited to what they can do with out a "note from congress", suddenly had the authority to take care of everything. I AM FINALLY FREE FROM SPRINT! Amen
All I have been doing is trying to register my online account so I can check my minutes and billing info. This makes it hard first off that I dont have a hard line to my home so my cell is only means of calling and I have no service there. Ive have been told I would be called back within 2 hours by someone an that is usualy about 6-8 hours later if not the next day.Ive given all of my info over and over. they even told me that they could just register it for me with all the info I gave them...still not working. Sprint sucks and Im sure I have more comming.
A chance encounter with this story ... while googling for 'sprint customer service' helped me possibly save myself some future trouble ....
After reading the story, I called to ask Sprint if they had a plan to help me reduce charges while traveling in Mexico .... they have such a plan, and I was quoted what the per-minute rate would be under the plan (which I added). At the end of the call, I asked the agent to explicitly state the price that he quoted in the notes that are kept with each service call. Had I not asked, no record of the quote would be available should the charging not be as quoted.
Bottom line: this problem seems to be endemic in the industry ... so get what ever telephone or phone store agent helps you to put in writing what they told you. If they balk ... find an agent who will.
After some thought what right do we as customers have with Sprint? Why can't we also cut or ties with service that is substandard. Their own industry gives them a low rating. Now the long standing customers seem to be the ones who are rising from the deeps of the ignore/hold scheme (in hopes that we will hang-up and be happy with the slum lord conditions). If they have the opportunity to cancel customers with a simple letter why can’t we do the same? It would seem that with our complaints in the hundreds of thousands would be justification to be able to seek another provider with out the fear of early termination fee. Where are the rights of the customer did we sign them away; what happened to the philosophy that the customer is right and with out them our doors will close. Why not start a class action suit against Sprint or even a grass root protest; picket in front of the stores, don’t pay your bill effect the cash flow. By their own words they omit to having problems and to better serve those who also call to complain we must purge those who have complained too much about their service. Sounds like a play on words a couple of rounds of that it’s going to destroy it’s self. I think it’s time to take this issue up with the Better Business Association and the attorneys general office. Maybe that’s how the little guy gets heard. Best of luck to Sprint in its self-destruction!
This has got to be up for the poor customer service award of 2007. Sad part it, I bet there are others in competition for that award. Here goes...
Simple request - at least I thought it was simple. Upgrade from a Nextel phone to a Sprint phone and add a phone to the account under a family 550 plan. Well - not so simple. First, to order the phones and change plans took 90 minutes on the phone with a customer "nonservice" representative (name was Vanessa). The call took so long because the phone line was so poor and her English was even poorer - ironic, isn't it? A communication company with the inability to communicate?
I should also note that I tried to do this online, which may have been possible, however, I could not order the phone I wanted (A Katana DLX) without the shopping cart automatically adding a Nascar package for $225. There was no success in removing it from the options.
After a few days, I received the two new phones (both Christmas presents by the way - ordering early to be all set for once). Thought I'd better check them out and discovered that the newly added phone had an area code that I didn't recognize: 615. Hmm..my area code (for which my current account and phone had) was 616. Michigan vs Tennessee as I discovered.
So I call. Talked with Julius in customer service and spent 53 minutes on the phone with him. He attempted to change the number but apparently his level of technical security wouldn't let him change the number. During our discussion, he also attempted to activate the upgraded phone without success. Both phones had a problem he couldn't fix. So I am transferred to Nicole, one level up I'm told. Same story with Nicole - can't fix it. So I am transferred to Ashley, another level up I'm told. To no avail. She issues two work orders, one for each phone and says she will get an email when it is corrected and will call me within 48 hours regardless.
No call from Ashley after a full week.
I have now discovered that my monthly bill has been issued with a charge for the phones and two separate billing plans. A family 550 plan and a family 450 plan. Not only is there one plan too many but I have been charged since my original call for both plans, neither of which I can use since neither phone is working. In addition, I was charged for shipping which I was told would not be charged.
So I call back. What is detailed below took me from 8:30 to 11:30 on the phone with various representatives.
I actually got directly to Tech Support the first time. I talked with Curtis who indicated that he would be able to help me and resolve this after I informed him of the efforts thus far. After obviously trying the same procedures as Julius had done a week earlier, he was unsuccessful. So he brought someone else in (this was one name I couldn't understand after asking a couple times). After many "hold periods" I was told there were 4 people in Tech working on the problem and he would be back to me, proceeding to put me on hold again. After being on hold for 15 minutes without a status report, another rep picked up the phone - George - and proceeded to ask me how I needed help. The call with Curtis and his 5 buddies was lost as were 90 minutes of my time.
After hearing my story, George proceeded to take the same steps as his predecessors, to no avail. But - new information! I was not a Sprint customer, but a Nextel customer so I needed to talk to someone else from Nextel. He proceeded to transfer me and I ended up at the same beginning customer service line I had originally called the week before.
Having now given up on getting the phones corrected (I was told by Curtis and his friends that there were no 616 numbers left and they were having trouble transferring my existing Nextel number to Sprint because the company was still having difficulty combining services) I called back to get phone return instructions. But first, I would attempt to get my billing corrected.
I got Natalie in customer service. Finally, someone who understood what was happening, understood there had been other problems like this, and someone who actually corrected my billing the same day. After making all corrections, she transferred me to the return area. I had expected to get a voice message as the return center is not open on the weekends as I had been told twice and received their voice mail twice through all this. But, there must be somebody working there because I did receive a return label by email and I will be returning both phones on Monday. I will back with my current phone and current plan - right where I started - without a new phone for my wife to replace the i670 which is very good at turning itself on and off on a whim, without a Christmas gift to my daughter, and with having wasted over 5 hours of my time on hold and in conversation with people that couldn't resolve the issues.
Conclusion - Sprint is good at correcting billing problems and returning phones as I had no problem with those fixes. Providing phones and service and actually excelling in communication - not in Sprint's vocabulary.
We Americans have to be the DUMBEST people on the face of the earth. We get abused by everyone, Oil Prices, Lead in toys from China, "Customer Service" from companies that honestly couldn't give a spit about your issues. They take the jobs and money over seas and screw the dummies left in America! Call Sprints CS and you'll get a different people every time giving you a different answer every time, it's amazing, I even had one tell me she would call me right back knowing that she wouldn't and when I call back I'll get someone different.
Why couldn't I have been one of the lucky people that Sprint told to leave!!!!
My fellow Americans, we had better wake up, this countries going down the toilet and no one seems to care, they just would more money in there pockets and the pockets of the lobbyist they work for.
It's doesn't matter Democrat or Republican, no one in office cares about YOU!
I am so glad to be reading these posts. I won't go into all the gory details of my sprint problems, but just to know...a posting a ways up the page said to ask the person you are talking with for an email receipt. I did that when purchasing a new phone. CS said that they don't do that and my bill would reflect the changes. Well my bill is wrong and now they are looking up my recorded conversation to see what was said. augh...sprint!
This is almost exactly what happened to me- usually I got agents from the Phillipines that din't understand me. I ended up paying the early termination fee and am much happier with Alltel who I changed to. All in all Sprint sucks!
Well Chris I know what you mean. My problem with Sprint customer service began in September. When my husband & I switched from Verizon to Sprint cause all of our friends & family had sprint. I set my account up on line along with my checking account information. Paid my bills on line for 3 months. Then is September I pay my bill on line, the next thing I knew it hit my savings account and not my checking account. Causing me 2 nsf fees. Well after speaking to 5 reps. I finally get one on the 20th of September (After they shut our phones off) to help me - he credited my account $50 for the Nsf fees. Made sure my checking account informaton was put in the system right(which it was) & turned my phones back on. All good so I thought. Wrong - I made a pmt on line November 24th and yes again Sprint hit my savings account twice costing me anther $50 in NSF fees. I have spoken to 15 reps and still the situation is not corrected. And they have yet again shut my service off for non payment, Even though I did pay them. I wonder every day why we switched. Any time we had a problem with Verison they jumped through hoops to rectify the situation. Sprint they could care less. Every one should walk away from Sprint and send them to the poor house. Not to mention there should be a law that you can get out of your contract when the company does not keep up there part of the bargain with out paying a cancellation fee.
Great Blog. I am not sure it anyone has mentioned that when calling Sprint the first thing they do is start quoting your balance even if it is zero. You call for service and all the want to talk about is you bill. It gets really old having to tell them to shut up the bill is paid, and listen to the reason you called after all it is their job. Sprint will eventually end up out of business one way or another. You can not treat customers this poorly and survive. The contract extensions would never hold up in court and Sprint knows this, that is why they buckle with any amount of pressure at all. A contract has to offer both parties something to be legal and their smoke and mirrors about discounted plans with a contract is BS. They would have to demonstrate that they actually have a percentage of customers at the higher rate and not just .000001%.
Buddy,
You have gotten off easy. I have been in dispute over a $170.00 credit which they (SPRINT) say I have coming to me but never credit it to my account. All this has been going on since March 07. I have had my phones shut off 8 times periodically since that time. I have probably spent 100 hours over the period. I have talked to hundreds of people and supervisors. All of whom said, "wow you have been trying to get this resolved for some time now."
I am at my wits end talking to British Virgin Island and where ever else has there customer service centers are at. Don't dare go into a Sprint store and ask for help because they can't help you either. There are no direct lines to people who can help you. It is my fault though because I had a Sprint account in the 1990's and canceled because of a continuous billing problem and customer service problem. So, I should have learned. Well only 7 more months until my contract ends. But I have to get my $170.00 credit because it looks as though I still owe them $170.00. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
The entire Sprint Customer Service experience is horrible. My wife and I have tried on dozens of occasions to call customer service with billing issues, only to find a foreigner working the phones that we cannot understand at all! Exremely frustrating. Sprint is a U.S. Company with a mostly U.S. customer base. They need to get customer support reps that SPEAK UNDERSTANDABLE ENGLISH!
LOL
I'm on "hold" with Sprint as I write this!
My Sprint account in on a freefall with customer service! I've talked with people in the Philippines, Caribbean, India (I think), Utah and Texas. Like the rest of you, spend literally hours on hold waiting for an answer that never materilizes.
Still on hold...
They slammed my account by giving me a company (I don't work for) discount (thank you) and thereby changing my billing cycle date. All of which I DID NOT AUTHORIZE. It has changed my bill. I owe more. They promise to fix everything back and reset my billing cycle. Of course it never happens.
What did I do to deserve this treatment?
Still on hold and wondering if I'm still connected...
Did you see the "Customer Service Hall of Shame" where Sprint is number one? Go google it!
Still waiting... this will be inscribed on my tombstone.
Boy, how do companies get away with such crappie service?
Mike in Pittsburgh, PA
WOW!! I am so glad I found this blog. And I am so happy I am not the only one I could cry. I have had so many run-ins with sprint I dont know where to start but I defintely have a few examples.
My old samsung was an old mess so I upgraded to a Sprint FUSIC. At the time the phone had just came out and Sprint boasted about its radio transmitter that could play songs from the phone thru any FM frequency. Personally the time I was dying for the Sidekick but I am the second line on my dad's plan so I just setteled for the Fusic.
Well I added MP3s from my PC into the media player..and I couldn't get the songs to play thru the transmitter...the songs that I had bought from the sprint store played fine on the radio but not the ones I had added. So after numerous trips to the sprint (the sales person was as stumbed as I was) the sales rep in the store had to call the 800 #. Even the sprint technician couldn't figure out the problem! I could have returned the phone (30 day gurantee) but I decided to just "let it go" because...well for the same reason we all have let these things go.
A few weeks later I got an automatic sprint update...and I noticed that I could magically use the transmistter for songs I added. It turned out that the phone COULD NOT play songs that you added with the FM transmitter. Good ol' sprint had been advertising the transmitter and it was even adapted to play songs that weren't bought from the sprint music store. At least thats the conclusion I came too..of course Sprint would never admit to that.
We have been with sprint for 4+ years I can't understand why it is okay for sprint reps to TELL YOU ONE THING...dont honor what they promised you...then try to CHARGE YOU for THEIR INCOMPETENCE, CARELESSNESS, OR STUPIDITY...which one it is Im not quite sure. The other line on my account was charged for downloading games from the internet when that phone DIDN'T EVEN HAVE INTERNET ACCESS! What the heck?!
