Sprint fires 1000+ customers

[gwrober]

Sprint Cuts 1,000+ Customers For Excessive Complaining

POSTED: 9:50 pm EDT July 9, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Hundreds of cell phone customers are being given the boot, accused of being too high maintenance.

Sprint-Nextel is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers on grounds the clients call customer service too often and make "unreasonable requests."

The 1,200 people getting dropped will have to find a new carrier by the end of the month.

A Sprint representative said the average customer calls customer service less than once a month, but the 1,200 clients getting the boot call 40-50 times as often.

Sprint said whatever the complaint, it has worked to resolve it but due to the volume of calls it's obvious customers involved are not happy.

In a statement, the company said: "Rather than continue to operate in a situation that was unsatisfactory for Sprint and our subscribers, we chose to terminate our relationship with those customers to allow them to pursue other options."

Cell phone user Joe Graham said Sprint reserves that right.

"I guess the company had good enough reason to get rid of 1,200 people. You don't just do it on a whim," Graham said. "Because they make the contracts they can do what they want."

"I didn't even know you could do that with a contract. That's astonishing," said cell phone user Winston Bryant.

The customers told to find a new service provider were notified by mail last month and will not have to pay a termination fee.

Copyright 2007 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

[TallBill]

Haha, pwnsauce.

 

[Pacemaker]

50 times a month? Do these people have anything better to do than to call sprint?

edit: it says less than one then 50 times that so 50 is a bit high, but still.

 

[SilthDraeth]

Hell, I didn't know I could get out of a cell phone contract by calling customer support 50 times a month...

 

[gwrober]

A Sprint representative said the average customer calls customer service less than once a month, but the 1,200 clients getting the boot call 40-50 times as often.

40-50 times more complaining, a month?? I'd fire them too!

 

[dug777]

Easy way to get out of a contract

 

[thirdeye]

Holy crap. I rarely have time to call and bitch once a month if I have an issue (which I rarely do with AT&T/Cingular) but 40-50 times? That's out of control. That's more work than I do at my full time job in a month

 

[lagvoid]

Originally posted by: dug777
Easy way to get out of a contract

haha I'd say it's a way to get out, but not that easy. Sometimes you never get through to a rep!

 

[Linux23]

LOLOL. Good for you Sprint.

 

[pontifex]

wtf? the average customer calls once a month? i've called Verizon maybe twice in the 7 or so years i've had them.

andif people are so unhappy with service, why the f**k are they still with sprint???

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Back when I had Sprint I knew of an automated number that I could call whenever I got a dropped call, they would credit you for like 1 or 2 minutes per call. Needless to say.. my dropped calls occured pretty frequently, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day I would be calling that number.

I was so glad to be rid of them in the end.

 

[BabaBooey]

Well when your service sucks so bad you are bound to get a lot of pissed off customers...

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: pontifex
wtf? the average customer calls once a month? i've called Verizon maybe twice in the 7 or so years i've had them.

andif people are so unhappy with service, why the f**k are they still with sprint???

because its cheaper to stay the short time and bitch then buy out the contract?


also i bet a lot of them are older retired people that have to much free time.

 

[Doodoo]

It says the average customer calls less than once a month...lets say the average is . 5 calls over the course of a year...so 50 times that is 25 times a month.

 

[sao123]

I had to call verizon twice a month for 8 months straight... they kept fugging up my bill...

:|

 

[Linflas]

I fired Sprint years ago for providing a crappy service.

 

[halik]

awesome,
I've never had any problems with sprint

:heart::heart:SERO:heart::heart:

 

[broon]

Link?

 

[Turin39789]

I'd guess its more of the deal seekers who call 40 - 50 times csr shopping trying to fomd someone who will stack a 5% discount on top of a $5 dollar discount on top of their emplyoyee referral offer on top of a loyalty discount over and over again that they are not eligible for.

 

[TXHokie]

They can't fire me...I quit!!! (two years ago)
Their customer service and their coverage sucked. I'd always have a hard time calling home after work (overload?) and calls dropped all the time. Even after I left, took them 3 months and 5-6 calls to customer service to get my billings straightened out. After the second time, we would have to start getting names of the rep we talked to, time, ref. # just so we could keep record of our complaints since whenever we call back in, they'd have no record of our previous conversation. I hear lots of people complaining about Verizon Wireless but they've been great for me.

 

[broon]

Is there a link to this article?

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: broon
Is there a link to this article?

Sprint ditches customers who complain too much
Sprint Nextel Defends Cutting Customers

Washington Post, so may require registration to view.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: bababooey
Well when your service sucks so bad you are bound to get a lot of pissed off customers...

My first thought as well seeing this is Sprint. Have they gotten any better since the merger ? They always fuct up my billing plus the coverage was very spotty. It got so bad I expected dropped calls as if it were normal.

Originally posted by: Turin39789
I'd guess its more of the deal seekers who call 40 - 50 times csr shopping trying to fomd someone who will stack a 5% discount on top of a $5 dollar discount on top of their emplyoyee referral offer on top of a loyalty discount over and over again that they are not eligible for.

They also had an automated phone number you could call to get "dropped call credit". Maybe these people were abusing that too.

 

[FoBoT]

:thumbsup:

that is awesome

more companies should do that, it will stimulate competition


the customer is NOT always right, not when they are idiots

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: broon
Link?

drudgereport.com has a link to the story