Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Date of post: 11/23/2005 3:08:00 PM
Subject: Last Sprint Bill
Posted by: nrohlem

I received my last Sprint PCS bill on October 28, 2005. Much to my surprise, the bill included three early termination fees of $150 each. My contract with Sprint PCS was over in May of 2005. So, I called Sprint PCS to see what gives. I explained to the representative that my contract was on a month to month basis and there should not be any early termination fee. The Sprint PCS representative told me that the three “Add a Lines” off of my main line were not due to expire until May of 2006. So, I posed the question to her. If my main line was cancelled, what would happen to my three additional lines? What plan would they be on since my main line was no longer with Sprint PCS? After about 15 minutes of discussion with her supervisor, the Sprint PCS representative told me that they would refund the three early termination fees of $150. I asked her to repeat what she had said. Again, she said that Sprint PCS was going to refund the early termination fee.



Jump ahead almost a month. It is now November 20, 2005. I checked my credit card and found that Sprint PCS had charged my account a little over half of the three early termination fees (plus tax of course). I immediately called Sprint PCS and explained to the representative what had transpired on October 28, 2005. She basically gave me the same information that I received on October 28, 2005. She looked up my record and saw a $200 credit. I explained to her that I was to receive a complete refund per the discussion that I had with the Sprint PCS representative and her manager back in October. This Sprint PCS representative was not authorized to give me a refund even though I had already been told I would receive a refund from a previous Sprint PCS representative. I ask to speak to her supervisor. I explained to the supervisor what had transpired back on October 28, 2005. The supervisor explained that I should not have been given a refund and that the previous representative and her supervisor were not authorized to give me a refund. To which I responded that I did not know who had the authority, but if she played the tape from the call on October 28, 2005 she would here that I was told that I would be given a complete and total refund. The supervisor told me that it would take a few weeks to access the tapes.



The point I was trying to make to the supervisor was that I wasn’t calling about whether or not I should have received a refund. I had already received a refund. My call was concerning an unauthorized charge by Sprint PCS to my credit card. I have no contract with Sprint PCS as of September 22, 2005 and I was given a refund on October 28, 2005 for the early termination fees.



I received no satisfaction from Sprint PCS so I decided to take it up with my credit card company. Obviously, I have not documented the entire discussion here, but you can see that as a consumer, it is very difficult to deal with customer support groups within large corporations.



I’ll update this Blog as information comes in from my credit card company.