A sprint representative told us that he would add unlimited texts & 100 extra minutes (for that month) to my line---I checked my usage 3 weeks later...I had the 100 minutes but I didn't have unlimited texts...well both orders were made at the same time so why was one processed and not the other? Strange strange.
And after 40 minutes (on the phone with a sales rep) of being told that "I am looking at your notes and I do not see any order for unlimited texts. It only says here that you had 300 on your plan. I can add unlimited texts now for you but you will be charged if you have gone over the 300 for this month."
"Well can I please speak to a supervisor please?"
"Im sorry but it would not make a differnce if I transferred you to a supervisor because there is not mention here in your notes that you ordered unlimited texts message. But I can added them now for you...is that alright"
"Fine. Go Ahead."
"Okay please hold"
::10 minutes later::
"Sir, it appears here that you already have unlimited text messages. It wasn't added to your notes but it was processed. I am not sure why it was not showing up on your usage."
Wow. ARE YOU SERIOUS!?
I agree with many of you. Never, never go with Sprint!! I've never seen a worse customer service dept. I've been placed on hold and disconnected so many times that I lost count. I spent over 4 hours on 22 Dec going back and forth on an issue with Sprint. All I was really trying to do was get my son a new phone for Christmas. Sprint was useless and not two people gave me the same info. If I could, I would pay the $200 per our 4 phones we have with Sprint and get out of their contract. Way to treat long term customers.
My story is almost dead on with yours. I could almost say all of the above! But there is more.
I was a Sprint Customer for over 10 Years and spent over $30,000 for the service.
At least 50% of time I would buy a new phone, order changes, new options, international plan, etc. they would get it wrong.
It would take hours and supervisors supervisors to get it corrected.
Sometimes and many times I would have to call back again and go through it all over again.
The last straw,I went to the Sprint store because at my new home service was unavailable. I explained to the agent and he got customer service on the phone. He explained everything and eventually got a supervisor (took about 35 minutes, who offered to send a complamentary phone to test the Sprint phone that would work on the Nextel system saying it would be a Hybrid. He said he would call me to set up everything. I had the Sprint store agent verify that there would be no changes to my account.
The supervisor never called.
So I called sprint and had them put the phone on line that I already was using the agent apologized for the mistake. Turns out there is no Sprint phone that works on the nextel network.
So I called again and again and again etc. Eventually I got billed $300 for the phone that was suppost to be only a tester. Then I got a new bill for a separate line of service that i hadn,t ordered.
I continued calling and was told my contract was also extended. I explained everything including talking to the cancellation department and nobody could or would correct the mistake. Finally I told them I was not going to for the extended period of time on 5 phones.
My contract had already been extended before without any explanation. She said the only thing she could do was to cancel service and she did. Sprint will take advantage by threatening you with cancellation fees even if they are making the mistake that won't be corrected.
I have the Sprint store agent that will testify
I had a similar experience with Sprint. It took forever to get through to a supervisor. I got transfered around and told that they couldn't do anything several times before someone finally fixed half of the problem. The supervisor was rude and insulting. He basically accused me of lying and wouldn't stop talking so that he could hear what I was saying. He just kept interrupting me. It is hard to imagine that a company values its customers so little. They are losing a customer that pays over $120 every month (automatically via credit card) over a $10 charge!?! WOW! If any of you own Sprint stock I recommend selling it quickly.
I just got off the phone with sprint for the 6th to 7th time this month. This call was longer than normal (about an hour and 10 minutes) and I went through 3 different phone calls and reps before I actually got someone to help me. Almost the same situation as this site, just slightly changed. I have had Sprint since I was 16 years old. I have always had my own payment to make, but it was under my father's name. I turned 21 this past Christmas of '07 and a few weeks before that, my father and I had gotten my phone put under my own name. I was asked if I wanted my plan to change. I said no, absolutely not. I had the Free and Clear plan which sprint no longer offered and I wanted to stick with that. First problem arrived when I left the store. My phone was shut off. I had to call a new number to activate it. I called. They then decided to ask me what plan I want. I explained I want the plan I had this morning when I walked into the Sprint store. They then told me there was no plan listed on my account. So that was the huge ordeal to get them to add my free and clear plan back on since it was technically no longer offered. I had to keep explaining the "grandfather clause" - that I ALREADY had this plan and I didn't authorize ANYONE to change it. FINALLY a manager comes on the phone (after I have been told a hundred times that nothing can be done for me) and she politely resolves the issue for me. Or so I thought.....Next month, I recieve a bill. It says I was over my minutes by 131 minutes. Thank God I had got my plan changed back to the free and clear plan because I was only charged and additional $13.10 cents instead of the 45 cents a minute it would have cost on any other plan. I was a little confused since I rarely go over my minutes and most of the people I talk to had sprint. After reviewing my call detail, I realized that I had been charged for all my Sprint to Sprint calls. I was a little upset by this and I had to call Sprint back AGAIN (Jan 4, 2008). I explained the situation and was basically fought on it. They told me I did not have mobile to mobile on my plan. I was upset by this because Mobile to Mobile is a free service I have had for a long time that I have ALWAYS had on my old plan and was currently offered as a standard feature on any plan. After speaking to the rep, she told me she would add it on that day. I then told her that I wanted me account credidted because I was not going to pay for minutes that should haev been free. I added up all the calls and at least 218 minutes were Sprint to Sprint, which meant that I should have been UNDER my minutes. Not over. She said she would write a ticket and it would be taken care of in 3 to 5 days. I got on my account in about one week, no changes were made. I called again. Explained my whole story ALL OVER AGAIN. and was told that they would write a ticket. AGAIN was not taken care of and my bill was due on the 14th. So I called AGAIN before the 14th. The lady told me she would write a ticket. I put my foot down and said no. I want it taken care of now. My bill is due in a few days and I want to pay the correct ammount. She said ok, you will only owe "$47 something" as opposed to the "$61 something" So I paid the price she gave me. A few days after my bill was due I got online to check on that. My account said I was $14.33 past due. At this point I was furious. I called Sprint back again! Notice how many times I had to call in just a short span of time to get anything done! I explain the situation for what felt like the hundreth time. The lady offered to write a ticket. Again I said no. I need this taken care of now. She then said ok, you want me to credit your account $14.33? I said that is EXACTLY what I want. Finally I thought everything was all taken care of. Not so. I got online again today (Jan. 21, 2008) and realized that my nights and weekends were now not starting until 9am. For as long as I can possibly remember in my past 6 years with Sprint, I have had nights starting at 7 ever since they first started to offer it for free (even before it was free I used to pay 5 extra dollars). I spent over an hour on the phone with Sprint today before I finally got someone to help me. It got so bad that Francis from SE Asia was actually telling me that he could not help me and that for some odd reason he suddenly could not access my account. He had accessed it a few minutes ago before he had put me on hold to go find his supervisor, mind you. I felt lied to and dismissed. No one cared about my problems from a loyal Sprint customer. I ended up having to hang up with him. He told me he would call me back (yeah...right!). I called *2 again to get a different call service rep. She explained to me that Free and Clear plan never offered nights starting at 7 for free. We went back in forth for I don't know how long because I happen to KNOW that they did at one point because I signed up for it. I remember! She may have only been with Sprint for 6 months or something, but I have been with them for over 5 years. I know what plans I have had. Finally after being put on hold for over 15 minutes, she comes back and tells me "oh yes mam, I see that you were right. Free and Clear DID offer it starting at 7 free of charge at one point". At this point that did not even make me happy to hear as I had just wasted an HOUR of my life trying to tell people something that I already knew. She then transferred me to a wonderful lady at the customer dispute place that fixed my problem for me and added my nights and weekend starting at 7 pm back on. I was strangely not satisfied. Why was I being told I could not be helped, when CLEARLY I could have if they just trasferred me to this woman to begin with?? I will forever have a negative feeling about Sprint and I am truly sorry that I am stuck with their service again! Thanks for listening.......
A++
Found your blog while also searching for the customer service #.
Riding out the contract for another 6 months and lesson learned. NEVER AGAIN.
It's not only the CUSTOMER service, it's the dropped calls while on the 5 in Southern CA. For those that don't know, it's a major freeway on the west coast running north to south, not some rural area. And the fact I sporadically don't get service in my house made it really difficult when my husband was deployed to Iraq and I just wanted a few minutes to hear his voice.
OH MY I TOTALLY RELATE TO THE HORRIFIC SERVICE THAT SPRINT PROVIDES!! I HAVE BEEN A LOYAL CUSTOMER FOR OVER 5 YEARS AND OUT OF NO WHERE AND WITHOUT ANY NOTIFICATION MY PLAN RAN OUT.. AFTER 5 YEARS??? AND I RECIEVED A BILL THAT CHARGED ME $.45 /MINUTE FOR 330 MINS!! I WAS OUTRAGED TO SAY THE LEAST! I SPENT ALMOST 2 HOURS ON THE PHONE WITH 3 TOTAL IDIOTS WHO COULD NOT EVEN CORRECT THE PROB. FINALLY A MAN DEDUCTED MY BILL AND SIGNED ME WITH A NEW 800 MIN PLAN. PROB FIXED? NO! THE NEW BILL SAYS THAT I AM ON A 450 MIN MONTH PLAN AND I HAVE BEEN CHARGED $376.47!!! AGAIN I CALLED AND THIS TIME SPOKE TO 1 WOMAN WHO WOULD NOT HELP ME BECAUSE I DID NOT KNOW MY PASSWOR, WHICH I NEVER NEEDED IN THE LAST 5 YEARS AND NEVER HAD, 2 MEN WHO COULDN'T ACCESS MY ACCOUNT AND FINALLY A MAN EHO BASICALLY DID NOTHING EXCEPT PISS ME OFF EVEN MORE. SPRINT IS MISLEADING,UNHELPFUL,UNTRAINED AND THEY SHOULD BE REPORTED ! THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HOW THEY TREAT LONG TIME, ON TIME PAYING CUSTOMERS! SO I AM TAKING MY BUSINESS AND MY HUSBAND'S BUSINESS ELAE WHERE AND THEY CAN SHOVE THEIR LIES AND RUDE STAFF UP THEIR IRRESPONSIBLE *$**&!!!! KINDLY, ANGELA LEMMO
Chris, you dope, it's not a 'miscommunication' it's an organized and planned attempt by Sprint PCS to remove unlimited text messaging from user accounts.
The EXACT same thing happened to me. Even I was surprised that parts of your story were literally word for word what happened to myself. Don't be such a sucker!
I was of course given the standard, I don't know how you could have been told that line of crap.
They also told me that I inadvertently had been getting unlimited text messaging for free due to a 'mistake'
I also was offered a "compromise" credit to my account with the stipulation that I sign up for "unlimited text messaging" for an additional $15 a month.
I have 4 other accounts. All are older phones, and all still have unlimited text messaging. I've received numerous mailings telling me what a great customer I was, and offering to dupe me with a 'free' new phone.
Long story short, my experiences with Sprint PCS, and my friends experiences with their own phone companies have served to lessen my belief in 'free markets' I believe that the only solution is government oversight and regulation. These assholes will literally stop at nothing to scam you out of your money. This sounds extreme, but I think government needs to step in:
1. Abolish all current contracts on cell phone service, make future contracts illegal.
2. Impose Fines when cell phone companies sales reps lie to you, burden of proof would be on cell phone company, this would force them to make all options and contractual obligations clear.
-V
Sprint service is bar-none the WORST. Yes pay the $200 cancellation fee and save yourself the stress. How do they stay in business?
I don't think I have ever been so frustrated with a cell phone carrier in my life. I used to have AT&T, they might have charged more, but at least they weren't rude on the phone and knew how to solve simple problems. I bought a new phone was never issued any rebates, then when i asked for them they told me that they couldn't track the payment. After that I have just gotten the run around, been hung up on my rude supervisors and told to call numbers that don't even work. I just hope no one else has to go through this.
Sprint is in the process of changing to another subcontractor for customer services.......but, unless Sprint avails themselves to those that handle those calls & provide effective channels for a CSR to resolve customer issues, it's just going to be the same old crap......different day.
The problem with Sprint and other call centers is there is absolutely NO incentive to be accurate, or even helpful, but there are serious penalties for long call handle times, (hence the constant transfers), and for low sales stats.
