I disagree with some of the things Sprint CSR's tell me. When I have a dispute over an obviously ridiculous charge, I am placated & lied to explaining that I will be contacted expediently to resolve my issue. Then nothing happens but a text or voice message directing me to pay all charges or lose service. I then contact Sprint again and explain what has happened and give my dispute number. I am put on hold for a VERY long time so that the rep can confer with a supervisor who never gets on the phone. Again I am told that they will handle this issue and that they are sorry for the mis-handling of this issue. Keep in mind, I have not insisted that they dismiss all charges instantly, but only investigate this dispute and contact me in an appropriate amount of time. This never happens. Again I either get a text or voice message about loss or interruption of service unless I pay up. Then I call again, Again I am assured that the problem will be resolved without interruption until dispute resolution is reached. Then I cannot make outgoing calls, all my calls are re-directed to bill payment at Sprint. Be warned that if someone at Sprint makes a mistake, they still need you to pay for it because an employee who makes a mistake will never admit it and you will then run into an endless chain of employees who get away with passing the buck until so many mistakes are made that the company itself will protect their employees by stonewalling you and cutting service completely until you pay for what you shouldn't owe. This is a ridiculous business practice as they will fight to get an erroneous $100-200 dollars from a long term customer who is worth thousands per year and risk alienating that customer just for a small amount of money just because they cannot justify eating the cost of their own mistakes. DUH!!!!!!!

I have dealt with poor customer services for over six years with Sprint. I have wasted countless hours over the years on the phone trying to get fixes to billing errors and trying to get straight answers from different Sprint reps.

The tipping point for me was when a Sprint manager threatened to call *my* boss because she was mad I wouldn't accept her answer that there wasn't an address I could mail a formal complaint to.

Read my open letter to Sprint here:
www.dear-sprint.com

To Whom It May Concern:

Up until December 18, 2007 I was a Sprint customer. I had been with Sprint for almost 7 years. However, after numerous problems with fees and the lack of customer service, I felt I could no longer stay with a company who could care less about their clients. I transferred my service and went with T-Mobile. I called Sprint PCS Customer Service on December 20, 2007 to cancel the other phone line that I had. I spoke to a representative who indicated that in order to complete the cancellation process I needed to speak to his supervisor. There was a brief pause and another man came on the line and introduced himself as the supervisor. He asked me why I wanted to cancel and I explained that the monthly charges were too expensive considering the terrible service that Sprint has provided since merging with Nextel. He offered to give me three months of free service to stay with Sprint. I refused this offer. He then said there were just a couple other things before he could complete the cancellation. After 30 minutes, he indicated that the process was complete and that my service would end at the end of the current billing cycle, which was December 31, 2007. I told him that was fine and he said thank you for using Sprint PCS and hung up.

On January 3, 2008 I asked my boyfriend to check and make sure that the phone was no longer working. He tried and it was still on. I then called Sprint Customer Service and spoke to Cheryl. I explained that I called on 12/20 to cancel service for 817-939-3948. She informed me that they never cancelled the service. I explained that I would not be responsible for anything after 12/31/2007 because that was the end of the cycle and that is when the previous person at Sprint told me it would end. She apologized for the error and actually said that she didn’t understand why they never submitted the cancellation, but that it was taken care of.

On January 4th or 5th I received an email from Sprint indicating that my current bill was ready to view. I logged into the website and pulled up account, but when I went to open the file to view my bill it indicated that I no longer had access to this feature. Once again, I called the Sprint Customer Service number. After several minutes I talked to a young lady and explained the situation. She said that since my account was cancelled I was no longer able to view my bill on-line. I asked her to please send me a copy of it then by mail so I could see the charges. She said that she would do that and that it should go out within 6 days. Two weeks later I still had not received my bill. On January 21st I received an email from Sprint indicating that my bill was past due and it was being sent for collection!!! What the hell???? I could not believe this!! In the entire time I had been with Sprint I had never been late with my bill and now you’re sending me to collection when I haven’t even received a bill!!!! How absolutely ridiculous!!!

Once again I called Sprint and after explaining my situation two three idiots in Customer Service, I finally got to talk to a man who said he would mail me a copy of the bill. That was at the end of January. On February 12th I received the bill for the next billing cycle, but still not the initial bill that was supposedly sent back at the beginning of January. On Friday, February 15th I received the initial copy of my bill.

Now today, February 21, 2008, I get not one, but two fricking letters from a collection agency!!! You people have got a lot of balls to do this considering you didn’t even send me my bill from January 4th until February 15th!!!!

I am informing you no that I have already contacted the FCC and filed a formal complaint against Sprint PCS. I have also contacted an attorney and I plan on taking this as far as I can in order to get this resolved. If you turn any of this information into any credit bureau I will sue you!!!!

This is exactly why I cancelled my account with Sprint because you rip people off, blow smoke up their asses and don’t do a damn thing to take care of your consumers!! Ever since you merged with Nextel your store service sucks! You move everyone in like cattle, you have to go to the end of the earth to get technical or repair service and you have to wait a ridiculous amount of time not only in the store, but on the phone as well. And when you finally do get with one of your flunkies, you get screwed and nothing gets resolved.

