Sprint Drops Customers Over Excessive Inquiries 386
theodp writes "The WSJ confirms earlier reports that Sprint Nextel is terminating the contracts of subscribers who call customer service too much (registration required). The 1,000 or so terminated subscribers called an average of 25 times a month — 40x times higher than average — according to a company spokeswoman, who also noted that a large number of calls from these customers were related to billing issues."
What rights exactly do consumers have? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've run the gamut (Score:2, Interesting)
What a joke... (Score:5, Interesting)
IN EVERY CASE, whomeever I had managed to get to when I request a 'manager' to speak with, would listen to my story/explanation of the problem and assure me that they had corrected the error and that it would show up on my account with XX number of hours.
Odd, that every time the XX was a different number ranging from 4-48. Also, the fact that none of the errors were ever in fact corrected. When did it become 'standard procedure' to lie to the customer??? Every rep did it, everytime.
I tried writing my disputes and sending them to customer service (with return receipt) to leave a paper trail of the disputed amounts which I never did pay and still owe according to them. None of my correspondance has been acknowledged in any way. They just flat expect that I will eventually pay to avoid the mark on my credit.
I could go on forever, fortunately for you all, I need to go bed. Sprint is a company that deserves whatever it gets. I wish I'd been a customer they dropped. Guess I figured out too soon that they just won't do anything and I don't have the time to talk to those nice people in India all day to have them lie to me.
Re:Maybe (Score:1, Interesting)
Cost Of Tethered Hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming you buy a $600 iPhone that doesn't work on any network other than AT&T's, when they terminate your contract, do they buy back the hardware that they've now rendered unusable?
I wonder if you can claim it as faulty under an extended 2 year Apple care warranty as it now fails to work as advertised? I could see Apple getting pissed at AT&T for forcing them to take returns on otherwise totally functional hardware just because AT&T decided phone support cost too much.
Re:What is wrong with calling if it is justified? (Score:2, Interesting)
Customer Service (Score:5, Interesting)
As a customer of Cingular since the switch to GSM I have had ZERO billing errors and I have been all over the country and have never gotten one roaming charge on my Cingular/Att bill.
I can now go into my account on the internet and add and remove features and change my plan, which is just fantastic.
As for Sprint dropping "problem" customers, I am all for that! The whole "firing the customer" is something new that has sprung up in the past ten years and I think in some cases it should be done. The thinking is that you are wasting time helping a customer that consistently has problems with your service as he/she is already badmouthing you to everyone they know and in the end you most likely will leave anyway. Put simply, your resources are better spent helping your normal "bread and butter" customers that spending inordinate time and resources on "a-hole" customers.
Granted, this is not saying that the customers are in the wrong, but it stands to reason if a customer has to call over 25 times in a month for the same reason; Sprint should have escalated those calls after the third call.
Also, some responsibility has to be put on the customers. I certainly would not stand for my bill to be screwed up to the extent where I would have to call 3 times, let alone 25 times; I would have found a way to get out of that contract.
As for Customer Service, it's the same with all of the carriers. You are never going to get consistently good customer service anymore. The call centers in America have a horrendous turnover rate which impacts service greatly.
I have noticed a new trend lately; outsourcing to the Philippines. The last time I had to call a company for tech support the person on the other end had a slight accent, but otherwise was spot on "American," and was familiar with American culture/t.v. show/music/etc. It was a refreshing break from the Indian call centers of late.
Re:What is wrong with calling if it is justified? (Score:1, Interesting)
Cancel the subscription / contract. And if they didn't cancel it, next call wouldn't be to the company. I wouldn't waste my time banging head on a wall if it didn't change anything anyway.
Re:wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm aware my experience may not be typical. But it WAS my experience.
Let me tell you a story (Score:5, Interesting)
So I call tech support. The guy makes me try both passwords, with and without caps lock, etc, none works. Asks for my invoice number. I receive the invoice together with the phone invoice, he assures me that's the number he needs. I read it to him. "Ok, all's right, you'll receive the new password by post in 1-2 days." Ok, I wait for a week, nothing happens.