The same with the stores, they don't have any more access to make changes to an acct than a call center CSR does, and the only incentive is to sell.....not help.
Essentially, the cell phone business practices legal theft and absolutely DOES need to be regulated.
Hi,
First off, let me apologize on behalf of Sprint for all the inconveniences you have experienced. I am very disappointed to hear what kind of customer service you have received, and hope everyone reading this will give us another changce. Sprint has recently teamed up with ACS to make sure the customer service satisfaction dramatically increases. Our calls are constantly monitored, and the necessary corrective actions are taken when a CSR handles a call poorly. The satisfaction rate is steadily increasing as we are doing everything we can to make sure of this. I hope this offers some insight to our process. Again, I want to apologize for everyhing you've gone through. If you are still with Sprint, I hope you are already seeing or SOON see the improvements.
Have a great evening!
🙂
Calling Sprint customer service is just dreadful. It took me 1 hour and a few hang ups for them to do a simple call forward. It took me just as much aggravation to undo the change.
I'm with the rest of you and Sprint SUCKS!! I've been a loyal customer for 6 years now and when the contract is up in a year (if I last that long) I'll switch. I've heard Verison is good with Customer Service. It all started when I added a 4th line for my husband. All he wanted was a phone to say hello and good bye and what we got were charges to the Internet for $75 or more monthly. My husband doesn't even know how to access the Internet (neither do I). I finally had a block put on 3 of the phones that we couldn't get on the Internet. Now my son is having problems. There's calls to 411 at 1.79 a piece which he is being charged for then today I went to Sprint.com to check what my kids are doing and there was an international charge for 3 minutes on it at $1.49 per minute. When I called Sprint they told me he had called Santa d Mingo and talked to someone there for 3 minutes. I'm telling you my son did not make that call and when I called him at school he was clueless as to what I was talking about. Sprint said they could not put a block on his phone for international calls. No, nobody else is using his phone either. I'm taking it away from him tonight and he won't be able to take it to school anymore. I don't know what else to do. It's like some of you say, there's a mysterious person hacking in on his phone but Sprint told me that was not possible. I feel like a whipped puppy st this point and don't know what to do. I'm about to the point of paying the $200 just to be rid of the hassles.
I had the worst of all..my contract expired in May 2007 as per the agreement that they would end my contract on 2007...I confirmed calling them a few times and they confirmed that it was correct and my contract expires on 2007...when I called them recently they said my contract expires in May 2008 and they don't have any information about my contract Expiring in May 2007..So after fighting with them they offered me some credit but didn't accept them as I am afraid of taking any offers or credit from them as they would extend the contract again without my knowledge. That being said I am still with Sprint until the next month..May 2008 so that i can move out of them.!!!Worst service!!!
I just read the customer service specialist's comments about imminent improvement. What a joke. A month later, I am reading this blog because I can't get on the website to try and correct a problem with the new phone that I was supposed to have upgraded to. Sprint is a joke. They will never get my business again, nor, will they get my business's business. Say goodbye to a multi-thousand dollar contract, Sprint!
Nextel-Sprint has the most lousy service. I paid my phone bill on the second and had a zero balance as of the 2nd, but they shut off my service. I called and spoke with them for one and a half hours they turned it back on, That was Wednsday. Thursday morning no service. I called and spent 1hour 40 minutes with them, they turned it on and apoligized for the mistake, Then Friday morning, no service again. I called and spent another 2 hours on the phone and they apologized for the mistake and turned it back on. Then, Saturday morning it was off again, I waited 12 hours for the to turn it back on. Sunday it was on. But today, it was off again, Spent 3 hours 12 minutes on my day off today. 1 hour and 36 minutes just holding for a manager. By the 3rd hour, I told them to just cancel both my phones and I will pay the termination fee. 200.00 dollars. All this trouble isn't worth it. It is like this every month since nextel and sprint seperated. For now on...it is Metro for me.
Sprint is the worst,I purchased a new phone 11 days ago it would not keep a charge,they would noy reolace it at the store i got it at.After pleading with the guy (11) days old hello,his comment back was we need to check to see if you got water in it!!! no wonder they are loseing customers
I tell you sprint is not getting anybetter with there customer service. I was just disconnected for exceeding my credit limit. There is no way I could have exceeded my credit limit because have not purchased anything, and I have free roaming. I called to have my service corrected and the rep agreed that I was being billed for roaming charges. He told me he would put it in the system to have the charges reversed. They reactivated my phone. The next day my phone was deactivated again. I called them except all I got out of them was that I had to wait for my bill to come in 2 weeks because they did not have any access to any of the information about my charges. On top of that I was disconnected several times and every time I call them I'm charged a $9.95 service charge. I would like to know who to contact that can get this resolved once and for all. Plus I would think that I should be entitled to a credit for service.
I'm tired of people blaming sprint even when it isn't their fault. Let me assure you that Ulimited Vision or Power Vision has never included 'Phone as Modem' usage.
Problem with Sprint is, they don't lock it down on all phones, and they don't even care or charge extra for that if it is okay usage (as long as you don't overdo it)
Phone as Modem is always an extra charge. Unlimited Vision / Power Vision is usually $15 added to your bill. Phone as Modem is $40. A Wireless EVDO card is $60. Come to think of it, Phone as Modem is the same as using a Wireless EVDO card, right? Why would you expect it for free?
Quote :
As a sprint customer i would rate the customer service that i have received a 5 of 5. Truth is i have not called in to sprint much but ever time that i call in i have received great service. Everything that was mentioned on this article sounds oh so familiar and very belivable. Things like this happen not to often but more often than it should. Thing are improving, but as they "improve" more agents need to hired to fill in the "improvement" and we start over with a batch of new agent. Coming from many customer service centers it takes time to fill spot with all the right people it takes time and sprint has spent tons of money contracting customer service companies and know this is an issue. Everyone with in the call centers are now under pressure to satisfy the customers, and yes sprint has used the free min and credits to help "resolve" and issue and that really never fix anything. Just to end this in some what of a good note things are improving. and sorry for the problems.
I too had serious problems with Sprint after a phone upgrade. After hours and hours on the phone with them I barraged the corporate office email addresses I was able to find online and copied the consumer unit of my local TV station on the emails. It wasnt long before I got a phone call from thier corporate customer care department and had my issue resolved in no time at all. While it shouldnt be this way for paying customers,,,,the squeeky wheel gets the grease my friends!
I change phones every 2 years with Sprint and go through the same thing basically. I spend 6 months before I really get it straight. I haven;t had any problems with anyone being rude, just more incompetent. It's EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. I am coming up on my 2 years and not sure I want to stay with Sprint, even though I do love my plan.
I wish I had the patience to write my saga of the TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE I have received from Sprint over the past year. After misrepresenting the cost of adding a new phone to my account (by the tuen of $60 per month), they started randomly adding features to my phones, which I didnt' catch for months because I have auto deduction form my bank account. So essentially they were just stealing money from me. I would call and go through the whole story at least 3 times, finally getting to the customer retention folks and managers who promised to reverse my cancelation charges. Then I would keep getting bills for hundreds of dollars. After an average of 45 minutes on the phone each time, they simply said, that even if they did misrepresent and defraud me of money, that since I paid, I (auto-deduction) I was agreeing to this. And that the early termination charges are VALID. They confirmed that their policy has no provision for misrepresentation to customers or unauthorized charges to my account. Some of the poepl I spoke with are Ashley, Michelle Kelly, ROberto, Jack, etc. etc... They say they are documenting everything, but if they don't, it does not matter what they promise, the next person you talk to will simply say that it is missing form the notation. Essentially calling me a liar. Even though I had them for 5 years and never paid a bill late. SPRINT is the worst... I have AT&T and Verizon WIreless for work. I have had LA Celluar and Singular in the past...Let me be clear. SPRINT is the worst in customer service. The absolute bottom of the barrel. I can only pray for Bankruptcy at this point.
I had terrible problems with their customer service today as well. Turns out after an hour of waiting, the CS Rep was in Mexico!!!!!!!!!!! I think I will get a ball of string and two cans to make any further calls... grrrrr
it is pretty normal that you feel frustated, but i got a new for you.
for sprint you're a customer more, they dont care if you write a blog about you "bad customer service experience" none of them is going to say "I appologize" don't even dream about it or about a refound! (:
you must take a break of all those calls to customer care, and get a life!.
What do you think, Chris Hardies?
Sprint treats their employees so badly that it's no wonder they can't think well enough to help people, my daughter works for them in Tulsa and they refuse to train them on new things coming out and try to get them to quit if they are doing better than the managers so that the mangers can keep their jobs
i too have just felt the sting of sprints customer service. i have just ordered there services with three phones at a special discount thru my job. the price came to $107.00, which has already been deducted from my account. i have just found out my services have been suspended because i have a bill of 800.00. keep in mind i have only had the service since 6/27. they also say i cannot cancel my plan because it's suspended and not active.
I want to describe *my* most recent experience with Sprint customer service:
Ever since I bought a prepaid Sprint phone card, the software has with almost no exceptions been telling me, when I enter the destination number of a call, that the number is invalid.
But then when it gives me a chance to enter it a second time, it without exception accepts it and connects me, after having wasted a certain amount of my time.
It's not so long each time, but the more calls I make, the more annoying the cumulative wasted time becomes.
So today I called Sprint customer service, the number printed on the back of the phone card. The first rep, after listening to my problem (which I made clear had happened dozens of times), said she would call the prepaid calling card number *for* me, so I could make my call.
When I tried to explain that this would merely be repeating my oft-repeated experience, she said "What do you want me to do?" but every time I tried to tell her that I wanted her to escalate the problem to techies who could deal with this obvious software problem, she interrupted me. It was obvious she was completely uninterested in what I wanted her to do.
Three more times, the next three customer service reps each hung up on me when I tried to explain, using entirely polite language (though you can be sure that's not how I felt after wasting more than 1 1/2 hours on this nonsense).
I cannot possibly express how strongly I would urge anyone considering doing business with Sprint to reconsider.
It is like dejavu reading your story. I have also been charged for thing and told I shouldn't have had them. Or that the other person I spoke to didn't know what they were talking about. My favorite is when I get told they can't do something and you ask for a supervisor and then all of a sudden they can fix your problem. Then something always goes wrong. Sprint is the biggest, largest employer of the "Mentally Impaired" (no offense to those who are really Mentally impaired). and yes I do find it offensive that those customer service people would make fun of the Handicapped like that. You know acting like such incompetent 2yr old Mentally retarded bastards. They just go around acting like that and making of those truly handicapped.
I have decided that they are just acting, because I keep trying to tell myself that the world could not possibly be full of "THESE" people. You know the ones. (I think they are starting their own groups. They are trying to take over the world. It just might work because I think they are just trying to drive the rest of us to suicide so they can breed and take over the world).
I am so frustrated and unhappy with my service at sprint. I still have a contract after 3 years. I would rather gouge my eyes out than renew a contract with Sprint and have to call and deal with "THOSE" people.
If they didn't always try and steal my money and overcharge me and "forget" to add things I am paying for I would let the little things go.But if I did this those "little" things aren't so little when they literally are in the thousands of dollars. The total is close to $3,000, that if I hadn't called and spent hours arguing with these degenerates, I would never have gotten taken care of.
My contract is because of changes in my plan. It is not even to offset the costs of a free or discounted phone. I switched to a nationwide plan, they added a year, I added a line and increased my minutes, and they extended my contract two years. I things that cost me more and make them more money and that's not enough.
Although I can't imaging that they are profiting that well in recent times. From what I have been reading on the Internet I am not the only unhappy customer and I won't be the last.
I am easy to please. I understand mistakes get made. I understand issues arise. But when you make your goal for the day to be a complete asshole to everyone you come across that's when I get a little ticked. When I have to spend 3hrs on the phone trying to get money credited back for services i was charged for and never requested or received, when I would like to be spending time with my daughter that's when I just flip and am no longer nice.
I understand how hard customer service is and I try to be nice but my pet peeve is ignorance and snobbishness and I think that those are the two top requirements to being a SPRINT customer service jerk.
Thanks for the venting.
