Sprint Will Eat Itself

Back in the days before analog cell phones were no longer available, we had service from SBC Mobile (even before they were Cingular). After a relationship that lasted over seven years and operated almost flawlessly, they pissed us off in the span of less than 30 minutes and we switched carriers to Sprint (this was also the days before "sign a new contract and we'll give you new pricing on a cell phone").

At first, Sprint was wonderful. My wife absolutely loved her phone and they worked with me to get me a phone that would work for me (I went through four phones of three different models in the span of a year). The day the contract was up, I told them I found their service problematic and was ready to switch to Cingular (I was sitting outside the Cingular store when I called to cancel my service). After a brief conversation about the issues I was experiencing and a discussion about the phones I had been using, we agreed that my issues were more related to hardware than service and they agreed to give me a $100 credit toward a new phone.

I drove across the street to the Sprint store and re-upped. I ended up with the most flexible and biggest-bang-for-the-buck plan I have ever had (500 minutes, unlimited weekend, and unlimited internet access) and hands down the best, most user-friendly, rugged phone I have ever owned (it was a Sanyo). I know a friend who had the exact same phone that was literally run over by a truck. He snapped it back together (the LCD suffered amazingly light damage) and it worked! He cried when he eventually traded it in because the battery would no longer stay attached.

I have told many many people that Sprint is a wonderful carrier... until they screw up your bill. Once they do that, it will never be right again.

At some point during the second contract, our Sprint bill came in and was grossly incorrect. They had signed us up for some service that we had not requested, or had charged us for usage that was supposed to be included, or had simply overcharged us for the services we did use. I called and after the prerequisite wait on hold, I explained the error to the representative, the error was corrected and I was provided a new billing amount that sounded like what we had been expecting.

The next month, the same error was present. I again called but was told this time that I would need to pay for the services (or something similar that implied that it was my fault and my responsibility). I spent a little extra time explaining that I had not ordered/used the services in question and, with an apology, the charges were taken off with a promise to correct the underlying issue.

While the initial error was finally corrected, we experienced serious billing issues month after month after month on each and every bill after the one with the initial problem. It was never right again. We spent hours on the phone with the billing department explaining and arguing and correcting each issue. In the end, we dumped sprint like a bad investment when our contract was up and have never looked back.

Today, I was directed to a web site that contained the following image of a letter from Sprint (click to see the image larger):

Source

Gizmodo had no information as to how many subscribers this letter was mailed to but I have a feeling it was not an insignificant number nor percentage. I also have no idea what "number of inquiries" would trigger such an action but I do have a feeling that, had we stayed with Sprint, we would have received such a letter. Of course, given our experience, I can only imagine that some of the recipients are glad that they will be released from their contracts with a zero balance and no penalty... I know we would have liked for that to happen.

As for Sprint, this is a bad call. If you are receiving enough of a volume and frequency of "calls from [customers] regarding [their] billing or other general account information," to warrant a significant mailing of this type, perhaps the problem is not with the customers. Given my experience, the problem is with your accounting department.

If Sprint does not work to correct these internal issues and work harder to serve its customers, they will eventually implode into non-existence. Given that the problems we experienced were over two years ago and the rumors I heard about company stability at that time, I believe this is going to happen sooner than latter... despite their acquisition of Nextel.