Seize the storm

This month was probably the worst for me – I didn’t get as many hours in as I would have liked.   I did finish the re-tool on the guts of the program.   This leaves about three large things left to do before I would feel comfortable with a beta.   I just hate being so vague – it’s not in my nature.   So if we name these things A, B, and C.   “A” has four sub-things that I need to do.   I’m finishing up the first.   After all that is done, I still have to set up a new website.   Hopefully I’ll have time for that while the beta team gets going.

There has been some rumored interest of investing in my product but I’ve done my best so far to work with what I have.   It might be sort of a pride issue  - I want this to be all  my work that  I did from the ground up.   I’ve already realized that I won’t be able to do some of the website and graphic stuff but I’ve found a few people I can count on.   There were some other times too when I just wanted to give up.   But where would we be if every inventor/entrepeneur gave up?

November 21, 2007, 11:30 am

My phone rings and it’s from an 866 number.   “Not another Sprint survey – they’re really going to hear from me this time.”   I answer and I hear, “Hi, this is Twana from Sprint Executive Offices.”   Those last three words rung in my ears in a clear “OH CRAP” moment.   I’m thinking my account is going to be cancelled because I’m a nuisance or something but then she explains why she’s calling.

Flashback

You see, the night I wrote my blog entry, “Nightmare on Sprint Street“, I printed out thirteen copies of it and sent them to the thirteen executives of Sprint and attached this preface letter:

I write to inform you of the recent experience I’ve had with your company.   I’ve been a Sprint customer for quite some time and for the most part, I have been a happy customer.   Sadly, whenever I’ve had a problem, it’s taken at least 15-20 calls and hours of my time to resolve.   I can understand your ability to resolve many situations like this is limited and outside the scope of your job.   I hope though, that you care about the customer experience.   The following account is posted at my blog [site notated].

Because I wanted to show them I was not afraid or some crazed lunatic vowing a violent revenge, I signed it with my name, address, and phone number.

Twana

Twana was a very nice lady.   She said that she had read my blog entry and was amazed at what I went through.   She informed me that she would now be taking over my entire case to ensure that any and all acceptable solutions were found.   I thanked her and told her that my intentions were never to libel Sprint or smear anyone in particular but I thought that there was a great injustice going on.   She replied that she loved blogs and appreciated that I voiced the whole thing.   She also said that sometimes, that’s the only way that things get done.   Twana stated that she had split up each part of my feedback and routed it to various people around the company.   She identified areas were managers would be informed of lapses in training and even forwarded the website gripes to the website people.   Slightly embarassed at the way I ridiculed the website errors, I felt bad for slamming them a bit hard.   Oh well, I thought, better for them to get the errors than to let them keep existing.

Bronx Fees

We got down to the root issues after this and I kept pressing for why my address had changed to the Bronx.   She didn’t have an answer for me.   No matter how hard I pushed, she couldn’t give me an explanation.   I left the issue with me conveying that I would appreciate if she pursued the matter and found out why.   I really hope she does too, as that was a pretty serious error.

Phone Charges

As to the new phone debacle, she said that I was correct that I should have been charged $99.99 for the phone.   As great and such a relief as it was, I was pretty much done with the whole new phone thing… That is, until she said that she would like to rectify the whole situation and send me the phone for free.   I breathed a sigh of relief as I would have thought it a bit odd if something like this wasn’t done.   But who was I to send letters out to the executives?   My wife honestly didn’t think that I would get anything done by sending letters.   She even lamented the costs of the stamps.   Because I love my wife so much, I stuck out my neck and asked Twana if there was any way that she could arrange that my wife get the red phone as that is what she really wanted in the first place.   Twana said she would check to see if there was one in inventory.   If there was, she would call me and tell me that it was available, and finally send it out.

Resolving

Twana and I talked a little bit more, clearing up that it would take a bit more time for the 911 fees and Bronx county taxes to be reimbursed.   She said she would call me before the next bill in December was due to ensure that I was happy with what that bill said I would have to pay.   Finally, she gave me an 866 number to call and a case number that would get me transferred directly to her.   She also gave me her work email address too.   As she was giving it, she paused and asked me very politely that I would not blog it.   Of course I wouldn’t, I told her.   So I’m sorry dear readers, I cannot give that out as I do respect her privacy and the job she’s doing.   She did allow me to post her first name.

In Closing?

I don’t know if this is the end of this thread of issues.   My account currently says I have a bill due of $388.03 but have refunds and adjustments of $712.30 leaving me a balance of positive $324.27.   There’s some series of charges that will get me to a final bill.   I think it will be somewhere around the $100 range – but if I get a credit that lasts me for a month or two, I’d be pretty happy with that too.   It all comes down to being a respectful and respected customer.   I hope that the Sprint corporation and I can continue our relationship for some time to come.

I do think about all the people out there that are like me and went through a similar situation.   What if they gave up and just paid the extra money?   Sprint is making tons more of money off of them.   I guess it somewhat equals out with the cost of having to employ all the people that I had to talk to in the end.   I’m still left with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth – I know I’ll be even more cautious in the future.   At some point though, we have to trust that businesses and other people  aren’t out to get you and aren’t trying to screw you for every penny.   I’m going to try and trust Sprint at least for a bit longer.

