Uh, no, because the error is fixed?

Debt collectors would only be knocking on your door if Sprint hired them to collect your debt. Since the notice seems to be a warning that it will be sent to collections if you don't pay up, and the error seems to have been noted and corrected, then I doubt you have much to worry about.

But the letter implies that they already turned Jessie's information over to a collection agency. Those folks aren't known for letting little things like "facts" get in the way of harrassing consumers.

@timmus:

It's not always as simple as "uh no, because the error was fixed". If the erroneous bill was passed on to a collection agency, it could take some time to get it corrected in their system as well as sprint's. That's if someone at sprint was proactive enough to contact the collections agency and explain the problem. of course, if it never got passed on to a collections agency, then there's nothing to worry about.

My question is why is his bill for $326 anyways? Is that how much a family plan costs these days? My wife and I pay about $100 a month.

$326.69 for a cell phone bill would still give me a heart attack. Time to switch plans, dude.

@Kajj: Then you send them a drop dead letter, and sue them (and win big) if they ignore it.

This is happening alot, got mine for $10,637.00 yesterday, one of my co-workers suggested I put it up at Consumerist!

@pmathews:

Interesting. My cell bill is about $120 for myself, but I have a large minute allotment as I use it in business and have a data plan.

I don't think $326 is that unheard of for a family of four or five when one of the person uses the phone a lot or travels on business.. (Or you have a few txting kids.)

$326 would give me a heart attack too. We're a family of 4 with 5 cell phones, all on pay-as-you-go plans. Combined I don't think we've gone over $60 in a month (yes, that's COMBINED). And that's with 2 teens.

Actually, the bill wasn't even $326-- that was due to a billing error that has since been corrected. Took me weeks via regular customer service. In their defense, Sprint Executive Customer Service did an amazing job getting the whole thing corrected in just a matter of minutes. Kudos Shane!

But look, it didn't get sent to a collection agency. The first picture still has Sprint's logo on it. They are sending the bill saying it will be sent to a collection agency if he doesn't pay.

Not that I wouldn't have a heart attack or two if this happened to me...

SERO. every time there's a sprint thread, someone's gotta say it.

326 would make sense for three unlimited plans with taxes.

One word. Four Letters.

S.E.R.O ....say it with me people...S.E.R.O

You'd think we weren't in the middle of a recession or something.

Whoops. Thanks nuggett76.

@Frank_Trapasso: Darnit, confounded again! You beat me to it Frank.

Good lord, $350 cell phone bill? My Sprint bill is $35 a month AFTER taxes. Do you really NEED to talk to people/text THAT much? Hell, I could have a nice new car for that much per month.

Personally, I dig the 7 digits ahead of the decimal point in the "amount enclosed" area...

There's nothin' like a million dollar cell phone bill to make you think about switching carriers.

I just paid a bill for about $320 because it included hardware (a new Blackberry). The bill shown here doesn't have to be just for service.

@nuggett76: My my, their service might actually be getting better.

I was with Sprint (formerly Sprint PCS, formerly Sprint Spectrum) from 1997 to 2006.

After being with them for NINE years, including an early-access program when I actually tested their system before public access in '97, I drop-kicked them in '06 due to absolutely horrendous, abysmal, disgusting, ignorant, offensive service.

(Example: Had trouble making calls in Philadelphia. Called 611. Got a rep (not in a third world, was clearly US based). Was completely confused. Asked what state this "Philadelphia" was in. Could I spell it? Was it near a bigger city - as he couldn't find it in his system. Conclusion of phone call: Sprint didn't offer service in this little podunk town of "Philadelphia, PA", so they refused to troubleshoot the problem.)

Unfortunately I just had to go back to them for my EVDO-A card, as I'm not cool with VZW mobile broadband's motherly access policies. (You may not view videos! You may not use it to play games! 5GB then 10-fold overages kick in!)

Here's to hoping Sprint is getting better with their service. God knows it can't get much worse.

@tcp100: Even the unlimited texting plans would be way cheaper than that. Still seems VERY expensive unless there were many lines, all of which had numerous unlimited features.