I try again. I get asked for the invoice number. "Sure, we'll send you the new password by post. You'll get it in 1-2 days." Nothing happens. Some 3 days later, I try again. "Sure, we'll send you the new password by post. You'll get it in 1-2 days." Repeat.
At some point I get majorly annoyed and start calling daily. "Ah, oops, it wasn't changed, you'll get the new one by post." The circus repeated verbatim for one and a half months. By then I had dug out an old ISDN card and was using a call-by-call paid-by-minute provider just to, you know, be able to read emails on my other account.
Eventually I get _really_ annoyed and escalate it to hell and back. That was a lot of phone calls in a burst. Turns out that when I moved, both the isp department and the telco gave me new invoice numbers. Different ones. The phone bill only contained the telco one. So the retarded ech support monkeys saw that the number doesn't match, and lied to me. For a whole fucking month and a half, none of them could just tell me "oi, it doesn't match, come with some ID at one of our offices". Nah, they fucking lied to me.
2. My brother buys a house and moves, gives the same retarded telco and ISP the new address, is assured he'll have the new connection within a week. Let me also add that we found out at some point that he's flagged as a sort of VIP customer in their database. (No idea why, maybe because both he and his wife are addicted to their mobile phones, and get a bigger phone bill than some small-ish companies.) So, you know, you'd expect some better treatment than Joe Average.
At any rate, nothing happens. He calls again, get told, "oops, true, nothing was started, we'll send someone ASAP." Nothing happens. Calls again, gets told the same story. I advised him to escalate ASAP, but he too is the kind of idiot who believes that everyone is nice and will actually do what they assured him they'll do. Just like I am. So he too gets to call increasingly often for a month and a half, until he gets in a burst asking to escalate.
The problem? Let's say his house number is 42B. (Not the actual number, but the B is the right one.) So some call centre monkey mis-typed it as 42S. You know, finger slipped. Of course, S doesn't exist there, so they did nothing. But from there noone actually told him what the bloody hell is wrong there, and why they don't activate his connection. They lied to him, again and again, for a whole freaking month and a half. "Oh, yes, we'll send someone tomorrow."
Idiots.
So, you know, sometimes you have to call more than 25 times in a month, because the guys at the other end are simply complete lying cretins, or are required to work by some retarded rules that require them to be complete lying cretins. Sometimes if you just call once and give it a rest, the problem doesn't even _start_ to be solved.
So before demonizing someone for calling 25 times in a month, based on that awful experience, I'll at least give them the benefit of the doubt.
I can see their point.. (Score:3, Interesting)
They ring up about every little thing and ask obscure questions, like whether the pro-rata charge is based on the day starting at midnight, or 6AM like with the usage meter. Of course you don't know, so you have to waste time tracking down a manager to find out. And they make up an answer on the spot because no-one except for the database admin has ever needed to know that.
Honestly, the amount of employee-hours it takes to deal with these customers isn't worth their monthly service fee. My company would encourage these customers to churn elsewhere too (and waive the contract termination fee). I bet a lot of other companies do this too.
I'd have to know more about the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
For example someone will send an e-mail asking for us to do something. This is the preferred method, it goes to the whole support group and is added to the ticket tracking system. Then, 5-10 minutes later (literally) they'll be down in the office asking if we got the e-mail. We tell them yes, these things take time and they proceed to badger us for a specific time when it can be done, which there nearly never is since the issue is generally unknown as to what is wrong. They ten come back a couple hours later, they call, they e-mail again, they e-mail their professor and so on. They seem to think that the way to get quick service is to annoy the service people. In fact it's the opposite, you get better service if you submit a ticket and let us deal with it.
Also the people who tend to do that also tend to be the ones with the least problem solving skills. They'll go to support for the most basic problems, rather than try to work something out themselves. They'll contact us because a printer isn't working, and the problem is it isn't plugged in. They'll contact us because "the Internet is broken" when indeed the network is fine, just a single page they want is offline (and they still want us to fix it) and so on.
