06/03/2021
I've been a loyal Sprint customer since 2008 as I'm always told when contacting Sprint. As of January 2021 I went into a Sprint store because they were offering buy 1 get 1free on the Samsung Active 2 smartwatch, I went over the plan and contract with sale rep and the only thing that wasn't offered is insurance so I added $15 per watch completed the transaction and left. When February 2021 bill print I found that I was not getting what was advertised in January so I reached out Sprint the customer service rep couldn't find the promo that was being offer in Jan gave a credit and assured me that Sprint will work on this issue, well when March bill printed I was being charged doubled now because of the credit given in February for both smartwatches and I reached back out to Sprint to complain and the customer service rep was apologetic but that's what they suppose to do to keep customer, but I wanted to speak with someone higher in the department so I didn't have to keep reaching out to Sprint. So I was placed in what they call the Back Office and my contact person there was Sammie no last name and he generated a reference number (I*******622) to use if I had to call again but he assured me that this would be last time. So I gave him all the details from my receipt from Jan 2021 and customer care rep, he placed me on hold and reached out to the store had his discussion with Brandon H., he came back on line with me to confirm that yes the promo had been on going since December 2020 and yes that is what I purchased and he would rectify this entire mess and going forward I would see on my bill a credit for one of the smartwatches $15.84 and the other I would pay $15.84 plus $15.00 per watch insurance coverage. And because the bill had already printed I was still obligated to pay $179.48 and that's for a galaxy 9, tablet, 2 smartwatches which put me overbudget for the month yet Sammie assured me that he would waived the late fee since it would be impossible to pay my rental obligations and other bills plus this Sprint bill. Well everything that glitter and gold because I continued to make calls for incorrect billing for April, May and keep in mind everything I was given a credit toward not being charged properly on the smartwatches the next bill cycle I would see a double charged Sprint is very very dishonest and Indian givers as I would say, let me explain now it's time for the June 4th bill still not bill properly on the smartwatches make the call to Sprint give all info needed and immediately ask to speak with a supervisor now I'm speaking with Ann on 05/23/21 and I inform her that I'm not going to go through explaining this situation and could she use the reference number I was given in March and that will explain everything. She does and tells me that the plan I had Unlimited Freedom plan is no longer available and in order to get my Samsung Active 2 smartwatches on the buy one get one free promo that was advertised in January 2021 I would have to switch plans to Sprint Unlimited Basic or I would have to loose the buy one get one free and pay for both now what kind of FOOLERY is Sprint pulling on loyal 2008 customers it's not my fault it's up to Sprint to grandfather all plans prior to this new plan upgrade in. Get this messy boots from Ann like I fell off a turnip truck an bump my head about 3 years ago I paid off my Samsung Galaxy 6 and with that I received Hulu basic plan as a thank you from Sprint, and now I'm being told by Ann that the promo was offer under the Unlimited Freedom plan they no longer have and I would now have to $11.99 monthly if I want to continue using Hulu now ABSOLUTELY NOT and that's why I said Indian givers and Ann goes on to inform me on 06/04/21 that Sprint can only offer me the promo on the smartwatches buy one get one free for the next 2 months and after which I would have to pay for both. So I've reached out to file complaints with FCC, FTC and now BBB to expose Sprint for there scams there pulling on customers.

You have ruined His moto x cuz you were begging him to activate his Moto X. LEAVE HIM ALONE SPRINT!

This is about the Sprint Corporate Store at 363 N. State St. In Westerville, Ohio.

What I came into the Sprint store was to transfer my Sprint phone number into a new phone that I received. I didn't anticipate this being a terribly large problem since I've done this several times before. My new phone wasn't compatible with my old SIM card, so I was told to go to this Sprint corporate store to receive a new SIM (for which I was already credited) and have them transfer the old number to it. This has happened before on several of my upgrades in the past, so I didn't mind. The person behind the counterAfrican American, in his early 20s (most likely), braided hair, fairly tall and rangy so that you can avoid him_seemed_ to understand my problem and began to resolve my issue. He checked for compatibility and went into the back, reappearing with a stack of SIM cards; so far, what I expected and what the online technician told me to expect the evening prior.