Sorry for any offense I may have caused anyone. (unless you work for sprint and are an ass then I am so not sorry)
Sprint haas the worse service I've ever known. My phooone went out for no reason 1 mo. before the 2 yr contract was over. They sold me a phone ofr 50.00 it lasted 2 wks, stopped working. Just keeps saying no charge. Took it back & was told they can't fix it as I never bought a ins, policy on it. They can't sell me another one for $50.00 +ins, because phooones are now 150.00 + ins.policy.That I have to buy a 2 yr. contract. Thying to speak to a civil(nice) person or asuperior by phoooone is not posssible. I don't want another 2 yr. policy nor new phone as I have trouble staying up with expenses now on a limited budget & for health reasons worry that I may be over my head in medical. I need a month to month contract now. And to relate this to a manager or Ceo or etc, the phooone answering people won't let this happen. BAD business Sprint!!!!
My wife and I just called Sprint this afternoon and canceled our contract. I had problems with Sprint similiar to the ones you describe. We were Sprint customers since 1995. We made the fatal mistake of calling customer service to inquire about how much credit we had accrued towards the upgrade of a new phone. The next thing we know is that two new phones showed up on our door step that we had not ordered and not authorized. That began a 2 month ordeal dealing with Sprint customer service. After speaking with about 15 different customer service reps over the two month time frame we finally learned that we had also signed up to a new 2 year contract that we had not authorized.
To make a long story short my wife and I spent 2 months dealing with incompetant, rude, and totaly unconcerned Sprint representatives.
Several times they told us they would send us prepaid mailers to return the phones but those mailers never came. Over time we began to realize theat these promises were nothing more than lies so they could placate us and get us off the phone. They probably thought that the odds were that when we discovered their lie and called back, we would bother someone else.
Lies, fraud, incompetance, lack of service and condecending treatment of their customers resulted in our saying good by.
As of today we start fresh with Verizon.
Rich Newbold
Oh my Chris! We though we were the only ones who have had problems with sprint...almost the identical problems have happened with my phones! We switched to TMOBILE today...after yesterday...ongoing SEVEN hour customer service calls and sprint chats..being hung up on two times, being told "ok i apologize for the inconvience" a thousand times, after being told ok the problem has been fixed....after the aggrivation and frustration...it was time to end our 6year long service with sprint. and we will NOT be paying the $200 cancellation fee...why? because Sprint failed to hold up their end of the freakin contract, the ridiculous complications i had with them every single bill cycle...its just enough. They arent seeing a dime more out of us!
So i was having a problem with my sprint EVDO internet (Only net i can get in my area) my ping was in the 600-800 range when it is normaly 150. This had been going on for a few days now and i though it was time to call tech support and see what was up. After being on hold for 20 mins i finaly get through. So i explain how my ping has been high for the past few days and i ask if a tower was down. "No, no towers are down, nothings wrong" So then i ask the techie if they know what a tracert is "No i do not" they say. So i ask if i can talk to tier 2 or 3 tech support "I am advanced tech support" they say. I am told to do ipconfig /flushdns which doesnt do anything. Then i am told to be put on hold. After a few minutes they come back saying they asked around the office and that a ping high is actually a good thing! News to me. Then the techie goes on to say that "I ran a search on google as to what causes high pings and i could be that you dont have enough ram or to little HDD space" at that point i am in disbelief at the words this person just said and said i had to go and hung up. I will try again tommorow, maybe i can get someone else.
I though i should share my story with the world about the amazingly trained tech support over at sprint.
Chris,
I've bookmarked your blog site re: Sprint Customer Service. My husband and I have been with Sprint and just this past year (Sept 07) we were thinking of canceling with Spring and going with T-Mobile. I wish we had but, my hubby got a "Sweetheart deal - a unbelievable package deal" that really sounded too good to be true and Tony caught the bait! We had such a rough time trying to explain all those costs we shouldn't have gotten but, it went on deaf ears. We couldn't even speak with a supervisor. I had another incident just tonight as someone changed our plan to the Season plan (which would have incurred big time fees if we didn't check out plan tonight) It is a long story and we are ready to bail when our contract is up. I am thinking of starting a Sprint blog and cataloging all of what I've gone through with their customer service, name, date, person spoken with...that kind of thing and just using it as a FYI too. Because I questioned our contract date that was pushed back to 2010 without our consent, I realized that someone had changed our plan. Finally, I was able to get online with someone who really helped me and eventually got a supervisor online. The problem is suppose to be resolved but...I am going to check each week to make sure my contract date is still the same date and also...my plan hasn't changed and i am looking carefully at my bill online and also the hard copy I receive. Thanks for blogging on this. PS don't take this blog down.
No problem with Sprint for 3 years. Until today. No problem, because we didn't have any problem. The funny thing? We are up for renewal and transferred to "Retention Specialist" as we considered switching to TMobile, purely for plan & phone features. The Retention Specialist blew the deal. As we considered our options last night, we had a question about the $150/credit per line, towards new phones (we have 4 lines) if we renew for another 2 years. Spent an hour on the phone with a representative, who told us we should qualify for an additional credit to our bill for being a "loyal customer" but that had to be completed before the upgrade & renewal of our contracts. Their system was in the middle of an update so she was unable to access information on our account to see how much that would be. Could be 5%, 10% or another amount, depending. Either she would call us back the next day (today) after 3pm, or we could call after 7am and talk with her supervisor, which she was leaving detailed information for. She put is on hold a few times to "document" the conversation in the notes so anyone looking at it would know what was happening. I called first thing this morning, talked to the first representative, who at first told me we only had $70/credit. When I said we'd talked to 2 other reps in 2 days, who both said $150, she confirmed that was right. But couldn't confirm anything about the "loyalty credit" or "retention credit". her "hands were tied" but she would transfer me to a retention specilist who could help me. The retention specialist told me there were NO notes from speaking to anyone the day before and argued with me, making me feel like I was lying! Even when I told her the previous rep specifically told me she saw the notes, just nothing about the credit. Regardless, how can she help me with the question about the loyalty credit? She mentioned a $100/credit that could be applied to the bill but that was seperate from the phone credit (I had already pointed this out to her). I said, yes, just as I mentioned already, the issue wasn't the phones, I would take care of that but the credit which needed to be done BEFORE we renewed our contracts. She ignored that and went on to give me a quote on the phone. Which was $30 a piece versus FREE if we ordered online. I asked her why I would do that? Then again, said that I already told her I wasn't ordering phones with her, my husband needed to be with me, we wanted to actually look at the phones in person, decide what we were going to do, what about the credit? As soon as she realized I wasn't going to pay $30 for a phone I could order for free, she told me she couldn't help me! There were no notes from the night before and nothign to prove how much the representative promised me. I said I never told them how much, simply that there was an amount, set by Sprint policies, based on the length of time a customer has been loyal and she had to wait until today to find out what that would be. The RETENTION rep told me Sprint no longer offered those credits (this was a 30 minute conversation) and she coulnd't help me with that. I thanked her & said "I guess we'll go to TMobile".
Oh, and the reason we were looking to switch? My phone fell into the mud this weekend and destroyed. Our contracts have been expired since May and Sprint has been calling to get us to renew. We like the IPhone but don't like Cingular. Have been "thinking about it". Our daughter's phones expire Feb. We thought, maybe we'll renew, get them new phones for Xmas, surprise them, stay with Sprint. Is it possible, let's just say, that the reps realize we are locked in on 2 lines until Feb? Hmmm. Well this family will just wait around until Feb & switch. Good customers, 4 years, good size monthly bill, paid on time. Lost because someone didn't drink their good customer service drink before taking calls this morning. Someone needs to work on retention training for the retentions "specialists". Really silly. What if we had a real problem???? You would think with the economy the way it is, companies closing/going under, they wouldn't lose customers over such stupid "service" or lack of.
I could write a book on my nightmare customer service experience with Sprint.
I'll give you the short version:
1) I made the mistake of buying a Blackberry from a Sprint telemarketer. I travel extensively, and was in need of a new phone so I was actually glad the guy called. He told me that Sprint was offering a special price with rebates galore. Hey, Sign me up! I purchased the phone using a Visa card. The phone I ordered was the wrong one so I went to the Sprint store to exchange it for an upgraded Blackberry World Phone. The store didn't have one in stock, however the clerk kindly handed me their phone to order it from another department. The clerk then did an exchange using my Visa at the cash register, and I my new phone arrived at my home two days later. Cool.
2) Since I'm not exactly a tech-savvy phone genius, I returned to the Sprint store to get some help setting up my new Blackberry. They were marginally helpful; however they got me fixed up nonetheless.
3) I chose the Blackberry World Phone because as I said, I travel extensively. I was leaving for China in a few days and just as I do every month, I dial *3 to pay my Sprint bill. I was a bit shocked when the lovely robo-woman told me that my new balance was $1100.00! As I said, I purchased one phone, exchanged it for another, all on my Visa card. My normal phone bill is around 100.00 per month, and now I'm looking at an $1100.00 phone bill. I called "customer service" immediately to get to the bottom of it.
Oh my God! I spent two days, and a total of 9 hours on the phone dealing with one idiot after another. In two days, I spoke with 29 different people. I was hung up on, mysteriously disconnected with, put on perma-hold, and treated like dirt by these evil mutants employed by Sprint. I was yelled at, threatened, called a liar, insulted in a half a dozen other ways, and still nobody could figure out why my phone bill was $1100.00.
I had only two days to go until I'm on a plane for China, and I'm going through a living hell with Sprint! I was only in the US for a total of four days in between trips abroad. Time that I could have spent with family or friends was consumed by having to deal with Sprint “customer service”.
On the third day, I return to the Sprint store to try to resolve the issue. The manager of the store dialed some kind of secret magical number and handed me their phone to speak with some big chief, or the "king of Sprint", or whatever. The guy was very pleasant, and tried to help me unravel the whole mess. Turns out, I was charged for three phones. They charged my Visa bill, and there were overlapping charges on my Sprint bill. He credited me for part of the damage; however I was told that the credit for $700.00 on my Sprint bill wouldn’t show up until my next monthly statement.
At this point, I was just happy to know that I had a working telephone to take to China, and I was glad to know that the issue was more or less resolved. Had I not been on such a hectic travel schedule, I would have dropped Sprint immediately.
4) One month later: I return from China, dial *3 to pay my Sprint bill, only to hear robo-woman's voice telling me that I'm past due for the amount of $700.00. Now, I've never been late with paying my Sprint bill. In fact, I usually pay early. I've been a loyal Sprint customer for eight years. I didn't use my phone in China, except to answer annoying messages from Sprint which I was receiving daily (Apparently, when you have an open dispute with them, they try to annoy you into submission by hounding you to death across the globe. You can run, but you can't hide!)
So once again, rather than go through another two days of degradation trying to resolve anything on the phone with "customer service", I drive to the Sprint store. During my jet-lagged attempt to get some answers from the guy in the store, I was told that this was somehow my fault because "we told you it would take a month for the credit to show up on your statement". He also suggested that I pay the bill, even though I don't owe them money, and wait until yet another month goes by for the billing department to straighten it out. Rather than get violent with the guy, I marched out of there and promptly called "customer service" again to see if I could find some answers.
Finally, I get someone who isn't on drugs to speak with.The "supervisor" more or less got it straightened out. It's been almost three months, and I'm still waiting for that rebate. Never did get that "special offer". After the mental anguish Sprint put me through, they should give me free phones and free service for life. I would drop Sprint, however I'm in China again this month, and I’m heading to Italy after Christmas. As grueling as my travel schedule is, I don't have time to change service right now. Whenever I can take a break, dropping Sprint is high on my to-do list!
Funny side note:
While I was in China last month, I realized that I forgot to call Hertz before I left to reserve car to upon my return to the States. Since I really didn’t know how to dial US directory assistance from China to get the number for Hertz Rent-A-Car, I called Sprint to ask “customer service” for help. I explained to the woman that I was in China trying to reach directory assistance in the US so I could make a rental car reservation. The woman at Sprint “customer service” responded by yelling “Sir, we are not a travel agent”, and then hung up on me.
… At least they’re consistent.
I am about to go to bed and don't have much time but I just want to say that I AGREE!!! Sprint is absolutely horrible. I loved my first bill of 500 dollars when we used our phones for a week with nothing excessive or abnormal. I especially appreciated the $75 dollar charge for downloading one ring tone. Only reason we are keeping them is because we don't want to pay the fees to cancel now. Bottom line is Sprint is terrible, customer service is incompetent, and they flat out lie to you. Good luck!!
