Why do I have to be a bulldog when it doesn't suit me? In the last year and a half I have had to go head to head with everybody from the HP computer people, to Vonage, to the Wildblue satellite internet people, to the phone company and so on. What happens is when you are setting up services, you can be as informed and intelligent as you want, but when your bill comes it seems that all bets are off.
Right now, with my husband having been off work so much, I am not about to play with these people. Thankfully for them, I have worked in customer service enough to know that it is never the person who has to talk with the angry customer who is to blame, nor should they have to take the brunt of your frustration.
I also believe that I have a testimony to share in how I deal with others, but that is another story for another blog.
Long story short - last month, after my husband had gone back to work from our first layoff we decided on our way to his mom's house for the family Christmas shin-dig, to call Sprint, and pay the extra $5 to up Kendra's text message limit. She has some new friends at co-op and text messaging seems the way they all want to communicate. Our current plan was not providing much in the way of this medium. I repeatedly asked the woman, knowing that we were in the middle of our billing cycle, if the change would take place immediately and allow her more text messages for the current month that we were in. Yes. I asked again further into the conversation, and the answer was again affirmative. I got the bill today and almost croaked. It turns out that she had gone over her allotted amount of text messages by 477 - at 20 cents each - you do the math and it is $95.40.
I was courteous. I reminded myself to be kind to the person I was speaking with. I reminded myself to breathe in and out when I told them calmly that I was NOT paying it. She informed me that those changes never take place in the current billing cycle - that you have to wait for the next one to come around. Sweet Marie - she was patient with me as well as I explained to her that we were misinformed, and since I had been so diligent to ask more than once if the changes would be effective immediately, I was not going to be paying this. She put me on hold and came back offering me a $40 credit. No thanks Marie. I asked to speak to a supervisor. She asked if she could work on it and call me back. Do you know what? They dropped all the charges.
You do get more flies with honey - it's true. Ask Marie.
Hooray! That sure was a whopping bill. I'm glad you didn't have to pay it.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience with Sprint where a rep told me one thing, the bill came and when I questioned it was told "we never" oh really. I asked them to cancel the account, I would rather pay the fees than deal with them, and lo and behold the next day I was called and half of the charge was taken off. It still was not right, since they were not standing by what their reps had promised, but I took it - but I tell everyone I can not to deal with Sprint in the cell phone realm. Even people in line at the Sprint store. Your entry confirms it - they stink.
ReplyDeleteGlad they fixed it for you!
ReplyDeleteI've had pretty good encounters with sprint, though it takes some work sometimes.
I was gonna tell you (before it was clear that you got it resolved) that they say they tape all the conversations with cust. serv. Insist that they go back and listen to the tape and see what you were told.
Yeah, I know, they don't care, but at least then they know they aren't dealing with a pushover.
Mary
You really have to be diligent in this day and age with companies, I've found. They are very quick to take your money and not fix their problems.
ReplyDeleteDavid had a text message run over as well. I couldn't figure how he possibly had time to text that much. He pays all his own bills so I didn't really care how much he ran over.
ReplyDelete