He then informed me that I would have to pay for a new line so that he could attach the new SIM. That was a contradiction in my past experience and what the technician had told me, so I queried to make sure I understood what he was saying, and informed him that his information ran contrary to knowledge gleaned in the past. He re-iterated the same information, saying it was the "only way" I could move forward, which, understandably, I wasn't necessarily willing to do. It could have been possible to get the new line and cancel the old one, and so as long as I wasn't charged any differently, it would make this transparent to me from a cost basis. He re-iterated the problem from his perspective, but, again, this ran contrary to everything in my experience up to this point. Well, what if we call someone higher up that might be able to give us a definitive answer OR work around the problem by giving me a new line and cancelling the old one with no cost detriment to me (I don't care about the corporate logistics of this issue, I just want it resolved)?

I think it's when I brought contacting someone with higher authority than him is when the train began to come off the rails, even though I was ignorant of this at the time. The Sprint representative gave me contradictory informationhe explained that he could call someone at Sprint customer care. Fine. But then he said he wouldn't call anyone until I had agreed to start the new line process. In other words, I had to agree to start another line for my upgrade phone. This, effectively, puts me in a monetary bindif Sprint could do something about this dilemma and credit me back for the cost of starting the new line, then it would resolve just fine; however if they decided not to do anything to refund me, then I would be essentially forfeiting at least a month's service cost in order to simply swap phones. A Sprint customer relations person should be able to tell me this information, especially one who started saying things like "I can do everything required to help you here" and "I wouldn't be sitting here unless I knew exactly what I was doing." Well, I assume the technician that helped me was sitting there because he knew what he was doing, too, so escalating might be a good idea.

This whole time, I never raised my voice, never used harsh language, and did my best to assure the employee that yes, I did, indeed, understand his position, but felt that he was in error (again, I think this last issue was the lynchpin of this incident). I asked, once again, if there was someone that we could call, and he indicated that I could call the Customer Care number myself, but that they would "tell me the same thing." Ok, then, let's have them do that.

He gave me the store phone and told me I could call them (although he originally indicated that he would make this call on my behalf). Excellent! Now we're moving forward. I asked for the number and he asked if I had something to write the number down on. It turns out I use a Galaxy Note, so, yes, indeed; but I mentioned that it would have been a good idea for corporate to give him cards that he could simply hand to people. At this point, he said something to the effect of "I've memorized every important phone number." Yes, while I can certainly see why that would be important, that misses my point that it would have been really easy for his company to provide him with something so that I didn't need to write it down myself (or, he could have even done it himself, but that would have been also unnecessary with a card of some sort).

I called the number that he provided and he began to help other customers, which I indicated wouldn't be a problem at all. Long story shortthe Customer Care number informed me that the store employee was wrong. They put me on hold and called another store (Polaris, I believe), who also confirmed that the employee was wrong. It's POSSIBLE that three people are wrong, here, but it's improbable. Even if they were all wrong, it seems, given that they didn't "tell me the same thing" indicates that a conversation with the store representative would have been helpful from the_outset_. The representative passed me to another employee who, once again, confirmed that a new SIM card was all that was needed and that they would see about getting me one since the store employee was unwilling to proceed further.

After the employee was finished with the customers and free, I told him "I believe what you told me was in good faith," but that he might be in error, but that it might be a matter of policy education or something of the sort. He stuck his hand out and told me to give him the phone and he'd talk to them. I immediately told him that I had no problems with that, but I needed to inform the phone representative that I was handing the phone off as a matter of courtesy. I was told by the store employee that he had full rights as a Sprint employee to speak to themI never debated that, out of a sense or propriety, I didn't want to simply hand the phone over without informing the person on the other line. I also informed the employee, once again, that I believed he was interacting with me in "good faith" and that he had helped me to the best of his knowledge up to that point. He indicated that if another Sprint store had spoken with me (they didn't; they spoke to the phone representative), I was welcome to do go there. I didn't want to go there, I only pointed out their opinion to demonstrate that the employee might have been in the wrong.

