Sprint’s Automated Voicemail Hell system
Trying to get service out of Sprint is like trying to keep your phone from ringing up international charges while vacationing in Mexico. No matter what you do, the system is screwed up. But just call their automated system to see how little they really care about your needs
By Ray Hanania
I called Sprint becauseI changed my account and they have been double billing me now for a month. They sent me a bill for my old account and charged me $274, and then sent me a bill for my new account and charged me $260. The new account covered the billing period of Dec. 5 through Jan. 4, 2017. That second bill came last week. I paid both.
Then I got a new bill for the old account with a -189 credit. And then a new bill for the new account for the same period Dec. 5 through Jan. 4, 2017 but this time for $259.97.
I figured, OK, something is out of whaack with Sprint.
So, I called the “Contact Us” number 1-888-211-4727.
I found myself in a 2 and 1/2 minute long voice mail hell of choices, most of which were marketing choices to push me to pay my bill automatically instead of by mail, or advertising pitches to get me to buy more services.
Click here to listen to the actual phone call, or use the podcast widget below and share the Spring Suffering:
I waited patiently to each group of options, 1 through 5 and selected each number. When I finally got to where I wanted to be, the system gave me options — none of which helped — and then told me to go to Sprint.com to get my answers.
When I touched Zero to get a live human being, the system simply said “Thank you for calling, Good bye.”
And they hung up on me.
What a piece of crap Sprint is. I have been with them for some 15 years. I live in the suburbs but they have been charging me $24 in Chicago taxes and I have been trying to get them to stop that tax. I live in the suburbs The account is in the suburbs. I have one 312 number and three 708 numbers.
So now I am left with the only real option, taking my cell phones to another cell phone provider, maybe one that cares more about their customers than about making money.
I pay my bill on time every month. A Perfect record. And yet I can’t get service. Worse, is that I have to suffer through those crappy Sprint TV Commercials which offer non-Sprint users a huge discount to trade in their phones from other providers to Sprint.
But as a Sprint customer for some 15 years, I don’t get that option at all.
The worst part is that I know that if I do connect to a human being at Sprint — if they have any human beings working there at all — it will probably be a child labor run off-shore telephone center in Mumbai.
They’ll be polite and ask reading from a card, “Who may I say I am speaking with?”
“Ray Hanania,” I will answer.
“OK Bill, what can I help you with?”
(Ray Hanania is an award winning political columnist and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com. Read his columns in the Des Plaines Valley News, the Southwest News Herald, the Regional News, the Reporter Newspapers, TheArabDailyNews.com and TheDailyHookah.com.)
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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