@johnva: Well, probably for a residential user, you're right. I'm coming from a business perspective - we've got five lines with T-Mobile, which comes to $230. Three of them have the mobile internet plans, which adds $60. So we're about there with taxes even with no surcharges.

My personal plan is $50, and then the sprint EVDO card plan is $60, with taxes it's around $120 - so I figure if he's using more than voice you could easily get up there.

I do wish some of the carriers gave a discount on multiple data plans.. Unfortunately they don't. (Albeit, T-Mo is only $19.99 for unlimited, but that's for their lousy EDGE network.)

Love the comments and insight from everyone on Consumerist-- always a daily must read.

Just a few things to clarify though:

1. The $326 bill was already an error

2. The $32600 bill was a billing system error that most probably won't even see-- it will prolly only show for those who had billing cycles end that day.

3. Sprint Executive Customer Service group handled this promptly and professionally. I have to give them the utmost credit for taking care of this issue in the manner that they did. (Can someone teach Dell that?)

you ever notice these kinds of mistakes are never made when you get your paycheck?

@loogee: One problem. Four words.

Really Horrific Customer Service.

I gues the concept of "I'll pay more to avoid a bad company" escapes some.

And some of us don't want CDMA for various reasons.

@BlyGilmore: I've heard of it happening... but usually they demand a payback, and if you ignore the demands, they just dock your next check... or just yank the money at a bad time, causing things to bounce.

Errors in your favor nearly never work out.

Between Skype and my Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go I rarely pay more than $25 a month for calls.

Back in 2000, my ex got a similar notice from some service provider (I can't recall which one) that her account was very high and that it was about to be referred to a collection agency. The bill was enormous, in the hundreds of millions! Upon closer inspection, the supposed amount owed looked suspiciously familiar: it was her social security number. Some data-entry goober had entered it into the wrong field, nearly causing a heart attack on our end. It took a while to explain to the disbelieving soul on the other end of the support line, but after paying the correct balance, we canceled the account.

Listen, you guys are getting 32,669 CENTS confused with 32,669 DOLLARS. It's really just a matter of opinion.

@Buran: One company I worked for overpayed me due to miscalculating my health insurance contribution. I didn't catch it for about six months and neither did they. They were kind enough to take the missing money out of my next 24 paychecks instead of all at once, because otherwise I wouldn't have had a paycheck at all for one period...

Sprint executive services are VERY compitent and professional. I still can't believe so many people have problems with Sprint. I have such good luck with Sprint. Yeah, I get messed up bills once in a while but one call to CS and it's always been fixed (sometimes even offered a perk for the hassle) I am really confused about all the Sprint hate.

"only" $329...

well, that's a bargain! i'll take two!

This is a humorous example of the sad fact that Sprint's backend billing systems are riddled with problems and some of the blame is the outsourced, offshore programmers Sprint uses to maintain these systems. The geniuses who have been running Sprint the last few years decided to move to from the old billing system (which worked fine) to the new billing system they got when they bought Nextel not because it works better, but because it's cheaper. The move has been executed poorly with the help of the outsourced, offshore IT. Chaos has ensued and it's driving away customers.

Outsourcing done poorly is a primary root cause of Sprint's predicament today. The other cellphone companies use outsourced IT and call centers, so why does Sprint get such a lower quality result? The managers responsible for IT and customer service at Sprint and the vendors they hired have some explaining to do.

Notice how the line for Amount Enclosed has the blank squares to accommodate ONE MILLION DOLLARS!! Like a cell phone bill could ever go that high! Maybe the NSAs uses it?

[cache.consumerist.com]

@Pro-Pain: I don't consider "messed up bills once in awhile" to be acceptable, whether it takes one call to customer service or many calls to get the corrections made. Some of the most successful rip off artists are the ones that never repeat a mistake, but they make a lot of one-time "mistakes."

I stopped using Hertz for this same reason. After every rental I was on the phone for 30 minutes or more getting a billing "mistake" corrected. It's amazing how none of these "mistakes" by Sprint or Hertz was ever in my favor.