November 20, 2007 – 7:20 pm

During the day, I had logged into my Sprint account online to view my bill.   I was startled to see a bill due of $388.03.   Amazed, I decide something needed to be done and I would have to call Sprint again.   I also checked my credit card statement and found out that they had removed the charge from my credit card.   After reading another blog and listening to a guy deal with Sprint, I decided that the best approach to take was to initially move to cancel my account.   Also, I decided I would record the entire call.   Any of these recordings are available by request only.

Seral

Upon calling in, I said “Cancel” to initialize my call.   After a pretty lengthy wait, I got Seral.   After getting through the initial parts and catching him up on my problems, I got to the first issue of my Bronx problem.   He did indeed see my initial call on Nov. 3 when I escalated the claim for reimbursement.   I told him that the first person said I would be reimbursed before my next bill was due and he replied that it would actually take up to three billing cycles for the “audit” to be performed as it actually included tax charges and went beyond Sprint.   I kept my composure but was very upset as to why one representative would tell me a couple days, and this one – a few months.   I pushed to make things faster, but he said he could only re-submit it.   I whined and complained a bit but not much more could be done on this.   We moved on to the $388.03 issue.

Seral evaluated this and determined that the warehouse charged my account for the phone for some reason.   I was really upset because we had even taken extra steps to pack the phone so it would not be damaged.   We had returned all the parts too!   His next step was to forward me over to the warehouse to determine if the phone had been delivered and then to also check to see if they had reimbursed or charged my account.   Seral needed a reason to put a credit on my account for the amount of the phone.   Before he forwarded me, I asked him how I could get ahold of him as to not waste another rep’s time.   He said that I could actually call in and get a rep to email him – after which, he would call me back as soon as he could.   This sounded good to me and I was forwarded onto the warehouse…   the warehouse that was closed.   All I get is a short message instructing me to call back during normal business hours.   Then there was the dreaded click and dead silence.   Total time with Seral to dropped call – 32 minutes.

Dewan & Jason

I call back in and say “Billing” this time.   I’m pretty upset that I got sort of hung up on.   Dewan gets on the line.   I can barely hear him.   I explain my plight and he forwards me to customer care.   I get Jason who sounds kind of like he’s from India.   He tells me there’s no way he can connect me back with Seral.   I tell him about the email and he says it isn’t an option.   He forwards me to another place where I experience another dropped call.   Another 11 and a half minutes has gone by.

Chris

Again, I call back and say “Cancel”.   I’m a bit more upset but determined not to get all psycho on them.   I go back over everything with Chris.   He determines that this is “A BIG ISSUE”.   I’m soooo biting my tongue at this point.   He finally emails Seral and tells me I’ll get a call back in 10-20 minutes.   The clock ends at 20:42.

During this break, I did get the tracking number of the package and validate that the phone was delivered to the warehouse.

Back to Seral

Finally and amazingly, I get Seral back on the line – I really didn’t think this could actually happen.   He never apologized for forwarding me to the warehouse when it was closed.   He did say he would call them in the morning to make sure the phone was received so he could take the charge off.   I then told Seral I was pretty upset that I had to call in so many times to get all these issues resolved and asked him what would happen if I ended my contract.   He stated my termination fees were $200.   I asked about this new rule I heard about that the FCC mandated that termination fees would now be pro-rated.   He knew nor heard nothing about this.   We broke down the rest of the charges of the $388.03.   The extra charges above my normal bill was the weird warehouse charge, directory assistance calls, and text messages.   I checked with my wife about the 411 calls and she had made them.   Of course, the text messages were also valid.   I had checked earlier that day with other carriers – and they are charging 15 cents per message.   I pointed this out and then asked him if there was any way he could give me 25 free text messages a month as that’s normally the maximum that I would use.   He couldn’t do that so I asked if there was any way that he could just enable texting my wife for free and disable all other messages.   This too was not allowed.   Lastly, I threw out the notion that I thought any Sprint customer should be able to text another Sprint customer for free – I mean they do that for voice calls…so what’s the deal?   He didn’t have a reply for that either, except that he ended up giving me 500 free text messages on each line.

Next, I told Seral that my wife’s internet wasn’t working.   He checked and said it should be and that I was getting charged for it.   I tried connecting to the internet with it but it responded with an Error 67.   After a few more questions, he forwarded me onto Cori.

Cori

Cori was pretty easy to work with.   She told me that, unfortunately, the internet was not enabled on my wife’s phone.   I got into a huff about how Seral had told me it was and that I was concerned about all the charges floating around.   While triggering a provisioning on my phone, we discussed those charges and still talked about it more after we were done getting things working on the phone.  

However the real problem came when she tried to talk me through getting my phone to connect back with the internet.   She told me to go to some menu that I couldn’t even find.   I knew I  could dial ##3282# which would give me a menu that says “Update Vision Profile” but again and again, she told me this was the wrong menu.   She had me do a few more things that still didn’t work.   Finally, I just got frustrated and dialed the ##DATA# keystrokes and updated the Vision profile.   After it completed, I tried the internet and it worked just fine.   I was glad I knew what I was doing but sad that the tech didn’t.

Finally, after two hours, my night was complete.