It is at this time, the employee began to claim that I was "belligerent" and that I was having a "power trip" and that our entire interaction was being recorded on audio and video. He also said that there were others who witnessed my ill behavior (why that mattered since he had everything on audio and video is lost on me since those media would render any hearsay witness accounts moot or interpretative at best). He kept telling me "as far as you and me, we're done." He then stridently demanded the phone backthe one he gave me in the first placeand claimed I would have to leave the store. Those things are fine, but as a matter of politeness (a point ironically lost on the in-person employee), I, once again, wanted to hand off the phone after notifying them that I was doing so, and now confirming that I'll be able to continue the call even after I hang up (the Customer Care person offered to call me on my own phone which I agreed to readily). After handing the phone back to him, he told me I couldn't come back and told me that he had taken a photograph of my plates and that if I came back, I would be charged with "harassment" (the charge would be "trespassing," actually, unless my coming back were persistent and put the business under some sort of duress). To his credit, the employee at least demonstrated enough intelligence not to have touched me in this incident, as I would have interpreted this as a direct attack upon my person (at least he did something right this day, I suppose?).

I think there's a couple of issues going on here, but most of them centered on a customer service representative who has self esteem problems related to his perceived level of knowledge. It's not "belligerent" to have a disagreement, not is it "harassment" to ask for a better level of customer service, especially when it's the simple request of escalating to someone who might have more power or authority over an on-the-ground employee. This is a typical stragegy employed by customers when they believe they've reached an impasse with a particular representative. I had no intentions of implicating this employee in anything or claiming he was incompetent in any way; I was just hoping to have my problem resolved as my experience has provided for, and as a separate (now four) representative of Sprint indicated it could be. If there's a customer service representative who feels this cocksure about his abilities (I'm going to avoid the obvious reference to Bertrand Russell here), even though he's been contradicted four times, this probably isn't someone who should be on the front lines, dealing with patrons. He could have actually talked to the representative in my presence, and between the two of them, figured out what the ultimate solution could have been. However, this would have required some humility I'm not sure this particular employee has the ability to affect.

The second issue has to do with this employee's lack of perceptual language abilities. If one gets mad at someone after that person has absolved you of direct fault ("good faith"x2), then there might be a problem with linguistic reception at a fundamental level. Continually saying "let me explain this to you again" after the person you're communicating with has said "I understand what you're trying to communicate," repeating what was said, and asking for other potential solutions demonstrates a lack of whole language processing that fails to see the forest for the trees. It demonstrates a type of linguistic and cognitive "anchoring" that, once again, doesn't lend itself to good customer service.

I can only hope this store takes measures to ameliorate this type of behavior in the future. I can't say that anger is (or ever was) a reaction to this incident since it's all so very surreal. I believe the employee is deficient or defective in some manner, and can only hope he gets help. If one can't handle a disagreement and a request to escalate without the raising of voice, harsh or surly language, or direct threats to life or livelihood, then this is a person that shouldn't be helping customers directly.

Update: This store has 1 star from three reviews on Yelp. Should be no surprise there that I'm not the only one who's having problems:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/sprint-store-westerville

I swear to God this is the company from Hell. I was with them for less than a month, and in that time they managed to lie to me on more than ten separate ocassions, $#*! up my credit and leave me shocked and dismayed at how genuinely terrible their customer service is. A bunch of damn crooks. So, story time.

I signed up for Sprint on July 14. It was my first time paying for my phone bill on my own, so I went with Sprint because I heard it was cheaper to do so. The first red flag was the fact that it took the sales rep 2 1/2 hours to set me up, including just turning my phone on and setting me up on a plan. His tablet kept crashing and wifi kept dropping. That should've tipped me off, but this being my first time around the block with a cellphone company, my naive $#*! didn't know any better. Lawd.

So about a week later, I get my first bill. It had an additional $10 on there that I didn't agree to, first of all. Also, I wanted to push my due date back so that I could pay for it on Aug. 15 instead of the 8th, just to keep my money in order. Shouldn't be a big deal, right? WRONG. The first person I talked to said she fixed all my issues and extended my billing due date for me. She lied. The second person I talked to acted like she worked for another company with a separate policy, because she had no idea why the first person told me what she did. Then she said she fixed my issues the right way. Another lie. The 3rd person I talked to said I can't change my billing due date because if I do, it'll cost me $300... so then I live chatted another agent (I have screenshots, i. E. receipts) and told her about this outrageous $300 nonsense. They told me to disregard that because it isn't true, and that my billing due date had indeed been changed and not to worry about it. This turned out to be another... say it with me... LIE.

