![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Screwed by Sprint
Sep. 22nd, 2005 06:42 pmI bought a Treo 650 with service from Sprint in mid-August. Last night, they shut off my service for no reason I could fathom. All my calls got redirected to a service reinstatement center -- which was closed until 9 AM.
I called this morning, puzzled about why my service had been shut off. Turns out, I had done nothing wrong. New high-credit customers (which apparently I am one of) get a $600 credit limit on their account. Once your account goes over this limit, your service is automatically shut off, without any warning, until you call in to their reinstatement center (which, again, was not open when I discovered this problem).
Before you protest that $600 is a large amount, remember that a Treo, even on a Sprint discount, is over $400. Add in two months* worth of access fees, a connection fee, and assorted taxes, and you're over $600 without ever turning on the phone. Sprint claims that this is for fraud prevention. I don't see how they can make this claim if they never look at the calling pattern or why the bill hit $600.
My first call to the reinstantement center got my service turned back on. However neither that call nor the subsequent call got me any satisfaction for having had the service turned off in the first place. I tried calling customer service to bitch about the lack of notice. The first time, the lady tried offering me a month free of two minor line items on my bill. That's not what I wanted to hear, but I had to go back into my training class, so I decided to call back later.
The second time, I told the customer service guy that I wanted Sprint doing backflips to tell me that my service was about to be cut off. Email, phone calls, text messages, every means of contacting me that they have. He assured me that he was putting a "high priority notification" on my account, to make sure they went to extra effort to notify me. Needless to say, if this happens again, I'm going to tell Sprint to go to hell in no uncertain terms.
However, the basic problem remains. If you're going to get an expensive phone from Sprint, expect that shortly after your first bill, you will have your service turned off. (I suspect if you're a greater credit risk, and thus have a lower credit limit, even a cheap phone will get your service automatically shut off.) I'm keeping them for the moment, but I will recommend against Sprint for new users in the future.
* Sprint bills oddly for new customers; the first bill always has two months of access charges on it. No late fees, nothing wrong; it's just how they bill new customers.
I called this morning, puzzled about why my service had been shut off. Turns out, I had done nothing wrong. New high-credit customers (which apparently I am one of) get a $600 credit limit on their account. Once your account goes over this limit, your service is automatically shut off, without any warning, until you call in to their reinstatement center (which, again, was not open when I discovered this problem).
Before you protest that $600 is a large amount, remember that a Treo, even on a Sprint discount, is over $400. Add in two months* worth of access fees, a connection fee, and assorted taxes, and you're over $600 without ever turning on the phone. Sprint claims that this is for fraud prevention. I don't see how they can make this claim if they never look at the calling pattern or why the bill hit $600.
My first call to the reinstantement center got my service turned back on. However neither that call nor the subsequent call got me any satisfaction for having had the service turned off in the first place. I tried calling customer service to bitch about the lack of notice. The first time, the lady tried offering me a month free of two minor line items on my bill. That's not what I wanted to hear, but I had to go back into my training class, so I decided to call back later.
The second time, I told the customer service guy that I wanted Sprint doing backflips to tell me that my service was about to be cut off. Email, phone calls, text messages, every means of contacting me that they have. He assured me that he was putting a "high priority notification" on my account, to make sure they went to extra effort to notify me. Needless to say, if this happens again, I'm going to tell Sprint to go to hell in no uncertain terms.
However, the basic problem remains. If you're going to get an expensive phone from Sprint, expect that shortly after your first bill, you will have your service turned off. (I suspect if you're a greater credit risk, and thus have a lower credit limit, even a cheap phone will get your service automatically shut off.) I'm keeping them for the moment, but I will recommend against Sprint for new users in the future.
* Sprint bills oddly for new customers; the first bill always has two months of access charges on it. No late fees, nothing wrong; it's just how they bill new customers.
