Sprint seems to be a very dodgy company
Written: Feb 15 '07
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Pros: cheapest plan for basic service
Cons: sketchy CS agents. Untrustworthy agency. Customer privacy is obviously a non-issue at this company.
The Bottom Line: Abysmal customer service. They don't even go through the motions -- they really couldn't care less if you know how much they hate their job
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| willoughby_tz's Full Review: General Reviews of Sprint Customer Service |
I activated cell phone service for the first time 2 years ago. I had a dreadful sign-up process, but I was only familiar with Sprint and didn't want to sign up with an unfamiliar company right on the spot like that, so I had to stick with them.
First off, they wanted my landline number. Well, I didn't have one because I had recently moved and never bothered hooking up phone service because I knew I would be using only a cell phone. They were actually not going to sign me up for cell phone service because I did not have a landline number! I tried to use my old phone number, but they were immediately able to see that it was no longer a working number. This raises many questions to me -- why do they place so much importance on having a phone number? So much importance that they need instant access to the current status of that phone number? Well, it couldn't possibly be to sell that number to solicitors, could it? Nooooo, that's not ethical, surely it couldn't be for that reason.
So, of course I didn't want to give up my work #, cause I didn't want to end up getting sales calls all day at work.
Anyway, I was about to leave since I had no phone number to give them, and, after all, a phone number is a valuable piece of personal info to a company that expects to get paid from its customers. I mean, if I become a deadbeat phone user and stop paying my bills they can track me down by that phone number.
Social security number, nah, not important at all -- I mean, those change every time you change addresses. But, oohhh, that phone number...that's with you for life. All credit agencies only need that one piece of info to track you down wherever you are.
The sales guy (at Radio Shack) even called Sprint and I talked to someone in crediting or new accounts (not sure) and she told me the same thing. That they needed that phone number to open my account. I specifically asked why the SS number wasn't good enough, but she didn't really answer my question. And when I asked her about them selling customer's phone numbers, and asked if that was the reason it was so awfully importatnt to them, she suddenly started saying that she wasn't allowed to talk to me as a potential customer and could only talk to the sales guys at the store.
The other rep in the store was the one who suggested we try opening an account under a SS number of 000-00-0000. I don't know why that worked, but it did, and they were somehow able to bypass the critical phone number situation.
This probably would have been enough to thwart most people, but as I said, I was kind of stuck, because I wasn't familiar with other companies and I would have had to look up their phones and plans and I just wanted to get the stupid phone that day.
A few months later my phone wasn't working so I called Sprint from my roommate's phone. Part of the process the CSR was talking me through took me to my voice mail. Well, the messages were saved, but incoming calls were not, so I had no idea who left the messages. When they started up, I just wanted to bypass the system instead of listening to all of them, since the CSR was on the other line and we weren't finished with the process to fix my phone. I asked her point-blank, "ooh, I want to skip these and save them. What do I hit to save them? Is it 7? Is 7 save?"
"Yes" she told me.
Well, she was wrong. 7 is delete. Did she apologize? nope. Did she say anything at all? nope. Not even a pretend, generic, one-size-fits-all comment about it. I mentioned it 3 times and all three times she didn't even acknowledge that I said anything. Just silence. I even said sarcastically "gee thanks for your apology." Silence.
Later that day I was called for a random survey aobut my interaction with the CSR, so at least I got a chance to report that.
I recently had to renew service because my 2 year contract ended 2/12/07. I guess most reasonable people would have refused to have anything more to do with this company, but they really have the cheapest plan. Everything has gone up a lot in 2 years, and I didn't want to pay more for more minutes when I don't even use all the minutes in my plan anyway. Plus, I figured it's not the plan or the coverage that I have problems with. It's just them, and I've only had to contact them once in the entire 2 years with them (that phone call detailed above).
Well, 2 days after I renewed my contract with them, I noticed that my old phone was still receiving calls. So I called them to find out how to deactivate my phone and the CSR asked for my password!!!! to access my account! She totally didn't understand why I might have had a problem with that. In this day and age of identity theft, aren't there always notices and cautiouns being issued to NOT give your passwords out?! That's why they have security questions about pet's names and mother's maiden names, etc. When companies send emails they even state themselves to never give out your password and the company should never ask for that. She said it was a new policy, and nobody else had a problem with it. But I seriously doubt. I know darn well I can't be the only person who's ever read that you aren't supposed to give out passwords to your accounts. She claimed she couldn't tell me how to deactivate my old phone without going into my accoutn, and that she could only access my account with my personal, PRIVATE password. A lot of times, that's not even something people even know. Don't most people have multiple accounts and multiple passwords? How do they even expect people to remember all of those right off the top of their heads?
Anyway, I hung up on her, called back a few minutes later and talked to a guy who told me to just turn it off and leave it off for 24 hours to deactivate. Jeez, he didn't seem to need my password to my account. He didn't need any information at all. I don't know why she did -- do they have different deactivation methods for different people depending on the info in their account? Hmmmm.
So, in short, Sprint CS sucks. It's not worth the early cancellation fee for me to cancel it now, but I will look more thoroughly next time for a new company when this contract ends.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 35/mo
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Epinions.com ID:
willoughby_tz
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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