Chelsea noticed several mistaken charges on her Sprint bill for internet access, along with a late fee even though she was enrolled in automatic bill pay. Sprint quickly reversed the erroneous fees and suggested that she block access to the internet. Chelsea replied that this would be perfectly acceptable, so long as it was a free service. In response, Sprint signed her up for a $15 per month data plan.

Chelsea writes:

I’ve had Sprint service for seven years because I receive a state employee discount, and it’s been pretty smooth sailing. Luckily when I renewed my plan in May, I was paired with a sales manager who seemed both friendly and efficient. Going through my first bill I noticed four incorrect charges, including mysterious internet usage and a late fee, despite the fact I’ve been on automatic payments for years. I emailed Sprint about these charges and promptly received a long and apologetic response from someone named Steffi. She credited all of the charges and informed me of a way to block internet access altogether. This all was great, so I wanted to express some gratitude:

Thank you for responding so quickly. I really appreciate your help with this invoice. If there’s no charge in preventing internet access, I would like that to be applied.

You know, there’s a lot of Sprint hatred out there, but I’ve never had a huge problem with anyone. Seeing weird charges on my bill had me worried, but I’m happy to see Sprint sticking to their word to provide good customer service.

Thanks again.

Soon after that email, I received this reply:

Thank you for contacting Sprint.

I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to write

regarding the excellent service you received. Our goal is to serve you

with world-class customer service, and feedback from customers like you

is a great source of motivation in our endeavor to achieve that goal.

I have added Sprint Vision Pack for $15.00 on the account effective June

20, 2008.

Now you can enjoy:

• Unlimited Web/Data Access on Handset
• Unlimited Picture Mail and Video Mail
• Multimedia – Sprint TV Channel 1

Have a nice day!

Sincerely,

Peter P.

Sprint

……Wha-? I re-read my email to make sure I didn’t somehow authorize this, but no, I mentioned preventing internet access. What a fool I was, doting on Sprint before the job was done. Instead of calming down and being rational, I replied with a crazy email rife with superfluous exclamation marks and all caps. I pointed out that’s the exact opposite of what I asked for and asked if anyone even read my email.

The response email from Gloria D. wasn’t nice and certainly lacking any apology. But Vision has been removed, so oh well. A toast to Sprint and another glorious two years.

(AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

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