Well, if we could, we'd love to terminate support for people like that. The small number of individuals account for a disproportionate amount of support time. In our case, it simply means that everyone, them included, gets worse support since there is just less staff time to go around. However in a company it could very well equal a higher cost. Thus I can see why you'd want to cut them lose.
I'm not saying Sprint is blameless, I'm sure they are not. However if there's a problem, calling every day or multiple times per day just to whine "is it fixed yet?" doesn't help. People need time. Bugging them for an update every day doesn't help anything.
They're all evil, you just have to pick one. (Score:3, Interesting)
At the end of the fiasco, I ended up talking to the retention dept and getting basically unlimited everything for about $55/mo. I've had that for almost 2 years now, until I went and got a new phone the other day. I did call retention when I got home and they managed to hook me back up with almost the exact same retention plan for the new phone, I think I am actually paying $2 less per month than before now.
Sure they suck, but so does everyone else.
I hate Sprint PCS (Score:2, Interesting)
Sprint asked me to fax a copy of the death certificate to them, and when she continued to receive bills they always claimed they did not receive it, and asked me to resend the certificate so they "could take care of the bill". After sending it to them 5-6 times in the month, they were charging taxes on the early cancellation fee and were sending it to a collection agency.
At that point I set my computer to fax them the death certificate daily, and included my email address so they could acknowledge receiving it. Another month and another collection notice went by. I then set my computer to fax them hundreds of copies during business hours, again with a way to acknowledge receiving my fax. Three months and around 3,000 faxes later the bills stopped, but they have never to this day acknowledged receiving any paperwork from me.
Think I will ever use Sprint again? I also contacted a local news station for a Consumer Help segment they run weekly, but never heard from them to try and get it on the news.
Not an entirely unreasonable concept, done poorly (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that dropping someone who keeps calling because you can't get their billing right is absurd.
But in a former career, owning a couple auto repair places, I did fire at least a couple customers.
One was clearly either insane or senile. She couldn't get the concept that her Grand Prix was not the same as her (prior car) Cadillac DeVille - it would not automatically release the parking brake when she put it in gear. Just could not get it, and had these long, rambling, largely incoherent phone calls and conversations with us.
The other was back every month with brake squeek on her Diamante, that ultimately turned out to be tire shine going thru the wheels onto the brake parts.
In both cases, I refunded every dime they had ever given us, apologized for our inability to satisfy them, and sent them on their way. THAT is the right way to fire a customer, not this "go away" BS.
Re:What is wrong with calling if it is justified? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, I say the proper way to dispute $4,000 in bad charges by anyone extending credit in exchange for finance charges is to take advantage of the Fair Credit billing Act and refuse to pay them, pay only the undisputed amount, and to avoid any possible confusion: don't charge anything more with that card until the matter is settled, and promptly notify them in writing that the amount is disputed.
Call them, or let them call you, if you want (as they probably will, eventually if you don't pay anything on that $4,000 for a few months), but don't rely on that doing anything for you, and try to mail the dispute in writing within 30 days of receiving the statement.
If you know you have a legitimate dispute and the amount is not due to be paid by you, then never pay disputed charges, as it's more likely for charges to be successfully reversed by dispute, if the dispute is legit, than for you to convince them to refund a paid amount, that you say you weren't liable. (Gee, why'd you pay us then, if you didn't owe it?)
Also, any interest or finance charges on the disputed amount is not to be paid, as you are not liable for it, so long as you are not liable for the original $4,000 charge. You just have to be 100% certain that the basis of your dispute is accurate, and you're not liable for the charge. (If you had other amounts that were not in dispute, you still owe finance charges on those amounts, which is why they should be reduced to $0 quickly, as they may raise the interest rate dramatically, until they properly respond to the dispute.)
Once they have your money it's theirs, and it's much harder for you to make them refund. It should be reasonably difficult for them to get money for disputed charges out of you, the customer, also. Last I knew, if you don't pay it, they don't get it, unless you in fact are liable for the amount, and they take you to court.