I realize that this article was written over a year ago, but I have to say that I completely agree with everything written here. I'm currently having some major issues with Sprint; its way too long of a story to type out, but it consists of moving to an area with no Sprint service, trying to cancel my service, being told that I have to pay the ETF, being hung up on by unprofessional and rude reps, Sprint not cancelling my account, and me being expected by Sprint to pay for months of service that I didn't use despite the fact that my record with them shows that I've called everyday and faxed my proof of move to several different numbers. Its exhausting, time-consuming, and a waste of money. Sprint has the worst customer service and I really, really hate them.
I, too, recently had a problem with Sprint. I called to get a Canada Roaming option added to my plan. This is a relatively inexpensive feature (under 5$/ month), and lets me use my phone while travelling for business in Canada at a reasonable savings. In the past, this addition has taken me about 10 min's to accomplish over the phone. For whatever reason, Sprint doesn't have this option over the internet. I can remove the Roaming option from my plan over teh internet, but not add it.
Anyhow, the whole process this time around took me 4 separate phone calls to Spring Customer Service, and over an hour and thirty minutes to finally accomplish. I finally got the roaming plan added. However, two weeks later, I'm still astonished at the inefficiency and incompetence I experienced with all but 1 representative, when trying to add the roaming option.
When evaluating the efficiency of this company to provide service in this instance, there is an enormous waste of company resources and time and certainly I will not buy Sprint/Nextell stock, or recommend anyone I'm advising to do so.
To fix this particular problem, the company should make this roaming option and all other additions to sprint plans possible online.
I was also a loyal cuctomer with sprint but after spending hours on the phone complaining and coutless ours at their stores i gave up I told them hell with their service Im now with a new provider and so far so good but I also filed a formal complaint with the F.C.C.I sugest you and everybody do the same. because i belive they are robing their customers and they dont care if you have been with them for years they see you like a # and nothing else.
OMG...it's like reading my own experience. I also had and old phone and the Unlimited PCS vision pack which included unlimited text messages. When I decided to upgrade my phone I went to a Sprint Store and the lady who helped me upgraded also my Unlimited PCS vision pack to a Data Pack which I agreed to because she assured me that I will have the same features and even better for the same price as before $15.00. For my surprise the first bill was way higher than usual because I was charged for every single text message. I called and complaint and told them what I was told at the Sprint Store and the only thing I could get was a refund for the text charges and I had to buy a separately plan for my texts. Now, my new phone got stolen and I am using my old phone and I want to go back to my old plan and everytime I called Sprint they act like they don't know what I am talking about....Very frustrating!!
I agree man... I have had a hassle with sprint even now... to this date... they are like blood sucking ticks man...honestly.. I am still trying to work out my problems with them.
1st: I negotiated my plan and the rep told me that yea this is what i get... I was on phone for more then an hour working out the plan making sure I got every detail of it... so later on I dont end up on phones with sprint. (But I guess I was wrong)
2nd: They end up charging me two time for same billing cycle refusing to credit me for one of them. Telling me I am not calculating it right.
3rd: I got my new phone from telesales telling me I will get 2 years of free TEP. But I did not get a jack... all I got was charges of 7 dollars a month.
Call them... they tell me... there is no details of any of this stuff on my account. WTF... is that my problem or theirs... common how low can sprint really get. I really agree with Damon, lets start our own company. A cell phone cooperative. This is just ripping off man.
Well....the first thing about this is....maybe you´ve heard that cust servcie is outside the country or overseas..how do i know that...I AM CUST CARE AGENT OR WAS...THANK GOD, people always call expecting thing to be ressolve like magic..just by dialing the cust care toll free number....AND THE REALITY IS..that you own people beloved american folks AT THE STORE are the ones who messed up everything in the first place....BECUASE THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE SYSTEM AND CODES...FROM THE PLANS....SO IT IS NOT SPRINT´S FAULT IT IS NOT THE CUSTOMER SERVICE....IT IS YOU THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who tragicly work in the store...who do not know how to provde a good servie.AND US BEHIND THE PHONE HAVE TO TAKE IT after the mess happened.
And then you call us....screaming the hell out..cursing because we are not from the same country as you...WHEN IT WAS AN AMERICAN in the store who destroyed your service..just for a sale...THINK ABOUT THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU CALL ON THE PHOEN TO RESSOLVE SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED AT THE STORE...
and i forgot to add....that why on heart would you have the same servcies and same prices...TECNOLOGY DHANGES...your old phone...is not compatible with the new systems...and computer technologies...THE SERVCIES AND PACKAGES HAS TO CHANGE...the phoen are not designed by SPRINT...they are designed by the phone manufactures...MOTOROLA, SAMSUNG, SANYO.....the only thing sprint do...is try to apply compatible services..if YOU CHANGE THE PHONE OBVIOUSLY EVERYTHING WOULD BE DIFFERENT....
AND I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINS...SPRINT HAS AT THE END OF THE DAY...GOOD PRICES...AND SERVICES....AND GOOD CUST CARE...THE COMPANY PROBLEM IS THE SAME AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO WORK AT THE STORES.....so the problem is not in care by the phone it in the store with your own people.
FREE TEP???
TEP DOES NOT COME FROM THE COMPANY IT IS A THIRD PARTY COMPANY WHO GIVES THE ENSURANCE NOT ONLY TO SPRINT BUT TO MANY OTHERS....
AND IF SALES PROMISED THAT FOR FREE THAT IS IMPOSIBLE...GUESS WHAT....SALES BY THE PHONE IS ALSO AMERICAN....I GUESS YOU HAVE THE PROBLEM IN YOUR OWN LAND....SO THE SOLUTION WOULD BE THAT THE PEOPLE THERE ( AMERICAN ) SHOLD LEARN TO DO A GOOD JOB.
bottom line is this.....Sprint is setup to process over charges from here to enternity because the government which owned nextel is now sprint....furthermore these over charges are will go on from here to enternity unless you fight for the right billing charges...otherwise you are essentially screwed by them because as much as their system caught your unlimited texting...it will not catch the over charging...i have stressers in life but none like my cell phone carrier which is sprint....i hate em....i hate em all.
I quit. The first time shame on you, the second time shame on me. It won't be a third.... I am done! Sprint really put one over on us. I am going back to Boost pre-paid!
THE WORST SERVICE I'VE EVER HAD...
I believe Sprint has the worst customer service I have ever contacted. It takes forever to get a knowledgable rep and no one apparently puts notes on your account. God Forbid you get a new representive, you have to pretty much give them a breifing. Their lucky we have a contract.
Sprint is crazy im sick of them i have my phone sice 2004 and it just stop working i go into the sprint store they tell me it liquid damaged and i need to get another phone since i have insurance i said ok and would pay my deductable this happen before christmas since i didnt take care of it then i called today and they tell me it's been 60 days and there is nothing they can do they suggested i purchase another phone and i lost it i just cant believe you make a committment to something and pay insurance for all these years for what they didnt help me. im soooo up set!!!
Sprint customer service causes depression. After being a Verizon customer for 7 years, I decided to switch to Sprint. My switch lasted one whole day before cancelling. I didn't like the phone that I got and simply wanted to switch to a different phone. The local Sprint store told me it would be no problem. Just stop by and they will swap the phones (they cost the same). When I got to the store, they suddenly changed their minds and said they would get in trouble if they did that. Instead, I need to call Sprint and have them take care of it. So I called Sprint, and called, and called, etc. Talked to a dozen people, none of which were willing or able to help me. After a couple of hours on the phone I finally gave up and told them to cancel my account. I was so excited about getting a new phone but was depressed by the end of the day. I'm so glad I didn't cancel my Verizon service. Sprint has better prices but really, it is just not worth it.
I work for Sprint. This is what happened to you...
You went from a Samsung a500 (not EVDO) to a Motorola RAZR (EVDO). We could not have kept you on the same identical plan code for your new device because it was for Vision services, rather than Power Vision which would be required for the new device. The store rep was making a sale, and unfortunately put you in this predicament. We used to have a plan for non EVDO devices that included PAM, Text, and web access which is what you were likely on with your a500.
I am a very angry cutomer as well i upgraded my sons phone on ly the phone. At the time i was not told that the plan we had would be modified. My next bill was over 500.00 dollars cause my son did not tell me (nor did sprint) that he has the internet now and vision data which gives him unlimited web use. And when i called to inquire i was switched from department to departmet saying i can't help you please hold for the next operator and i will type in my notes your issues,well everytime i am transferred the next operator does not know why i was sent to them (no notes typed in system) which meant i had to explain each time why i was transferred i was on the phone for 2 hours and i got not results. Now they are researching my request from 4 years ago when i became a customer as if i am lying. i still have to wait and i am not guarantee the deletion of the bill how can i have a bill for internet when i do not have it at all
YOU ARE AN IDIOT--GET A REAL JOB--BECOME ADOCTOR OR A LAWYER--MAKE MONEY AND PAY FOR YOUR CELL PHONE
you are right about the Sprint stores not knowing what they are doing. We were talked into buying my wife a new tough phone. We also have 3 add a phones on the account. We were told there would be no change to our phone bill for the add a phones. My wife's new phone would be about $35.00 more a month. We got our bill and to our amazement, the first add a phone that was $9.99 a month was now $65.00 a month, because my wife was on a new plan. So my new phone was now going to cost me about $100.00 more a month. So we returned the phone and was now told we could not go back on the old plan because it did not exist anymore. I said, if we had 2 weeks to return the phone, how could we not be returned to the old plan. They lied to us about our add ons not being affected, and also added on another $50.00 in charges that they can't even explain, but I have to pay anyway. They also charged us $20.00 in overage charges, even though we only used 850 minutes of the 1100 we are allowed. Now we are playing phone tag and being hung up on by one rep after another, or we get a foreign speaking person that I can't understand. Help.....Criss Beeson
I agree;the service I got from them was extremely slow and inefficient.
How the hell is a call center employee supposed to believe you when you say someone ELSE at the sprint store promised you something? I work at a call center and unfortunately MOST people have the sytem figured out and make lies stating so-and-so promised me this at the store in order to get free money, discounts, etc.. TAKE IT UP WITH THE PERSON THAT PROMISED IT TO YOU! Why is this so hard for customers to understand? There is no way to verify what another person said. I get calls like this all the time and it is almost UN-NERVING. Think about the concept for a minute. It may just blow your mind.
For complete customer care from Sprint, including billing concerns, you can contact Jaime Trevino at the Executive & Regulatory Department call 1-877-727-0665, Monday through Friday, between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., Central Time
Sprint SUCKS!
By djordan99
I’ve been a loyal Spring customer since 1998. I attempted to cancel my 2nd line on May 22, 2009 but the customer service rep. talked me into saving allegedly $100+ by switching to the “200″ type for the 2nd line. Thatrep stated that I would only have to pay May, June, July and be able to cancel the line July 11, 2009 without having to pay the early termination charge, thus saving me money instead of paying ot the termination fee then as the contract was up August 26, 2009. I asked her three times that the information was correct and she reiterated that it was and also told me that I could call on July 11, 2009 to cancel the 2nd line without penalties.
I never use this 2nd line, purchased it for my grandson whom has never used it.
I just called Spring to verify what I was told and to confirm when the appropriate time would be to cancel the 2nd lien without incurring any penalty. NOW, I’m told that I will have to pay $200.00 Early Termination fee if I cancel prior to 9/11/2010. that means that I was fraudulently lead to begin service upon false pretentions. Of course, tonight’s rep, Joseph, couldn’t find any record of what the other person had told me as she neglected to input any of the comments. How convenient!
Joseph then transferred me to the Account Services/Rentention dept. which was allegedly suppose to resolve this situation. To the contrary, ”Debbie” told me that there was NOTHING she could do…and that if I cancelled both my lines and closed my Sprint account tonight I would be charged $400.00, another $200.00 for Early Termination of my main line.
I told Debbie in the worthless "rentention" dept. that the rep gave fraudulent information and mislead me into bogus dealings and that she must note my account that will be calling to cancel my account on July 26, 2009.
I’ve endured several dropped calls, bad service and now am being put on the butcher block due to their negligence and misleading representative whom provided me with fraudulent information. How repulsive to be treated like this after 11 years with this company!
08/13/2009
Request "Sprint Vision Pack" of charges $15/mo since 12/09/2007 be reimbursed.