I plan on paying my bill, but I will do so with the same sense of urgency that you took in getting my bill to me!!

I will be sure to post this letter on every blog or web page that I can find in order to deter anyone from ever going to you for service.

I would appreciate it if someone from your company would contact me immediately to get this resolved, because I have wasted enough of my time chasing after you and your so called “Customer Service” reps.

Sincerely,

Christine McCallum

The last two years of service have been horrific with sprint. My account address has been changed multiple times to people out of state and yet when I call to try and change my information back, they question if I am the correct account holder. Obviously there has been no problem changing it by various strangers 4-6 times in the past 6 mths. I have been referred to 10 different account reps with several that referred me to the fraud department. Once I make it to the fraud dept they inform me that I should have no concern with my information being changed multiple times without my consent. I went into a store two times for this situation, needlessly using at least 3 more hours of my life. The managers have all been perplexed and concerned at the odd activity on the account, but I can't cancel the account b/c I have a 2 year agreement. If I do close the account, which anyone in their right mind would do, I will be charged $400.00 for early termination - even thought the security breech resulting in termination is thanks inpart to their incompetancy. This is just one of many redundant bad experiences I have had. Just this evening I was on the phone with them to change my billing information. I tried first to do it on line, but it rejected my account. It took me 4 reps and 22 minutes later to change my billing preference. This process still had to be done by me online. I just had to re-register my account for the second time to get the system to give me administrative permissions. This would have typically irritated me but at this point it is expected. I have the date my contract expires on my calendar and will be canceling not a day later.

I also am very upset & disguted with SPRINT, back in October 2007 I called from a T-mobile store to triple check that I could cancel my SPRINT account WITHOUT a cancellation penalty. I was reassurred that my contract had expired and that I was in a month to month & that NO cancellation fee would be charged. I had been with SPRINT for over 4 years (always of course with different issues involed. The gentleman from the T-Mobile phone even had to get on the phone to receive an authorization code to have my phone number that I had with SPRINT transferred over to be used with T-Mobile he also asked at the time that making sure that I was not going to be charged a cancellation fee again, the reply was No that I was within the time range to cancell. Well....I received my partial statement for charges to the 2 weeks in October prior to cancellation PLUS I see $150.00 early termination fee! I went through the roof called imediately spoke with about 3 different people (no lie) after being placed on hold numerous times even disconnected once, I was told the problem would be fixed. Following month December not only was the $150.00 still there now there was a late charge, again I called spoke with a representative then I asked for a manager spoke & explained the entire situation she looked into my account & assured me that it would be taken care of that all I would owe would be the partial month of October & that I would receie an e-mail correcting the problem with a confirmation number that she refused to give at the time of the conversation. I have all the names of the people I spoke to. I now recived a letters from Allied Interstate a collection company that Sprint sent me to, not only are they asking for the cancelation fee of $150.00 but late charges they now say that i owe $246.00 SPRINT will also NOT release the name of the person that actually confirmed from the first conversation that I was entitled to cancell without a fee! I have contacted Allied & was askes to write a dispute letter explaining all of this. I will NOT recommed SPRINT to anyone and I already have had friends not renew they have gone to T-Mobile. How unfair that companies get away with ripping consumers off!

I have never been so upset as I am today 6/3/08, sprint is a poor excuse for a company and they are literally theives. They access peoples account and steal from them. I a filing check card fraud charges on them in the morning. I talked with Sharna and she stated that sprint wasn't going to refund the $300.00 they stole from me. I could go back to my bank and have them credit the money back to my acct. But when I go there I had to call back and got this guy Carlo Hernandez and he didn't even know who his supervisor was after I ask to speak with him. I believe we need to file a class action lawsuit against these theives an make them accountable for stealing money from us and charging us for services we never received. Who do these people thank they are anyway. I will take this to the supreme court if I have to and they will be out of more than $300.00.

I just received my notice of decline for my rebate. Amazingly enough for not activating my phone within the proper time period. So i guess activating the phone at the store when I bought it was not soon enough. I have experienced sprint disasters before and just shake my head at how a company so poorly run, can remain in business. I sent them a note which i have documented, giving them 48 hours to provide me my rebate or proof they have fired the employee that lied to me. Are they going to do any of this? Of course not, but when I go into court on Wednesday and file my suit for the cost of the phone, and the cost of switching to another phone, I bet they will not think of trying to charge me for contract fees. I suggest the only way to deal with a lying cheating incompetent organization is simply to pull you business from them. Many people do this and thats why Sprint is losing customers faster than any other Cell company on the planet.

Sprint reps are all out to appear to be Customer Advocates by selling Family Plans where you get more than one phone at a cheaper rate, better discount for the same price as a single plan. What they neglect to inform you is that each phone counts as a single cancellation fee. Translation: each phone is $200 to cancel the plan.
My second issue is that even if you want to stay with Sprint but change your family plan for a single plan you must pay the cancellation fee EVEN THOUGH you are remaining a Sprint customer. The only way around this is to purchase the higher priced family plan and sign another 2 year contract. There is NO deviation from this even after complaining to customer retention.
I am so displeased with their sales tactic that I am willing to pay the DOUBLE cancellation fee to get away from Sprint.
Long live Apple & AT&T.