Sprint lambasted for disconnecting whiners, notorious roamers
Recently, Sprint decided to cut its losses and give a number of CSRs a break from the nagging when it pulled the plug on nearly 1,200 of its mobile customers. Apparently, these whiners were dialing in "40 to 50 times as often" as the "average customer," and after failing to appease them, the firm chose to "terminate the relationship with those customers to allow them to pursue other options." As you'd imagine, some of these bicker-prone individuals are less than pleased with the outcome, and to make matters worse, the firm has also cut the cord with habitual roamers -- including some that are actually enlisted in our military. Can't a soldier (or sniveller) catch a break?[Thanks, John F.]
Read - Sprint cancels 1,200 contracts over excessive complaining
Read - Sprint cancels traveling soldiers' cellphone
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Will @ Jul 10th 2007 1:21PM
as much as i don't like sprint, i'll defend them on the roaming thing. all carriers do this, even if you're in the military. although, usually if you're in the military and tell them that you're moving in a month or 2 they will reverse their decision to cut you off. as for cutting the whiners off, i think it's hilarious...i totally see where they're coming from, but it's gonna cost them more in bad PR than it's gonna save them in having to answer these calls
G @ Jul 10th 2007 1:32PM
You have to love it. We bitch because we can't get out of our contracts when our service sucks and we bitch when they cancel our contracts because obviously the service sucks....
Jerry @ Jul 10th 2007 1:50PM
I think its a great idea, now if only AT&T will pick up the same policy then I just have to bitch enough and I'll be able to get out of my stupid contract.
But its stupid about the roaming....
Iscariote @ Jul 10th 2007 1:54PM
I wonder what percentage of them were SERO users.
Omagus @ Jul 10th 2007 2:10PM
This has been a huge topic of discussion over at phonescoop for the past couple of days. I, for one, applaud Sprint for this decision. Anyone who has ever worked in a service industry of any sort has reached that boiling point. These are customers that absolutely refused to be pleased no matter what, so Sprint is telling them that they are removing themselves from the equation. I think they have every right to do that.
ryatziv @ Jul 10th 2007 2:41PM
The title is poorly worded. Some of the people selected were not whiners. They called in because their bills were incorrect month after month.
littlepink73 @ Jul 15th 2007 4:43AM
http://consumerist.com/consumer/exclusives/sprint-customers-terminated-for-complaining-too-much-were-scamming-sprint-for-free-service-277026.php
Sprint announced Monday it was canceling the accounts of around 1,000 people who called customer service too much. At first blush, it might sound like a pretty jerk thing to do, have bad service and then punish people who complain, but we spoke with one of our most reliable Sprint insiders, who had a different side to the story: the terminated customers were scamming Sprint, calling in again and again, just to get free service credits.
CONSUMERIST: How frequently did someone have to call to get terminated for calling customer service too much?
SPRINT INSIDER: 90 times in a 6 month period was the standard I think.
CONSUMERIST: Were they calling about the same service problem?
SPRINT INSIDER: These were the customers that had nothing to do but call us every single day demanding credit. And they were getting it because customer care was getting exhausted from arguing with them. So a nickel at a time these customers were collecting literally thousands of dollars in credit balances.
We were targeting people that were just outright defrauding the company. These customers will probably eventually force their future service providers to take similar action if they do not change their ways.
CONSUMERIST: One reader said he got canceled because he kept calling you because you were charging him for text messages he shouldn't have been charged for.
SPRINT INSIDER: I can't really get into specifics on an account, BUT... I will re-direct to what I mentioned earlier...These customers were for the most part literally defrauding our company. Not just a courtesy credit or two... We're talking customers that haven't made a payment since 2005 and still have active service. Customers who were getting better deals than our own employees get for their own personal accounts. These weren't the customer care horror stories we've heard where a billing issue drags on for 8 months. This was just unrealistic amounts of credits and at the end of the year we were LITERALLY paying these customers to use our service.
CONSUMERIST: That's pretty amazing, considering people have been emailing us this story all week saying, "Don't complain too much to Sprint about their crappy service or they'll cancel you." PR wise, it spins very badly, very quickly.
SPRINT INSIDER: Most of these customers are just looking to make a scene and want their excessive credit balances sent in a check. And that's just not going to happen. We are considering every request on a case by case basis. We absolutely will not terminate a customer who had a reasonable claim for calling in. But the ones with the $5k credit balances... they're going to hear us say no. It's a harsh decision but it really makes sense to almost anyone who knows both sides of the situation.
CONSUMERIST: Of the 1,000 or so that were terminated, how many are calling in?
SPRINT INSIDER: Haven't seen any reporting data yet but by the end of the week I anticipate most of them.
CONSUMERIST: They're sad the video game is broken.
SPRINT INSIDER: Ten months of calling customer care and telling us how badly they hated us and threatening to cancel to get more credits... And one day we say, "Okay. We'll credit your balance, waive your contracts and you're free to be happy." And then they don't like the ink the letter was written with. Kills me. I'd be devastated if I got a letter like that from a company I do business with. But if I hated them I'd gladly walk away in a situation like that.