I went through this tango about 6 different times with six different people over the course of two weeks or so. August 9th rolls around (the day after my original billing date) and I start getting phone calls, emails and text messages that they're going to shut off my service if I don't pay my bill immediately. But I thought I had extended the due date to the 15th? I called in, spoke to yet another foreigner who I could barely understand, and he proceeded to tell me that I'm not allowed to extend my due date unless I pay half today and half on the 15th. Which is something completely different than what I'd been told before.

At this point, I'm livid and tired. Because they kept giving me the run around for something soooo damn SIMPLE! So I was like aight $#*! it. I paid the bill ($128.34) with my credit card--which I didn't want to do because I only like to use it for emergencies--because I didn't have the money to pay the bill with. I paid it on August 10. $#*!, tell me why on August 17th, they hit my checking account for the exact same amount of money... they double billed me! Left me with damn near $0 balance in my checking account. They literally went in and stole my money for a bill I'd already paid. So I was FUMING.

I called customer service demanding they refund my money. They said they'd process the refund, and that it'd take 3-5 business days to reflect in my account. At this point, I'm screaming into the phone. 3-5 business days?!?!?! You really expect me to survive on $6 for 3-5 business days? AND it was a Friday. So 3-5 business days would've been the next Wednesday-Friday (even though the CS rep told me I'd have my money by Tuesday, which would've been only 2 business days so he was just saying random $#*!). I've never been so pissed at customer service in my life. They didn't even try to help. One of the guys said they but an acceleration on the refund so that it'd return in 3 business days instead of 5.

I left work early and switched to Verizon that day. It took them less than an hour to set me up, with a cheaper bill.

So the next week, I called about 2 times throughout the week to check on the status of my refund. Run around. By Friday, August 24, the 5th business day, my money still had not appeared. The woman on the phone tried to tell me that she couldn't find record of my refund. I said "... I'm sorry, come again...?" So I start going off, and all of a sudden she was able to find what I was talking about. She then proceeded to promise that my money would be back in my account before the end of the day.

Fast forward to today--Monday, August 27--and I called customer service first thing in the morning because my money still had not arrived. The guy then proceeded to tell me that I'm not going to be getting a refund because the reason they took my money was because I still was responsible for charges of $79 for some made-up, bull$#*! reason.

1) I've been getting blatantly lied to for the past week and two days, and I'm talking bold-faced lies.
2) They didn't hit my account for $79, they hit it for $128.34, which invalidates that claim that I owed $79. This leads me to my next point.
3) I know they double-billed me because they hit my checking account for the EXACT same amount--right down to the penny--that I paid with my credit card
4) Even IF I still owed outstanding charges, you send a bill. You don't just hit someone's account, unauthorized, whenever you feel like it. That's fraud/stealing, and that's illegal.

And then they tried to tell me I'd still have to pay off the lease for the phone that I just sent back on Saturday. I said no, I sent the phone back. The notice in the mail said I wouldn't have to pay so long as I sent it back. They said it doesn't matter, you have to pay either way. I told him he can take those additional charges and shove them up his $#*! and then hung up. I don't care if they put those charges on my credit via collections. I'd rather see my score drop 100 points than give Sprint another dime. I'm young, my credit will bounce back. I do not care.

I had to call my bank, dispute the charge and literally put a block on all Sprint transactions so that they couldn't take my money anymore. In the end, my bank is putting the money back in my account. Not Sprint.

I am so shocked and hurt and dismayed by the blatant dishonesty and crookedness of this company. I have never in my 24 years EVER seen anything like this in my life. If you have any sense and if you love yourself even just a little bit, stay far far faaaaarrrr away from this company. If I had the money and the time, I would sue them. They deserve to go out of business. I've never dealt with a bigger $#*! show.

In closing, all hail Verizon and Regions Bank for saving my life. And $#*! Sprint.

NrOT USER FRIENDLY OR AS EASY TO USE AS SPRINT CLAIMS. IT WORKS BUT IT'S VERY FRUSTRATING

Clear is a WiMAX, INTEL PROset/Wireless. Everywhere internet...