Bought a sprint phone for my daughter and requested the "Sprint Vision Pack" be kept off. Received bill around 11/2007 including $15/mo charge for this.
Called Sprint on 12/9/2007 and requested it be turned off and they reimburse me. I assumed they did remove it. Noticed the charge was still on my bill on 8/2009.
Called Sprint and requested a refund of these charges ($300) since 12/09/2007. Sprint acknowledged they had a record of my request on 12/9/2007, but said they could reverse charges only back 2 months.
I asked for a supervisor and then a manager. Basically they said the same thing. Manager said there was a note tha I requested it be turned on, on 2/7/2008 – I did not. We never used this service because we assumed it was turned off as we had requested.
I indicated that I had disputed the charge back in 12/9/2007 and never used it.
Manager said she could only go back 2 months.
The Sprint Manager was Donna; ID FA40281.
I will not use Sprint in the future if this is not resolved to my satisfaction.
Patrick C. Bishop
As a former employee of ACS (vendor site of sprint) I would never get a sprint phone. The training is horid. People are complaining (and for good reason) about the phones/service/contract extentions/misinformation/etc constantly. The agents are told they need to get you off the phone in less than something like 6 minutes, only transfer 35% or less of your customers, make sure to get good stats AND SELL SELL SELL. We had all these scripts to say to the customers and actually solving problems was less important than making the customer FEEL like we solved the problem so often information was left out so we can make that minute limit. The agents themselves are STRESSED and the turnover rate is huge. Many agents leave because they can not keep up with their stats OR they can't take the constant lying and giving information then getting yelled at by the customer or their supervisor. I felt like I was in some sort of sweat shop. I'm glad it's over!!!!!!
OH and to add to it all. Those surveys that are sent to you. Sprint does not conduct those surveys but ACS does. That survey determins whether the agent get paid a barely livable wage or minimum wage. Often the agent could not help you at all and they are the ones punished rahter than the company for THEIR policies. If anything when you give an agent a bad survey you actually do sprint a favor because they get to keep the "bonus."
This Letter was sent to Sprint, because of the abuse their customer service propogated, and probably is still propogating against others, besides myself.
Sprint
P.O. Box 660075
Dallas, TX 75266-0075
Sprint:
The dishonesty and abuse of your customer support teams is to be lauded, if you really enjoy being known as thieves. I have never been mistreated and told out right lies to by any other mobile phone company that I have dealt with.
When I first signed on to Sprint, I should have known that something was basically wrong with your
company. I ordered a family share plan, with two phones, but only one phone came on time. The other did not arrive until over three weeks later. The service was by far the worse of any of the other mobile carriers that I have used (e.g., Cingular, now AT&T and Verizon). When I made confirmed the acceptance of the first phone, I was given 1,000 anytime minutes that I could use anytime over a full year. My first phone arrived in September 2008, but the second did not arrive until October 2008. In early September 2009, I was astounded by a bill that was way over what I knew it shouldn't have been, because of my 1,000 free minutes that I had not used up. I called, and the conversation with the customer service representative ended up in him laughing at me, because he said my 12 months had passed, but I still had minutes that I could not use. About a week later, I canceled service on BOTH Sprint Cell phones, and subsequently paid what I thought was going to be the final bill. I have been receiving bills for some months now, and I have been calling each month to try and get this straightened out, to no avail. Last month I was told that it had been corrected. The representative said that he saw where I had canceled both cell phones, and that I didn't owe anything. He also said that I could just tear up the bill that I had just received in the mail.
Well, I got another, even larger bill this month, and I am grudgingly going to pay it; but not because I owe it, but just because I am sick and tired of dealing with such a dishonest and despicable bunch of Customer Support personnel. I can't help but wonder how your company manages to keep any customers.
I will be posting this letter to any and all web-sites that will accept it.
We had to have two of our Palm Pre's replaced due to not working correctly. Sprint sent two replacement phones, one of the phones had a speaker blown, they said they would send a replacement for that one and than we were to send all three phones back at the same time, in the mean time Asurion their insurance carrier kept sending us letters to return the phones, each time we would call and explain the problem. July 13,10 we sent all three broken phones back, in their envelope with the postage paid and addressed by them. Sept3,10 we started getting past due bills of 600+ dollars, I Paid the 410.00 past due on line, not wanting to lose my service, after looking into it they had charged me 410.00 for two phones, I made five calls on 9/6/10 asking for a supervisor because I was tired of telling the same story, I finally did get a supervisor named: Sabat, I was so tired of all the paces I had been put through, by this time I had made a call to Asurion at Sprints request, sprint was the one charging me Asurion is their carrier, but I the customer was expected to do all the foot work, anyway Sabat's call ended at 12:23 PM with her screaming at me, after I ask her if her call was being recorded due to her lack of professionalism, and her rasing her voice at me, I went above what I as a customer should have done and than to have a "supervisor" being the angry one to the point of her losing control. That day I had it, the next day 9/7/10 or the day after 9/8/10, my husband Steven took over, he called Sprint, he told the story several times, he complained about the behavior of Sabat, I always use speaker phone and this ladies voice bounced off my walls. Steve was told to call Asurion, he was given the number 407-475-7024, he called five times and as of today he has not received a call back. In the mean time Sprint did an automated how did you like your service call, since I answered negative to each call, Christy (they do not use last names) from Sprint called I explained I had an unresolved problem and she, I told her I did not want to go into the story with anyone but a supervisor, she said she would transfer me to SABAT!!!!, I then explained my interaction with this so called supervisor, I told her that Sabat was not to call my cell phone. We hung up. I looked at the site for the Better Business Bureau, as I scrolled down under Asurion, there was a name and a number to contact prior to making a complaint, I called left an urgent voice mail on her cell phone. Within the hour Christy from Sprint called me back, she stated that she ask Asurion to send someone to the warehouse and to check manually for my returned phones, SABAT had told me that I was in fact calling her on one of the broken phones that should have been returned!! Amazing, both of my phones were located in the warehouse and they will be refunding me the $410.00, this does not make up for the enourmous amount of time and frustration that I and my husband had been put through. I looked on the Sprint site for complaints and your site was the only place I found to make a complaint. I have taken so much time out of my business day to deal with this problem, that the cost of 410.00 was exceeded in my time. I also use this for my business, I have been with them 13 years, I have five business phones and now I say it is better to pay the fee to get out of the contract than to go thru these issues, my daughter uses Straight Talk from Walmart and pays less than 50.00 per month for unlimited everything. I believe the day of the cell phone contracts are fast becoming a thing of the past and that Sprint will find themself having to depend on good customer relashions, as of this time they get an "F" for the numerous times I have tried to resolve problems.
Starting Aug 12, 2010 I started having trouble with my Blackberry phone. I would try to answer call and no one would be there. I could see the name and number on the screen. I was able to call the people back and they told me,1) There was dead air, 2) They were told "All circuits are buzy"; 3) Customer is out of the service area; or 4) A rapid busy signal started. It was a two year old Blackberry and I went to the Sprint Store and was told the phone was probably bad so I left with a new Samsung. Same problem continued. Called Sprint, filed a report and they would "Check it out". After several weeks and calls to Techs I finally talked to an engineer and he told there were tower problems because of the extreme heat we have in in the midwest, mid's 90's for weeks. The 30 days was up on the trial period of the Samsung so I had an old Sanyo phone that worked fine but sprint had dropped the voice command so that was when I got the Blackberry. I returned the Samsung and have used the Sanyo phone still experiencing the same problems. I now get a call from a new tech telling me its my phone. I told her it was a Blackberry, A Samsung and a Sanyo phone that the problem was happening to and that was unlikely. She asked if I would take my Sanyo to a store to have it checked. I took it to the Sprint Store and there was a line so I dropped it off with a card to the person who I now know because of the service problems and said I would come back to pick it up. I came back 45 minutes later and nothing was done with the phone. They wanted $35 to check the phone. Left unhappy, talked to sprint. I can only say there is NO customer service. They will never except any responsibility to a problem except for the 2 engineers that told me they had had some problems because of the heat. If you look up sprint, is rated at one of the ten worst companies for customer service. Enough is enough. You have lost a 12 year customer. BEWARE if you like to be treated with any respect.
i havent had any good luck with sprint and ive had then now for 1 month i knew after the first week i should of left them and i even emaild Dan the CEO of the company and he didnt do anything for me either sprint is horrible and i should of cancelled 3 weeks ago, they are refusing to honor rebates on phones i purchased as a new customer. I would never recommend sprint to anybody i had verizon and they were wonderful on the east coast i moved to AZ and they turned out to be horrible and now sprint is too. i dont get how they get away with it.
I actually Like Sprint.
I added a line back in June. was told in the store I was switching to family plan.... blah blah blah.
two weeks or so later I went in and upgraded my phone. alls peach!
well I've noticed my bill being high but didn't think about it too much, figured my son was using too many downloads. well today I actually looked at my bill and was NOT on a family plan and was being charged almost 200 extra a month for 5 months.
ok so I call only on hold for maybe a minute.... got an AMERICAN!
she saw the mistake they made and immediately transference me to a specialist and after reviewing my account the specialist credited my acct.1000 dollars. every overpaid cent and changed my plan to fit. then offered an upgrade to the older phone for free!
she thoroughly went over the info. and even had ne go online and see that she sent the phone and it showed as zero charges, and the credit was there. awesome so now I don't have to pay my bill for almost a yr.
I really think that Sprint needs to educate their employees on customer service and the leaders of Sprint needs to know leadership is and they need to educate them business etiquette. I have a current problem with them myself and I find it mind blowing on the lead way they give their employees without the knowledge on customer service. WOW...way to go sprint. Hire me I will teach them from all the education I obtained.
If consumers read what they sign then we can spend our valuable time resolving the major issues. The contract is an agreement to partner together to give you the best service possible. Not intended for anyone in particular, reps get frustrated too.
We had VerizonWireless for around 10 years. They took care of my phone when the sound went out-after the 3rd replacement(with insurance) within 1 week, they gave me a sizable credit & a phone of my choice. Yes, their faulty phones caused me to lose a LOT of money - but it kept us loyal customers! Now, 3 years after that, we decided last spring to change to SPRINT-primarily bec.our grown children have SPRINT. During the month of June, after purchasing 2 EVO's, we thought we were just on a 'learning' curve-as the phones kept having various problems.From July-Sept.I spent at least 15-20 hrs.on the phone w/them.One rep.told me the only way I could get my email (EVO-smart phone) was to install a FREE app. Even one escalation tech supervisor told me she was having to read directions & admitted she didn't even know how to install my SD card. I was promised replacement phones by rep's-even this superv.that I was on the phone with 4 HOURS!! Finally, a 4th supervisor told me she would send me a confirmation. We actually got replacement phones at the first of October. At $14/month insurance, that was not only a long wait, but we feel we've been guinea pigs for SPRINT'S new EVO's! At $200/month, (from June-October)is a LOT of money! Never did we experience this type of service from VRZON. 2 of our sons have EVO's. One has gone through 3 since they came out in June, the other has gone through 2- BECAUSE they haven't performed & kinks were being worked out! Our 3rd son tried an EVO out for 30 days-decided he would RENEW his contract with AT & T-the EVO just didn't match up to the iPhone he has 3 of.
Another point: In our home, we have barely any signal. SPRINT said it should be a 'strong' area. In Dec.after a few requests (SPRINT NEVER SEEMS to operate on customer asking once or twice), they finally mailed us their signal booster.(The rep in that dept.was actually trying to convince me that I needed to drive 50 min.away as that was the closest one that had stock-and pick it up myself. My daughter just had one mailed to her before...)
Problems, stressful, feeling ripped off by SPRINT - and stuck. Even though our bill is in one name, it's considered 3 separate contracts - to cancel would be $600. Had we only known...how poor of service SPRINT had. The rep's were always very nice, but paying $200/month to be an experimental 'guinea pig' is not worth talking to rep's that don't know how to FIX the problems.
NO CREDITS were given for any of our problems-WE DID our part, PAID our bill FAITHFULLY. They defaulted on their SERVICE & PRODUCTS. Basically, had it not been for our COMCAST landphone, we would not have been able to have a reliable phone conversation during the summer/fall months.
