Thursday, November 16, 2006

Sprinting Off Track

Spent way too much time on the phone with Sprint, my wireless provider, yesterday. Dad's phone was stolen a few months ago, so I had Sprint cancel the phone. Imagine my surprise when I downloaded my bill and found more than $100 in new charges on that phone. Turns out the thief had called Sprint, complained that his phone didn't work, and even though he didn't have the account password, they turned the phone back on "because he had the serial number" (surprise! It's on the phone!) and "because he said he needed it."

The first person with whom I talked, a useless fellow named Anthony, said that we'd have to pay $150 to have it turned off again. The second person with whom I talked was very apologetic, spent twenty minutes on the phone with me, claimed all was taken care of and said she was e-mailing me confirmation. When that confirmation never arrived, I called back and found out that the second person had done absolutely none of the things she had said she would do, the phone was still active, and the charges were still on my bill. One FCC complaint form later, I had a call from someone at Sprint who handled the matter with all the professionalism absent from the first two attempts, got it resolved, and received a confirming e-mail about the credit and the cancellation.

Oh, and shortly after that, I got a call from someone at Sprint saying that the thief was calling in again to have to phone reactivated, complaining it had been turned off without his permission. I urged them to locate the caller and have him arrested, but told them that the phone was to remain dead to me.

As of this morning, it's not on my account any longer, which I'll take as a good sign.

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