@ManiacDan: There is a friend whose mother went to buy a car and was treated so poorly by the dealer because he didn't think a single woman with children could pay cash for a car. His mother talked to her banker and told him what happened, she asked her banker to bring 850000 pennies to pay for the car. Shut the dealer up real fast.

@tcp100: yes it is

I dont even use half my minutes (despite using it often at work) have unlimited texting on BOTH our phones and my wife and I STILL only pay 50 each.

For a family of 4 if your bill is over 200 your paying way too much, or you need to be beating the shit out of your spawn for using the cellphone to call all of their dirtbag friends.

I think someone noted that Sprint was updating/moving billing systems in an earlier Sprint thread- this may be related. Karma bonus if someone has a link.

I think it's really funny in the picture of the remittance slip the amount enclosed boxes go to the Million dollar spot. Is it even possible to have a phone bill over $1,000,000.00?

[www.phonelosers.org]

Almost impressive as the $50,000 centurytel phone bill, The person who received it got a write off of $49,803, so sprint shouldn't have a problem writing off the lower amount of $32,669

Sometimes I swear I've got a different Sprint than anyone else. I've got the SERO plan with unlimited text / data and a ton of minutes for like $35. Sprint even has a note on my bill that says they'll cut my service if it goes over $500, so even if my phone is stolen and someone starts calling their buddies in Paraguay, I'm not that screwed.

They do, however, send me an additional bill for $6.13 every month on the same day as my regular bill (which is always $6.13 less than it should be). I'll put up with a few harmless eccentricities for cheap unlimited data. Being able to use google maps on your phone when you're lost at 3am is worth it.

Sprint has their own "collection agency" in Jamaica.

They don't take "this is an inaccurate amount" as an answer, and will continue to threaten to cut off all of your lines unless you pay the entire (wrong) "overdue" bill. And by beautiful design - once a bill reaches "Sprint Collections" there is no way to have Sprint Customer Service fix or even delay the cutoff other than putting in a fake credit temporarily to "zero it out."

@Falconfire: Ha! You sound like my mama talking about me back in the day...

I'm a former Sprint rep, earlier this year Sprint sent mailed letters and text messages to hundreds of customers saying their automatic bill payment had gone through and their account had been debited for...get this: FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. Yes I am not making that up, the notices said the accounts had been charges for 5 mil.

Now in actuality only the real owing amount had been charged but due to the error I took hundreds of calls from upset customers, some threatening legal action, because of the error.

How that could be allowed to happen escapes me, but as I learned at Sprint, these kind of things are pretty much the norm.

Whether or not you get sent to collections depends on what the current balance on your account shows in Sprint's system.

As for the $326 bill, that could be a number of things. Maybe he has several lines on unlimited plans, maybe he just ordered a phone, maybe has 6 lines or maybe the number represents more than one month's charges.

@razremytuxbuddy: I think there may be some confirmation bias here. If a mistake was in your favor would you even notice? I know if it was me I'd just think, "Oh, cheaper than I thought" and move on.

I received the same kind of letter from Sprint, saying I owed $6,027 on an account I had just paid, so I knew it was down to zero dollars.

One (relatively) short call to Sprint, and the helpful CSR told me about the known glitch (though she WAS surprised to hear that I got my notice via snail mail), and confirmed that I actually owed Sprint nothing...

We've got 4 lines and 2 "unlimited" broadband cards (they getcha with the fees) and our bill is about $300 a month. Just the cost of doing business.

@Orv: Nope, no bias here. My current wireless provider gave me an erroneous $250 credit on my bill a few months ago. I did call and report it. I overheard the CSR talking to his supervisor about how to input the correction, and it went like, "you're not going to believe this...are you serious, she's actually telling us about it?" Etcetera.

I'm sure I'm like most consumers, who aren't out to screw the business any more than we want the business to screw us.

The computer geeks among us all know that is possible to kick out the hugely wrong bills prior to the batch of bills being sent from the service provider.

Considering these bills are 10x larger, one must wonder why the bills are not being hand evaluated prior to being mailed to the customer.