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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I will never, ever do business with Sprint again, after I cancelled my phone service (twice!), threw out my phone, and they mysteriously re-activated the account a few months later, silently accrued an account balance with late fees, and then reported me to collections.

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I'm sure there's a story like this for every large company in existence.

Absolutely, but the question is how frequent they happen. Are they business-as-usual, or a gross anomaly. When it happens to enough people, and those people tell their friends, the brand erodes.

Back in the 90s my wife and I switched to Sprint, then got a much smaller phone bill than we expected. The following month it was higher than we would have expected, we looked, and it turns out that they included calls that should have been on the first bill. (There were phone calls on the second bill sandwiched between calls on the first bill.)

We figured out that they did this deliberately to make people think they were saving money, knowing full well that most people don't look at their bills in detail. We agreed that it was fundamentally dishonest, and that left a bad enough taste in our mouth that we switched away from them. They switched us back, we registered an official complaint, got switched back, then (because of their stupid billing policy) had to pay bills for another couple of billing cycles.

That was 15 years ago. I've never even considered using Sprint since. If people around me start talking about their great customer service, then after a year or two I'll reconsider. Maybe.

I suspect that your story was likely similar to mine, and the silently accrued balance was the result of phone calls that they didn't bill you for until a couple of payment cycles later.

I use Sprint because they have a 3G/4G data plan. 4G is awesome.

Crap. We have CLEAR modems, and Sprint owns CLEAR. I'm doing business with them again. Well, I'll never run my phone service through them.

Are you sure about that? I thought Sprint was only a partial investor and lessee. Clear 4G is a lot more expensive than Sprint 4G, so it would be strange if they had a subsidary that offered worse service for more money.

(I went with Sprint 4G over Clear 4G because Sprint 4G is free with a 3G data plan. 4G coverage can be spotty, but 3G coverage is exceptional. So I am never without data. Now if only I left my house more often...)

We are really happy with Clear. I use it less than everyone else, but we've got people all around Chicagoland using it. What don't you like about it, besides the price?

Clear bugs me because of their pricing; they charge less for "home" than for "mobile"? WTF?

The main reason I went with Sprint is because the cost is almost the same as Clear, but I also get 3G access. I don't use that much in Chicago, but it's great when traveling; Sprint's 3G network is pretty comprehensive. It's really relaxing to have Internet access anywhere. For me, anyway :)

I don't doubt it. Their billing system used to be a nightmare. Fortunately, after 10 years of using them I'm finally happy with more than just their price/network.

I'm pretty sure that all four major US cellular carriers use billing/CRM software from the same vendor.

There's really only one nightmare billing system!

The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data

Yes, But I'm Not Sure What Your Point Is.

Sir, More Data Please.

How recently did this happen? Sprint has historically had poor customer satisfaction but they seem to be turning things around.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100521/tc_ytech_gadg/yt...

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