Yas we also have had sprint problems and cost undealable and promised and garanteed just basic things they did not respect- we get charged only a few hundred dollars more each month and make calls every month for over a year - about two years now - we have to call and resettle issues just to pay the bill. Its time to pay again and now have called , waited , disconnected and still need to just pay. Yet again our similar issues like the original post was of still contimues. We are looking for a new phone service. Bummer. Glad i dont own stock in that lying company. Good luck to us all!
So far things have been a little rocky, but nothing real
bad so far. When I first went into the store to get a new phone i
was excited. From 04 till now i was under my mothers plan as a
second line, and now decided that with a job and everything i can
upgrade and get my own plan. I really wanted the evo, heard it was
real good nice features. My friend had the hero and really liked it
and he sells phones so i trust his opinion and he said evo was like
having a little better hero. Anyways, i go in there they give me
the usual talk and say that i can get the standard $150 off along
with a mail in rebate of $100. i was happy about this but said in
order to keep my same number my mother would have to sign over the
rights to the number or something to that effect. So i go in later
with my mom, and she signs it over and all that, but i found out
that since i was available for an upgrade at that time i would only
get $75 as a partial upgrade and i font get the mail in rebate. so
i had to pay an extra 75 in store and not get my 100 back. Good
thing is they tell me all this before i buy so they didnt screw me
over really. they also said that i could pay the $50 deposit in
store or just tack it onto my bill. i was a little tight on cash
and wanted to keep some in reserve after this phone so i said bill.
so i get my first bill, data plan. $153.54, not unexpected since i
upgraded mid-month and had 50 extra. i wasnt too worried, i got
paid in roughly 6 days and the bill wasnt due till 18 days later.
however today i found my service was shut off, 12 days before bill
is due. i called and they automated service said i needed to pay a
past due amount of $50. ooook? I said whatever and go to pay it
online with my debit card.....which wouldnt authenticate so i had
to call them, the woman i got was actually very nice, tried to
force the payment through debit but ended up having to pay through
credit. bill is paid, had a little trouble but everything is good
now, rocky start, im just hoping things go well for me.
I totally agree that Sprint has reached a new low in the area of customer service and satisfaction. The sale staff in their company store and on line engage in deceptive tactics and outright lie. The so called 4G network is never available. I have never been able to obtain the network in Chicago and any other locations. I highly recommend to all to look beyond Sprint when choosing a wireless service.
Sprint has the worst customer service i have ever seen in
my life. I called sprint because i have 5 blackberry phones, there
is something wrong with everyone of them, I called sprint and was
extreamly upset that i was transfered 5 times having to repeat my
problem over and over again and between each transfered call there
was a hold time of at least 10 to 15 mins. I asked to speak to a
manager who then transfered me to a supervisor who transfered me to
an employee who transfered me back to a supervisor. I also work in
customer service and we are trained to treat the customer like they
were the most important person on earth. We are also trained on how
to handle an upset customer which none of sprint employees never
heard of nor has their managers. They finally got someone on the
line for me who told me he would follow up on the call gave me a
phone number told me to call back the follow day and he would have
some answers for me well wouldn't you know he gave me a
disconnected number. to all please beware this company is the worst
and once i pay my final bill I am so going back to att where you
can get real customer service.
I certainly appreciated your comments concerning Sprint customer service. I have had Sprint for about 10 years now and have had many,many problems with customer service. This is CORRPORATE america at its finest. The human touch to communication has dissolved into infinity. The old saying," you get what you pay for" has never been more true! The people that are hired to take of our needs have as much genuine concern for us personally as they are paid to do. My sister worked for the phone company for many years and told me she was instructed to satisfy the customer as quikly as possible with what ever they NEEDED to hear and get to the next complaint. So I have learned not to be suprised when these things happen. At one point I was actually screaming at the person on the other end and realized that they must have been laughing when I hung up. Why should they be caring? Its just a job for them! Your just one very small account amoung millions. The only one affected by my amotions was me! The bill never changed. Nor did customer service.
I am convinced that Sprint is not the only poor customer service when you review other services in america that are now being handled by foriegn countries with poor English speaking representatives.
i currently work for a sprint call center and it pisses me off to no end when a store promises something to a customer that just isn't true, i know that no one has posted in this topic for 4 years but srsly i hate this. sprint is now implementing plans and procedures to make stores take accountability for what they tell customers and i think that should have been done years ago
i just now noticed all the dates of the conversation here. i realize all your complaints are valid and it tics me off because i really do value every customer i get on my line. i am a man of honor and every time i make a promise to call a customer back i call them back, it makes me mad that other people who are doing the same job i do dont do what i do
as i type, i am on the phone with sprint for the seventh time for the same problem. yes, sprint customer service can be this bad.
I signed a 1 year contract in 2003. Well after my
year was up I paid my last bill and never received my $180 deposit. A collection agency is now looking for me to pay $244.00. But lucky me I can end all this for a one time payment $144.00. Can I get a collection agency to get my
$180.00 deposit back from sprint? Do they come up with this 8 years after the fact and really expect me to pay because they think Ive forgotten? This is why everyone who use to be with sprint had no problem payinh only 200$ to be done with this terrible company. You'll save $200 in those crazy extra charges they hit you with every month.
I don't think I could have better eloquently described the same frustration I have with Sprint...it is mind boggling the depth of Sprint Customer "Service" 's inability to provide accurate or help to their clients...and this is 2011! :::sigh:::
I JUST HAD THE WORST HOUR ON THE PHONE WITH SPRINT CUSTOMER SERVICE AND I HAVE TO GO TO A SPRINT STORE TOMORROW TO RESOLVE MY ISSUE AS GOT NO RESULT ON THE PHONE. I WAS TRANSFERRED NO LESS THAN 9 TIMES, REPEATED MY PHONE NUMBER, NAME, AND SECURITY QUESTION EACH TIME AND WAS DISCONNECTED TWICE IN THE PROCESS. IF I DON'T GET RESOLUTION TOMORROW, BYE BYE SPRINT!
I have been a Sprint customer for approx. 5 years. This is the worst experience I've had with sprint!! My text messages won't go out and my calls are dropped constantly! I've been told they are working on the tower in the Norton Shores area well acording to the news reports there are no towers being worked on. I live 1/2 a mile from a tower. So my remedy is to pay 1/2 my bill for 1/2 the service I've been receiving. Afterall if "you get what you pay for" I will "pay for what I get!" Others should follow suit as then maybe Sprint would attempt to fix the problem so they can get full payments.
consultant ANTHONY GONZALEZ a trainee at Sprint said that his supervisor over ride the replacement of my device after being told that my HTC Evo 4g would be replaced by the store. This is the 3rd time that my device was replaced with a refurb device that was a piece of junk. The phone have error code issues, dismiss, connecting 3 way calls without touching the device on occasions. I have complied with Sprint on taking my phone into the store for their technical support to work on the phone for the same issues to be there after I leave the store. Sprint has the worst customer service when it comes down to standing behind their devices. Their biggest suggestion is for you to spend more money and upgrade your device at your expense. I say no cause i've only had the device since June & that dont make sense. Poor service !!!!!!!!!!
Sprint customer service S U C K S. I terminated by contract (3 lines) to get away from that company. When I ported my numbers over to AT&T, they said "oh yeah...we are great at porting Sprint numbers...we get lots of practice". I think I would prefer a pre-paid phone before doing business with Sprint. At least with a pre-paid service you expect to get treated like &*(*.
I had sprint for a number of years, I actually was quite happy. Until one day I was overcharged on my account for a feature that I was unaware that I had used. I was not reimbursed, and was told basically I should not have used it. I switched 4 lines over to AT&T, and cancelled my account with sprint. I called in to make the payment a week later, and they had already sent the information to a collection agency. WOW! That is all I can say.
Here's my story. Samsung Seek (WORST fake touchscreen EVER. not recommended) broke - people at the other end of the line couldn't hear me, so I took it to Sprint store #1 last Saturday. My phone was/is under the manufacturer's warranty though I did not buy insurance, so I figured they'd replace it ASAP since I needed the phone early this week for a few important meetings. At store #1, I scheduled an appointment for repair way ahead of time, went on time, and was told I had to leave my phone there for 4 hours because there were other phones waiting "on line" despite my clear appointment time. So ok, I come back after 4 hours and was told he couldn't fix my phone. I had to order a new one and pay $35. I told them that was not happening because I am not shelling out any more money for the same phone that received 1-star ratings online AND I was not going to wait 2 weeks for Samsung when Sprint has thousands of below-par, new Seeks in their warehouse. They insist on making me pay, eventually redirecting me to store #2, a "corporate" store.
I drive 1 hour to this "corporate" store, store #2, and talked to the assistant manager who was persistent at first but eventually I convinced her to waive the $35 fee. She writes me a receipt, places an order, and I'm on my way home, thinking all is well.
That was Saturday night. Today is Wednesday, and for the past two days I've been waiting for the phone to arrive at my house since I called the main line earlier and they said that's where it is going. I figured it should not take three business days for a phone to ship from a warehouse, so I Google "sprint replacement phone order tracking." To my surprise, delight, and dismay, I find an order tracking site that I was NOT aware of. I enter my number and the order number, and to my astonishment, I found that my replacement phone was shipped to store #1, NOT the store that placed my order, Monday morning! Why would you ship to store #1 when I clearly placed my order at store #2? It makes NO sense whatsoever. So now I've been without a functional phone for at least a week when it only should have been a couple of days, simply because Sprint failed to notify me where the heck my new (yet of the same dysfunctional variety) phone will ship to.
Thanks, Sprint. The best part is that this story is not over. I will let you guys know when I actually have a working phone (or any phone for that matter) in my hands and will not have to use Google Call... hopefully ASAP.
I would beg to differ with those of you that believe all the Service Providers are the same....I've had the opportunity to be served by several and SPRINT is by far the Worst in Customer service hands down! So yes it is possible for Sprint to be that Bad!
UPDATE: Today I called store #1, the place that the online tracking service said my phone was delivered to, and asked if they have it. They said nope - apparently they cancelled the order. I'm beyond frustrated at this point, so I call store #2, where I actually placed my order. They said my red Seek was backordered and so as a "courtesy" they will be giving me the blue Seek that they already have in store.
I still have yet to pick up the phone (will do so tonight). My question is, if they had one in the store to begin with, WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE GIVEN ME THE PHONE ON SATURDAY?!
Conclusion: Yes, it is not only possible but extremely likely for Sprint customer service to be this bad.
I have been a sprint customer for over 10yrs and they consider me as a "sprint premier customer" which is a joke. On 04/07/2011 I spent over FOUR hours of my time talking with some of sprint rude & disrespectful reps & "so called supervisors". These people are so inconsiderate & will tell you anything to get you off the phone. Thats why I dont like calling them. (problem) A couple months ago I wanted to end my contract with sprint because I am tired of all the non-sense and aggravation. & received a bill for over $500 majority for overage. I upgraded my phone and was told I would keep the same plan. However, they took away my free additional bonus minutes. They didmt want to give me back mt free bonus minutes. After hours on the phone they gave me back 450 minutes but not all of them. So this rep said he would try to get them back & if he couldnt they would accomodate me for it. That never happened. I was on the phone with a rep & he was basically trying his hardest to make me stay with sprint. I told him I was not satisfied and I asked to be accomodated for the inconvenience he asked me what did I want him to do so I told him to discount my monthly bill & he said will do. So I didnt cancel my contract. I looked at a bill and notice I wasnt getting the discount so I called sprint & they are saying they didnt see it in the "notes". So they refused to honor this for me. I spoke with sasharina who transfered me to her manager Venita (rude & sarcastic) she transferred me to Talandria ( didnt know what she was talking about, got mad & hung up the phone on me). I called back and spoke to Tawanda (she was professional) transferred ne to curtis, then Anthony in escalations (rude) his manager Frazier kept repeating himself saying the same thing, which solved nothing. I asked ro speak to a manager over him & he said someone will contact me in 24-48hrs. I am still waiting. Today is April 15th, never received a call from a manager & this isnt the first time this has happened. Sprint customer satisfaction is beyond poor, it is horrible! Very dis-satisfied with sprint!
I wish I had read this prior to agreeing to pay Sprint for that lack of service for two years. It sounds as if nothing has changed at all.
