Dear Sprint,

No I am not super lazy and yes I can read. I am not going to allow you to charge me massive amounts of money because other customers do.
I have the Everything Messaging plan. When we signed up, we specifically asked if we would be allowed to SEND pictures to other cell phones. We were told yes. When my phone insisted on connecting to the internet to send pictures to my boyfriend’s phone (the other phone on the plan), I called and was told that “sometimes that happens. Let it go through and call us when you get the bill so we can take the charges off.”

I got my bill today. I had $35 in data charges, from sending pictures from my Sprint phone to my sister’s Sprint phone and to my boyfriend’s Sprint phone.

Customer service agreed to take the charge off but said it’s a one time courtesy thing because we’re new customers. I kindly informed her that the plan info on the SPRINT website says:

Messaging: Unlimited nationwide, text, PICTURE and video messaging to anyone on any network. (bolding and caps mine)

She said I’d have to talk to someone in tech support.

So, I did.

The lady in tech support talked to her supervisor and then told me that the plan allows me to RECEIVE unlimited pictures from any cell phone but that I will be charged for SENDING pictures. She then offered to add the Data package to my plan for a bargain price of about $30 extra a month.

I kindly informed her that my boyfriend and I are surrounded by internet supplying computers nearly every minute of our lives and we don’t need to spend $30 extra a month for internet access when all we want to do is send pictures. I then read to her exactly what it says on THEIR website. She again went to talk to her supervisor. When she came back, she said the supervisor put a code on our account which will stop any further picture sending charges.
Well, I really appreciate that. But, I want to know why I am being charged in the first place? Not only did two Sprint employees tell us that sending and receiving pictures from other cell phones was included in the plan, the plan itself says we can do it. Why does your supervisor need to add a code to stop it from happening?

Oh, I know. It’s because the world is populated with people like my sister, who when told the plan doesn’t include pictures (even though it says it right in front of her that it does), will then allow the extra monthly charge for the data package simply for the pictures. Over time, she has become accustomed to having internet access on her phone and wont get rid of it (she even instant messages me from her phone when she’s ON HER FRIGGEN COMPUTER!!!).

But, the world is also filled with people like my boyfriend who would rather tell them to go screw than deal with this kind of hassle.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to give people what they’re paying for without all the complaining?
I’ve had years of experience with Sprint because I used to be on my sister’s plan. I can say without hesitation that Sprint is the best out there (AT&T and Verizon can kiss my ass) and this minor problem doesn’t make me regret convincing my boyfriend to go to Sprint. It just baffles my mind that there are people out there who would pay the charges or add on additional options instead of just asking questions.

I hate Sprint. I posted a long rant one time yonks and yonks ago about the hell I went through trying to get them to cancel my account when I moved out of their coverage range, because they kept losing the paperwork I sent them. I can feel the fury welling up again right now all over again. Sprint can go to hell.

My experiences with Sprint have been that they are just fantastically incompetent on average, but that if you just keep trying, you’ll eventually get what you want. Or something.

A buddy of mine signed up with them, but made a typo on his original info, so he sent an email to correct it. He ended up getting shipped 2 of the same phone, two phone numbers, and getting two bills (one in each name) each month, but just one account (and he wasn’t double-charged. He just gets two envelopes with the same info except one has his name typoed). A while ago, the other number (the one on the phone he doesn’t use) was reassigned to some other person, and my friend could now see this other person’s calling records in his online account. My friend called the owner of the other phone and told him about it, and presumably he raised hell with Sprint, since it was removed a few months later.

It took my 4 phone calls just to activate my phone. The first guy said it was already on someone else’s account, and I needed to return it to the store I bought it from (I bought it through Sprint’s website), the second guy told me he activated it (but didn’t), the third told me it was already active, I just needed to wait another 2 hours (this is 24 hours after the previous guy), the fourth just chuckled sympathetically when I told him the story, apologized, and actually activated my phone. A true diamond in the rough, that one.

Luckily, they haven’t manage to screw up my billing yet, but I figure it’s only a matter of time. And then I’ll just cancel it and get an iPhone.

They’re all bad in some way or another. We have Sprint for cell service and Verizon for (desktop) Internet, and we recently changed from Comcast Internet. I told my wife that Verizon customer service wouldn’t necessarily be any better, but we’d at least have different people to hate.

At work I help people activate their Blackberries with our Blackberry Enterprise server. For it to work, the user needs to have Blackberry Enterprise service on their data plan. Whenever I’m helping a user with Sprint, it always takes multiple calls to convince them to put the Blackberry Enterprise service on their. Their customer support reps always either say it’s already on there and the problem must be on our server (it isn’t), or insist that we don’t need it, and we can just set it up like web mail (which would only work if we opened up our Exchange server to allow it, and the higher ups won’t let us).