I’m furious.
Remember last month’s epic Sprint customer service fail when it took me three hours to purchase my Blackberry?
Well, this morning Madre Jansen sent me an email:
Madre Jansen: “What is this $30 equipment charge on the phone bill? Here is the username and password for the account. Figure it out.”
So I call sprint:
Sprint Rep: “Hi stranger. What’s the 10-digit pin for the account?”
Me: “Erm… I have a password and username.”
Sprint Rep: “Credentials fail. That’s only for online.”
So I hang up, call mom for the pin, and call Sprint again:
Me: “Here is the pin…”
Sprint Rep #2: “Great. Did you call us recently?”
Me: “Yeah, like two minutes ago. I had to get the pin from a parent.”
Sprint Rep: “Okay Shady. So, because you just called I have to have my manager listening in and….”
Me: “Okay. I have a $30 ‘equipment charge’ on my bill, and I would like to know what it is for.”
Sprint Rep: “Yes. You do have an equipment charge. It’s for equipment!”
Me: “…how helpful. But what does that mean? What is the charge for? What equipment?”
Sprint Rep: “I dunno. You bought something at a store. I just have a sku number. It’s a mystery!”
Me: “…well, would the store know?”
Sprint Rep: “Hm. Maybe. Where is the store? What’s your zip? Let me call them. Hold. […] They said you bought a Blackberry and a charger. It might have been for a charger!”
Me: “Hm. I bought a car charger, but I guarantee it wasn’t a flat $30… and I paid for it with a credit card.”
Sprint Rep: “We are only showing one charge on your mastercard.”
Me: “I don’t think I put it on my mastercard. That was just for the blackberry. Hm.”
Sprint Rep: “Check your bank statements. I dunno…”
Me: “I think the Sprint rep was going to give me a $30 credit for it taking three hours to buy my phone.”
Sprint Rep: “Hm maybe. Call us back when you figure that out. Peace!”
I pull up my bank statements online. The car charger was on my Visa. The blackberry was on the mastercard. Sprint was full of crap, and the $30 charge was still a mystery.
I call Sprint back.
Sprint Rep #3: “Yes, we see that you have a $30 charge. Let me look into that. Hold.”
Me: “… ”
Sprint Rep: Yes. It looks like your blackberry was $291.51 and you only paid $261.51 with your mastercard. That’s why your account was charged.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure the $30 was the “pain in the ass/incompetence” credit the store rep. offered me for waiting 3 hours at the store.”
Sprint Rep: “Oh, well let me contact that store. Hold. […] it seems like Hank, the rep that helped you, is not in today. The store will call me back tomorrow and I’ll follow up with you and we’ll get this resolved.”
Me: “We have to wait for him to go into work?”
Sprint Rep: “Yes.”
Me: “This is frustrating. The point of the $30 credit was to compensate me for his bad customer service that caused me to be in the store for 3 hours and now I’ve wasted 30 minutes dealing with this.”
Sprint Rep: “Sorry that you’ve spent thirteen minutes on the phone. I’m going above and beyond here because normally you would have to deal with the store.”
Me: “Oh, I’d love to give them a piece of my mind. And I’ve only been on the phone with you for 13 minutes but you’re the third person I’ve talked to today. I’m taking this pain in the ass in aggregate. I just feel further inconvenienced by the store’s incompetence and I’m frustrated that I have to wait to get this resolved. Whine-bitch-moan, boom-shaka-laka, laka boom.”
I was seething by the end of the call, and then called Madre Jansen:
Mom: “So grasshopper, how’d it go?”
Me: “BAH!! Next time I need something from a Sprint store, I’m going to Wisconsin.”
Note: the conversation is obviously condensed and paraphrased. The point is, that I’m only a Sprint customer because of my parent’s longstanding relationship to the company…otherwise I’d already be with AT&T.