Always put the dispute IN WRITING; certified mail, return receipt requested to the correct billing inquiries address, and keep it as simple as possible: i.e. don't write a novel, only identify the charges that are in dispute, and the basis for that dispute.
Include a copy of the statement, very clearly identify exactly which amount(s) are disputed; in fact, circle them on the statement and write labels like "unauthorized charge" or "incorrect amount" in the margins.
And you don't say which... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sprint is great... (Score:2, Interesting)
Either way, I think it makes sense. Calling support 25 times a month means someone is on the phone with them every weekday. That's really not a good sign of a customer/company relationship and it seems better for everyone that it ends.
As far as I am concerned, Sprint is a great company. I've been with them for 7 years - 4 contract renewals. At no point was any other competitor able to match their rates, and Sprint has been good about throwing out perks (loyalty discount, free SMS, etc) to keep me happy. I've recently got my girlfriend's entire family to switch to Sprint from Verizon and they're much happier. My ex was with Verizon as well and they both complained that the reps there had bad attitudes if you actually had a problem - they acted as if they knew their network was the best and any problem was the customer's fault - forget getting any credit. Compared to that, Sprint is very generous with service credits. Occasionally it does take more than one call to get an issue resolved, but overall their financial value and helpfulness make it worthwhile to put up with.
Their network coverage has really gotten beefed up in the last few years as well.
Just to note - I have absolutely no relationship w. Sprint other than being a happy customer, and I wanted to share my experience in contrast with all the negative comments that are being posted here.
Re:wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Now the billing department? Well that is another issue. It is a crap shoot. Sometimes changes are instant and accurate, other times it takes a few months to get resolved. I havent changed anything in the last few years other then ESN changes so maybe it has got worse or better. I've actually had them change my plan when I called about a a different issue. They claimed that the plan I had for years was invalid and it should have never been allowed to have what I did. I still had the original Sprint sales flyer describing the plan from the time period and offered to fax it to the CSR that claimed she worked at Sprint for 10 years and knows they never offered such a thing. Eventually after repeated calling, I got a CSR that made the change back to what I had. FWIW, back in the day, Sprint offered the second and additional phones the same services the primary phone had for no additional cost. Meaning, I had unlimited SMS, unlimted internet and pictures service on my primary phone and this carried over to all four phones I had for no charge. After years, someone determined this was not correct and started charging me for the services on the additional phones which almost doubled my bill.
I am not under any contracts with Sprint as I never extend it (I replace my old phones with second hand used phones). I keep an eye on the other carriers and the plans they offer. I was lucky enough to get a plan that is about $100 cheaper a month then anything offered by any carrier now but I still look and would switch if something better came along but I have a feeling that is never going to happen. The whole cell indisuty is based on nickel and dimeing you to death.
That being said about the customer service, does any cell phone company have good consistent customer service? Not based on the horror stories I've heard from. Everyone has their good and bad stories about thier carrier. I've had both good and bad dealing with Sprint.
I worked for Sprint (Score:3, Interesting)
1. A lot of customers are just trying to scam the company.
2. The company is super cheap and doesn't want to pay-up when they are wrong.
To compound this delicate situation, the software we used to track these issues is REALLY REALLY bad. You have never seen bad software until you've worked for Sprint (imagine the worst windows program in the world and then make it 100times worse).
I started training with 16 people (which is a small group compared to the normal size) -- of those 16 peope, I was the ONLY one that truly understood the billing system. And the only reason I understood it is because I took an accounting course in college. When you phone Sprint with a billing problem -- chances are the person that you are talking to only knows a little bit more than you.
But let me tell you what a service agent is up against -- when someone phones in with a problem you've got four bosses pressuring you to: 1. end the call as quickly as possible because time is money; 2. sell the customer something they don't need; 3. solve all their many problems... Now they all like to talk bout "solving" the customer's problem, but that's more like an obstacle in the course of making more money.
