Although T-Mobile recently bought Sprint, they're still operating separate services with separate plans and billing. I have a phone on Sprint service that costs $49/month. Until recently, it was a very old phone, and in early February Sprint called me to tell me they were shutting down their 3G service in March and that ancient phone would no longer have service. They offered to send me a free replacement phone, a Samsung Galaxy. I don't like Samsung phones but that's all they would offer for free, so I said okay, and they said they'd mail me the phone with a new SIM and activation instructions.
Not long after, a Samsung phone arrived, with no SIM. I waited another week thinking it was maybe mailed separately, but it didn't come so I called them and they didn't know, so they said they'd just mail me a new SIM. Got that, called the number, got it activated. All done, right?
March 15th, Sprint's auto-pay withdrew $333 from my account instead of $49.
I called to ask about it, but apparently Sprint's customer service number now shunts calls off to T-Mobile when they can't handle the volume, or if you say the wrong thing on the phone menu tree, or something. It took three calls, and two transfers, before I actually got to someone at Sprint ... who said my bill was that high because of equipment charges, because I seem to have bought a new phone. I had to explain to them that Sprint called me, and Sprint offerred me a free phone, and I said yes.
Some sort of supervisor or manager looked into it and agreed they weren't supposed to charge me, and he'd issue a refund to my bank account. That was on a Tuesday, and when I still didn't see the refund on Friday (more than enough time for an ACH push to be visible) I called again to learn that they hadn't even "processed" it yet. Ugh. I told them to hurry it up, and I did get the refund the following week. For $258.
When I noticed that 331 - 258 = 75, not 49, I called again. Having learned some things on the previous calls, I knew to ask people who answered the phone whether they were Sprint billing before saying anything else, so I was able to get to them more quickly. It turns out that $258 was the equipment charge, but I had also been charged $26 in state and federal taxes on it, which had not been refunded. The agent offered to credit that towards my next bill, and it's a small enough amount that I agreed. Okay, done, right?
Until, somewhat fed up with Sprint, I called T-Mobile the next day to ask about my options for transferring from Sprint to them early (it'll happen automatically eventually). The T-Mobile agent told me they couldn't access my account at all because Sprint had it locked for a past due balance!
Sprint's people never came up with a sensible explanation for that. They said I had $131 past due, and it was due to an equipment charge. I had to explain the whole saga so far, including that Sprint had already actually taken the "equipment charge" out of my bank account, and had already agreed they shouldn't, and refunded it to my bank account. Also that it was $258, plus $26 in taxes (which was supposed to be a credit on my account now), neither of which is $131.
The best they could come up with was a) that I had underpaid my January bill and b) that they had supposedly refunded $75 to me. So, a) yes I looked at my bank statement and I was only charged $34 in January. But that was Sprint's own auto-pay choosing how much to withdraw, not my fault, so that shouldn't be considered "past due" if they think they made an error, and anyway, that's only $15, not $131. As for b) the supposed $75 refund, no, I checked my bank account again, I did not receive such a thing and I have no idea why they would have refunded me $75. And 75 + 15 still doesn't add up to 131.
Eventually, after two manager escalations, and no sensible explanation of where this past due amount came from, they agreed it should be cancelled and taken off my bill.
Two weeks later, on April 5th, I get an email from Sprint telling me I have a past due balance and owe them $180.
Wait what? So I called yet again. Oh, huh, guess what: $180 = 49 + 131! My April bill is coming up, for the usual $49, and that $131 past due balance is back! Or was never removed. And where's my $26 credit for the taxes I should never have been charged?
For now, I just got someone to get rid of the $131 (again), and this time waited until I got a confirmation email telling me that it was cancelled and I only owe $49, for whatever that's worth. If I feel like dealing with them again, I should wait until I see how much is actually withdrawn on April 15th, and if that really is $49, call them again for that $26 credit. Who knows how many layers of obfuscation that will be hidden behind by then, though. And they've probably forgotten about the $15 I theoretically owe them from January, so maybe it's only a loss of $11. Unless I forgot about some credit I was supposed to get and $34 in January was correct.
Edit: April 15. Surprise! I got charged the regular monthly amount. No $26.45 credit. Called them again, and the agent at first said he sees a $26.45 credit was already applied to my account, but that seems to have been part of whatever mess ended up with them thinking I owe $131. So he's applying a new $26.45 credit for next month.
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