I have undergone the agony of their customer service line for several hours over the last few months. On three separate issues it appears the representative in the actual shop knew little or nothing of the realities of the plan I was signing up to. Three specific areas I asked about(insurance, data service, upgrades) which were key to me agreeing to the plan have proved to be false. The customer service line and managers are wholly unhelpful bordering on rude and there seems to be no recourse bar buying your way out. Are any other phone companies better?
I don't even know where to begin with my past year long troubles with my three brand new phones,hours spent of my time, the lies I have been told, the trips to sevice phones that aren't even a year old, the miss charges when I was in the carribean(I was told I must have been pocket dialing on a jet ski)-the insults. Today to top it all off I'm out of town anddmt phone decides to go hay wire. The sprint representative I called to help onlyreset my phone-which not only ersaed everything-but still didn't work,(then it was my fault for 1.getting it wet(didn't happen) .letting someone use my phone to install "bad software" 3.applications(which I don't have) 4. For me dropping my phone..was there a 5?? No,so she sent me to a sprint store (without navigation working bcs phone was broken) and when I walked in the store they basically laughed at me and said "we don't fix broken phones here,and I don't know what to tell you". That's just a short version of todays story.sprints custemer service is horrible, they all have diffferent stories-the stores-the repair places and the customer care reps...also last week I spent 6 hours running back and forth to aprint repair shop for a 2 month old black berry. Literally fixed it got home and something else was broken when I got home. Went back they finally replaced it. Only to have to turn arund the next dayto go back because the battery in the bb was a bad one. They actually said "see you next Monday" that's only a few of the things I've gone through in the last two months. Nevermind the last year. Is it worth losing sleep over when your getting screwed??!! I try to be the better person and hope good comes back to me. I don't think srpint has any good...except like the advertisement says, the everything plan. I guess they have it all so feel like they can do whatever they choose to...after talking to many people and reading the above problems I've realkized why most people are choosing verizon,att&t..etc...did I mention I've been a customer for over 10 years and always payed my bills. I guess that means nothing..DO NOT choose sprint.period.
I've been with sprint 15 years no special treatment lived where I an now 9 years service worked for 4 or 5 now can't even use phone at home an they won't let me out of my contract please 15 years give me a break ATT virison even cricket works out here won't b renueing for 16th year
I have been w/Sprint for over 10 years. I recently got a new phone...then the problems began.I have called Sprint customer service more times than I can count in the past 5 monthe. I have been to the repair store on Bush River Road,Columbia South Carolina approximately 7 time. They will do an update, the same thing I can do everytime and says it will work now. The only thing they are interested in is getting you to sign the form that states that they have satisfied your request.That Sprint store has the worst cutomer service ever. I would venture to say they are quiet rude. Today,Monday July 25, I took my phone to the store still having the same problems, which were not being able to receive most of my phone calls. I told them that the Sprint customer service had e-mailed them at the store to check my phone to see if the problem could be the internal antenna but they refused to do that.The rep places my phone down on the counter and began waiting on another customer.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS "DEAD". Visited a Sprint store on Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, TN for the 2nd time in 2 weeks trying to get a upgrade and a new telephone for one of the three telephones I have on my service. The manager leaves a lot and I mean a lot to be desired in the realm of delivering customer service to ALL clientel. The phone I have been trying to get replaced is un-usable due to a cracked liquid crystal display which was evidently a flaw in the instrument. We waited our turn for service. When that time came another gentleman stepped up to the counter and proceeded to discuss his problem . The manager knew we were waiting because she had tried to wait on us ahead of another customer and we advised her that person was next . When we finally talked to her, she answered the store phone proceeded to take care of that persons concerns then kept a running dialog with another customer she had been working with (must have been a personal friend) that person was allowed to enter information into the computer. She called another Sprint division because the information on the account regarding the phone I was trying to upgrade was not clear (she did not understand either. Ended up just getting a replacement, paying $50 deductible and now playing the waiting game until the 2 yr contract has expired in Oct 2011, although my account has a special clause of 1 yr on contract, but still 2 year for upgrade(now explain that). With most companies if you are upgrading penalties are waived. Tried to speak to customer service to voice my concerns, this was another joke. I have been a customer for 10+ years. My shopping cart is on the move. I know these are franchises, but arrogance should not be acceptable.
Funny, I just had a serious bad experience with SPRINT. Let me tell you, I am not a happy camper. On or about the 12th day of September,2011. I had a Hotspot placed on my mobile. After several hours, it was still not working. Needless to say that I called *2 (sprint). They transferred my call to the Technical Support Department. Which, became a all day joke. After speaking with approximately five reps. in the call center and the different dept. I still was at point A.
On the following day I was going through the same BS again. At about 8:45pm I was on hold for lord knows how long. I spoke with three reps. for about two minutes each up til 11:00pm. When finally, a so called Dept. Manager, get on the phone and ask if he could help me. That was the straw that broke my back. He was told about their customer service in a polite way that I could.....(yah right).
He was suppose to dissconnect the hotspot service. After an hour it was still on my phone. A good friend of mine that is certified with computers etc...took my lap top went into my program system and manually connected my hotspot to my lap top in about three minutes....so to all readers....Sprint is a serious joke and when my contract runs out so will I and I will be filing a complaint against Sprint. I just recently called to get the main headquaters number. Well, guess what I've called so much about this hotspot. That my call was not answered and the computer operator disconnected me or hung up. It is a shame when the computer operators are more polite than the humans....go figure...
So my question now is, "should I bocot sprint right now or wait until my contract runs out?
Thank you, for listening (reading).....
thanks again for listening (reading)
It's easily this bad. I switched to a family plan after adding another line on to my service. They never bothered to take me off of my single plan however and I was still being charged the 69.99 for it. It took me calling the customer service line 3 times to finally get the charge removed from my current bill even though I had told the last two employees that removing it from my future bill wouldn't be a viable option because it would overdraw my account. Every time I was assured it would take only a couple of hours to reflect the charge being removed on my bill. I'm still in the process of waiting to see if the latest customer service reps word was true.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS "DEAD" at the Sprint stores those people are very rude, has no patiences, and carries themselves like an Used Cars Salesman, meaning they just tell you anything to get you out of their faces. I was in a Sprint in Austin Texas on South Mopac for nearly 3 hrs for something they did wrong the day before. This took longer then the finacing to my new car which was 2 hours. I find this quite SAD!!!
The Rep was not sympathy to the fact that due to the screw up of theirs, and he was very short tempered and rude. I have been a longtime customer of Sprint and now I will be seriously rethinking my cell phone provider and making a decsion quickly. I hope Sprint starts training their Customer Svcs Personal, because this will cost them in the long run.
I also stood there and watched another Rep assist an older gentleman who you could tell was confuses about the new techlogy of these cell phones of today. The older gentleman asked the Rep to set his cell phone so that it would ring and vibrate at the sometime. The Rep was very sarcastic when he replied " It's one or the other Sir".
I really dislike people who mistreat older people or rude and not helpful. I only wonder if this is the way they treat their parents.
Sprint customer service is a bunch of talking zombies not trained, not equipped, not motivated. The person on the street will be more helpful. What a waste of human energy.
Yes, you are indeed correct about Sprint, but does all their customer service indeed come to $3 a call, that's ridiculous in general. Over the past 6 months, I have been transferred 3 plus times and on the line for vast periods ot time just to be hung up on. I think these assholes do it for fun. They hang up on you before talking to you for too long to increase their "STATS" so it seams. When they ever ask whats a good number to call you back on I just laugh...
Ray
Seems they've been at this for years. I have made 7 phone calls, spent at least 5 hours on the phone being bounced from department to department having to explain my situation to each new person. I was sent to the local store to get my new phone (I have never been able to use it) looked at, they didn't tell me they would charge me $35 to do so, I don't think so. I have been lied to, I have been called a liar and have now been told there's nothing they can do because I don't have insurance, why do I need insurance for them to fix a phone they sent me that is defective? Now I have to send it back within 15 days or be charged $500. I will send the phone back but it ends there, they refuse to replace it so now I have 2 choices, pay the $200 early termination fee because I don't have a phone to use or keep paying the monthly bill for the next year and a half without being able to use the network without a phone. I have been polite to the reps who have been polite to me but there were 2 reps (Ebony & the 1st person I spoke to, I didn't write down her name because I didn't know I was going to need to do so) who coped an attitude immediatly so I coped a little back. Oh yeah, the phone does have a warranty, I can send it to the maufacturer, I'll get it back in about 35 days, meanwhile being billed. This whole situation is insane and quite frankly is making me insane. I only wish they would "fire" me! I should have never left -Mobile, I was with them for 9 years but switched to Sprint for a better plan, the plan may be better but the insanity isn't worth it. DO NOT go to Sprint if you value your time.
Quiet honestly i work for customer care as a supervisor. It is very frustarting to hear customers like yourself call to complain about the service and the representatives. First of all because you pay your bills on time and in full doesnt make a loyal customer. That makes you a responsible customer . Your suposed to pay your bills on time and in full. And because you have been with the company for many years doenst mean that you wil receive some kind of special treatment. Because then that would mean that we would have to treat our new customers like trash and that wouldnt be good bussines. i.e. I am sure you probably been with the electricity company longer than you have been with Sprint and that doesnt make you a loyal customer with them just a customer.
Wow, it looks like Chris got a great deal, and it was caught. Why would he think the mistake would not be fixed once he made them aware of it? How can Chris expect the customer service person at the local store to "honor" a contractual error verbally? How would that person even have known that he was getting services that he wasn't paying for? The customer service person had no way of knowing that his account should never have received the services he was receiving. They gave him the benefit of the doubt, and so did the first supervisor he spoke to. If I was at Sprint, I'd sue him for the past due services he received.
I have been a Sprint customer since 1996... I can't even tell you how many phones, plans, cards, devices I have had with them. So I changed banks last month, I forgot to move my automatic payment to Sprint to my new bank. My iPhone has WiFi on it so when they shut me off with no notice whatsoever, I went several days not realizing my service was shut down because I happened to be home those days using my land line and my iPhone was working fine on my WiFi. I was out yesterday morning and my phone was dead. I quickly figured out what happened, paid the bill and called to get my service turned back on. As of last night, my service was still not back on. This morning to test it, I made a call that was diverted to Sprint. The person answering had no idea why he was answering the phone. I went through the whole story for him and he put me on hold with no explanation for about 5 minutes. He came back on and told me my service was turned back on. So I asked him for a service credit to cover the days they had me shut off. He then made a statement to the effect that it was MY fault that I bounced a check (not what happened) and they would NOT be giving me any credit. He then proceeded to talk over me to the point that I could not even get a word in. I had to hang up on him before I went off. So Sprint has taken 16 years worth of monthly service fees from me and now wants to nickle and dime me? I would never have considered switching carriers, but after this... I will be looking at what the others have to offer. I may very well switch.
I agree. Sprint has the worst customer service department that I had dealt with and coverage in California esp Santa Rosa area is worst when compared with Verizon and AT&T. Please stay way from Sprint.
By ignoring its customers Sprint shows great arrogance and, like the saying goes, pride comes before a fall. Not only that, but Sprint also fails to realize that their multitude of unhappy employees and call center agents also account for a very large majority of lost customers threefold : first, the employees and call center agents will not become potential customers if unhappy and treated poorly; second, if they are already customers then they will likely terminate relationship; and last, word of mouth for potential customers becomes impossible when workers are unhappy. It's like they consider the two to be separate when, in fact, employees and customers are the same -- literally. The most successful companies recognize this wisdom and that is why they value and respect customers and workers alike because they know each possesses the great potential to become one in the same. And without one you will eventually lose the other. The most successful companies realize this and that is why companies such as Apple are leading the way. Apple knows how to treat its employees like gold and, in turn, they become loyal customers; and vice versa, the customers are so happy with Apple they want to become employees. Hence this makes for a very happy Apple environment. It is truly a shame that Sprint does not realize this and it is the reason why turnover is so high. Instead of making improvements in management they blame the help -- which, in reality, is like blaming the customers. And then they wonder why they have amongst the highest rate of lost customers. It's like a dog spinning around chasing its own tail.
It happens all the time, you may talk to a customer service rep and get a solution or type of credit, and as soon as you see your statement and don't get what they promise you may call them back and nobody knows about anything.
They have a mediocre customer service assistance
i understand your frustration, i will never ever go back to sprint.. thier costomer service are liars .