They keep detailed records of how long the calls were, and numerous other 'metrics'. If our calls were getting too long (eg: because we were helping the customer) then we have some asshole boss hassling us over our performance. If we don't make enough sales offers -- same thing -- we get hassled. Try and think of a combination of "office space" and "boiler room". I remember one day when I got 20 calls in a row, and only one of them was applicable to make a sales offer (the rest were agents from sprint stores, people who hung up, etc) well, because my offer rate was so low they took me aside and gave me "special coaching"... They wouldn't listen to the fact that I COULDN'T make sales offers on these calls... they treated me like I was a moron.
And the customers -- don't even get me started on the customers. The customer would be yelling at you through the headset, and at the very same time your boss would be yelling in your other ear. It was a crappy job -- the company was crappy, the co-workers were crappy, and the customers were crappy.
Re:What is wrong with calling if it is justified? (Score:2, Interesting)
One of their functions is to decide whether phone and/or utility rate increases are going to happen. Iowans can write or email the Utilities Board, and complain about problems with phone and/or utility services, and recomend against rate increases until problems are resolved. The Utilities Board is required to consider all such input in its decisions, and when people write or email the Utilities Board, the offending phone or utility company gets a copy of the complaint. This usually has the effect of the problem being resolved quickly.
I had a phone problem resolved some years ago this way. We kept getting switched onto a very niosy phone line. A phone company repair employee told us (off the record and on the condition we would never reveal his name) that the phone company did not have enough good lines in our area, and would not spend the money to fix the bad ones. So whenever someone complained about a noisy line, they were switched to one of the good lines, and someone else was switched on to a noisy line. I wrote to the Utilities Board, explaining the situation and recommending against any rate increases until such practices were ended and the lines repaired.
Within 48 hours the problem was solved and we were in contact with the phone company. Not via one of the regular customer service operators but someone higher up who gave us her 800 number to call if we had any more problems.
So I would recommend that anyone with problems that are not resolved quickly to contact any state regulatory agencies that may exist. It can't hurt!
Have you been in a Sprint store? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have (sadly) had Sprint for over 5 years now. The ONLY reason I was keeping them around was
1) cheap data plans (DUN over Treo 650), and
2)I've negotiated what was until very recently, an unbeatable plan. Less so now
I've had nothing but customer service HELL from Sprint. I've stood in line for an hour, only to be told that their computer systems were down and they couldn't do anything for me, and that I should walk to another store. When I got to the other store, the first guy tells me that he couldn't update my PRL (list of towers from what I understand) without a manager there. Guy #2 tells me that all I have to do is dial #2. Why did the first store need their computer systems to tell me that?
The employees there are some of the most inept people i've ever seen. I've been given bad advice, lied to, made wait forever. What sucks even more, is that with needing to wait excessive times is that in major cities they choose to not have restrooms. Thanks sprint. People in cities dont' need to piss while waiting 2 hours.
I've had billing fiascos. Problems with promises made by store/account managers not coming through. Rebate problems. Service issues (most of my calls in the middle of Boston go straight to voicemail, which I get notification of two days later).
Right now I'm going to have a fun time within the next week trying to get another Treo 650 or similar. I have their "Insurance" program or whatever it is, and my Treo 650 will not work with Bluetooth headsets. It's advertised to. Sprint says it will. I have a Treo headset. My friend's sprint Treo 650 works with my headset. I know they are going to blame it on the headset, but i'm going to take the said friend in to demonstrate. I have to have the phone to my bluetooth earpiece to get it to not crackle or break up. Not that I want to use the headset, but it's just the principal, and maybe they'll give me a brand new "new treo".
What Sprint doesn't know is that as soon as my current contract is up, I'm going to Apple and buying an iPhone (in Feb... bugs should be gone by then too, and maybe a price break).
I'm convinced that most cell providers are really just like the record companies. They just want 14 year olds that will buy ringtones, games, and screensavers. They don't have 'professional' users in mind at all, nor could they care otherwise.