HAROLD @ Jul 10th 2007 2:46PM
actually Sprint has changed this on military customers because it's an excusable reason to roam, cause of course they are out of carrier signals after all.
so sprint has apologized for that.
MissDiva @ Jul 10th 2007 2:53PM
While some are "whiners" and are definitely deserve this, many who received letters were not. One person was only a customer for 30 days and was calling regarding porting. That is not a "6-12 month careful review" !!!!
I had constant bills resulting in overcharges for 6 full months that the "system" was doing and was promised repeatedly it would be fixed (it still isn't) I'm not "bicker prone" - I was a customer for 8+ years and had very few calls until the mistakes started happening.
If the problems were fixed on call 1 there would be no call 2. If they called these 1000 customers to actually fix the issues once and for all THAT would be effective and fair. No one wants to call let alone get hung up on, transferred and sit on hold. It's more frustrating for the customer than it is for the rep in many cases. We had to deal with ongoing "mistakes" (ALWAYS in their favor), an endless CS procedure and then get booted?
In fairness, as of Monday they were reviewing the accounts of those who called in and did reinstate those who were targeted in error. (Myself included) They also took care of the military customers. Possibly due to the media coverage but at least it was done.
jrk @ Jul 10th 2007 3:26PM
ya know, t-mobile does the same thing, only it's small numbers when the case arises, rather than a mass quantity of people. if you call and harass customer care, either by calling and asking the same thing over and over 20 times in a day, or cussing out a rep, your account can get flagged; continued abuse would lead to letter asking you to stop the harassment, followed by being placed on written correspondence only, and if you're still calling after that, then the account can get canceled.
also, while t-mobile doesn't cancel for roaming (heck, they don't really have enough coverage yet to whine about their customers roaming), they did go through and cancel accounts (or refuse to renew contracts) that were using an obscene amount of minutes (something like 10 000 a month, i think it was?)
anyways. i have t-mobile and i love them, cos you never really run into issues like sprint seems to.
IsLNdbOi @ Jul 10th 2007 4:02PM
I received one of these termination letters as well (as of yesterday I've been removed from the list), but I'm in no way a "whiner". Would any of you just let billing errors continue to happen every month? I doubt it. In my case, I was being billed every month for a feature that was advertised to come with the plan at no additional cost. Sprint should not have someone sign a contract with x feature included in the plan then months later start billing you for it when it's supposed to be included in the plan and covered by the monthly fee you agreed to when you signed the contract.
In my case (and for a couple of others that I know of that received one of these letters) we would call Sprint to fix the errors they had made on our bills. Most of the time they wouldn't fix it the first time or they didn't fix the error properly so we'd have to call them again to ask them to fix the error. Then they have the nerve to send us these letters canceling us for having them fix their mistakes.
Whining CSR @ Jul 10th 2007 4:47PM
Left this damn place long ago!
This outfit actually maintained a log to *grade* the *customers* who call in with problems. So before people had a chance to voice their opinions on the rude and ignorant reps--forget about complaints on the quality of the service--they'd get nasty letters with nasty remarks. These Nazi con artists are just now finally elevating their ploy full scale. This business must be run by CSRs.
Amazing how they're still in business after all these years.
Plapman @ Jul 10th 2007 5:27PM
The worst customer service bar none in the world is Cingular/ATT. Their billing practises were/are abomidable. Trying to call and fix it is a joke. You are the enemy and assumed wrong from the first to the last by everyone. I wish that they would release me. Maybe I'll now call a lot more!
Steve Mueller @ Jul 10th 2007 8:17PM
Hey, what's up with the credit? I submitted this story a few days ago. Where's the love with the credit?
Anyway, I understand terminating people who are costing a company more than they're paying (and 10+ calls per month probably gets in that range).
However, I also sympathize with those customers who had legitimate issues with billing or service. If Sprint can't fix those kinds of problems after one call, I'd call back, too.
But I have no sympathy for anybody trying to get personal information about other customers (pretexting). They should be drawn and quartered.
michael @ Jul 11th 2007 5:27AM
Dear: Sprint,I hate your stinking guts.You make me sick,you are the scum between my toes.
Love,a customer.
P.S. Now will you let me out of this conteact? Your disservice SUCKS.
chris @ Jul 11th 2007 1:47PM
For those that had their service reinstated for complaining about billing errors and being called a whiner; WHY stay? If I was calling enough times about errors or poor service, I don't care if they think I'm a stinky jerk, getting out of contract should be the best response to a service complaint about them.
Elmer @ Aug 29th 2007 12:04AM
I'm never a whiner, but in fact i'm easily pleased with even small gestures of nicety. I was a Sprint customer for 6 years but they made a very significant mistake with my billing,I called several times to let them know about the mistake and they won't admit it, my pleas has fallen into deaf ears, nothings done to rectify it, they kept the charges. That's what loyalty to Sprint has given me, they have the worst customer service ever followed by cingular and verizon. I'm with T-Mobile now, and very much satisfied for 4 years, some minor billing error happened when I drove close to the Canadian border, and their system thought that I was roaming but it was corrected immediately upon calling their customer rep.
I won't touch Sprint even with a 10 foot pole, if I didn't experience their service myself I might have sided with them and blame those "whiny customers". I know better.