Sprint

[Mikey]

My wife received a letter from Sprint stating that in order to avoid service interruption we needed to immediately send payment of $323.55 as we were past due.  Considering that we have never been a Sprint customer, they are welcome to cut off our service....  Although it appears to be printed on "official" Sprint stationary this letter is a similar to phishing type of e-mails scams going on.

[Jerry]

It is amazing.  These guys could do well if they put their energy into an honest endeavour!

[mascot]

I got a similar letter from someone who was trying to get me to pay them $168 to file my tax reassessment and the letter stated that I had a deadline or there would be late fees and all that crap.  As a new(er) first time homeowner, sometimes you don't know what is real and what is a scam.  I contacted the state tax office and I found out that the group was being investigated for fraud, so they took the information from me.

It's amazing how many people actually pay these things because they don't know any better, otherwise the scams wouldn't continue if they didn't work.

[Mikey]

So true.  Had we not ever had a Sprint account I would have been concerned...

[Mikey]

Well......   It seems that "official looking stationary" from Sprint was official....     My wife is the victim of identity theft and the Sprint bill is now over $600.00     The identity theft seems to have occurred during her recent visit to Oregon.  I'm careful about shredding documents, mail etc., so I'm not certain how they got her ID....  The Sprint fraud division has resolved the problem and voided the account and they referred me to Equifax, Experian & TransUnion to place a Fraud Alert.  I notified Equifax and they in turn said they would notify Experian and Trans Union.

[miguynmkoi]

That is too wacky!  Maybe the thiefs got her credit card info.....too scary.  Glad you got some resolve.

[Mikey]

We received another bill from Sprint in late December advising it was going to collection for $1400...  Somebody sure has been making a lot of phone calls....  I spoke with Sprint fraud again to confirm they had corrected this and they confirmed that our account had been zeroed out and the account canceled due to the fraud.  Apparently that last letter was in their system to go out before they could cancel it.

What a lovely world this would be if folks were honest....

[mascot]

I personally cannot stand Sprint.  They were my first cell phone experience and I hated it.  They put a block on my minutes once because they thought I was going to go over by too much, so when I tried to make a call it went to their operator instead of the intended number.  So I requested for them to do that while I was travelling, and when I thought maybe I was over on my minutes I called to see where I was and I was over by about 84 minutes.  When I asked why they didn't notify me they claimed they don't have the ability to restrict my usage!  So I called them back to cancel my service and told them that I didn't care for their service plans.  I was paid up through the end of the month, so I didn't owe any money and figured I was done with them.

Two months later I got a bill for two months of service and I called to tell them that I cancelled two months prior.  I kid you not, this is what the lady said to me:
I can see where you called back in May and said you wanted to cancel, but it doesn't say that you did cancel so the account stayed active.

I was like, "WHAT?!?  You can see where I said I wanted to cancel but you didn't think I meant it?  What is there, a secret handshake that I should have known about??"  Then they insisted on me paying the two months and turned me into collections.  I even told her to look at my very last phone call and she could see it was two weeks before the end of the month when I called to say I wanted to cancel.  Stupid company, I still can't believe the response I got from customer service... it's not like I was speaking future tense!! 

[Julles]

Magazine subscriptions also try to bilk you.  I get dun letters, some somewhat strongly worded, that I need to pay to renew my subscription.  But then I'll look on the cover of the magazine, where my address label is pasted, and it will say my subscription doesn't expire until 10/11 or even 10/12.  Why on earth would I want to extend my subscription for a year beyond that??

They are just trying to get your money, and hope you forget you have paid, so next month they can dun you again. 

I finally started keeping very good records of each subscription, so I won't be fooled when their renewal notices come around. 

The other one I hate is the "automatic renewal" where they renew the subscription whether your want it or not, then send you a notice that you owe them money.  Alot of companies have the auto-renew written into the fine print, so you can't avoid agreeing to it.

[Mikey]

I agree Julles.  Sometimes I get a what appears to be a bill from a magazine and it is actually a renewal but it is so cleverly worded and misleading that I have to do a double take before I put it through the shredder. 

[mascot]

On a similar note, I hate all the crap I get that looks official regarding my home, but it's really some scam company trying to get me to pay them for a service I can do myself for free - sometimes it's for something that doesn't even need to be done.  Being a first time homeowner it gets confusing because you don't know certain things, so I always scan the document for those evasive words: this is a solicitation.  It sucks because it wastes a few minutes of my time reading the document to find out if I really need to pay them $68 or if it's a scam.  One company that sent it actually had an official sounding name, and when I researched it I found out they were being investigated for fraud.

There should be a law about sending notices that look like billing statements, the only reason they do it is because many people must not know that they don't have to pay it and do it automatically.  They always put in small print, "this is not a bill", but when's the last time you read a statement cover to cover?  I rarely ever do.

[Mikey]

We pay our property tax through an impound account but every year of course we receive a notice from the County Assessor advising how much our property tax is.  Since we have an impound account the property tax assessment notice normally states, "This is not a bill", even though it looks like a bill.  Last year I got the notice and there was no statement advising it was not a bill.  My heart started racing as I was trying figure out why monies had not been put into our impound account.  I went into my "Don't worry.  Be happy" mode and did nothing.  A few days later I received another letter from the County Assessor advising there had been a computer glitch and assessment notices had mistakenly been sent out to home owners with impound accounts without the customary, "This is not a bill" statement included.

[Desertponder]

I really dislike Sprint as well but we seem to be stuck with them. We tried to switch to Verizon about a year ago when our contract was up. A friend of mine worked for Verizon and told us he could get us good deals for switching. Well, it turns out that when they found out we were bailing from Sprint, Verizon wanted a $300 deposit. I pitched a fit because we always paid the the bill well with Sprint but Verizon was telling us we had a poor payment history from Sprint. So, we called Sprint and went around and around with them. Well, it turns out with Sprint that if you are late ONE TIME within your two year contract period they give you a poor payment history. FOR ONE TIME!! Very pissy way to keep people from moving to other carriers.

[Mikey]

I hear you...   Many businesses take advantage of customers who have a 30-day late payment.  You can have an excellent history of payments, even early payments but because of one late payment where you overlooked a bill they will screw with you....  We have a 30 day late payment from Home Depot from about 5 or 6 years ago because the bill got mixed in with some magazines.  We have a cleaning lady who comes every two weeks.  We left some mail out on the coffee table and she took the mail and some other magazines on the table and put them on a shelf beneath the coffee table.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I tried explaining to Home Depot to no avail.  I shredded the HD card and try to do my business with Lowe's or OSH.

As a result of my wife being a victim of identity theft we recently received a copy of our Equifax credit report.  I saw a 30 day late notice on it from Capitol One.  We don't have a Capitol One charge card.  I asked my wife about it and she noticed the date was three years ago.  She said at that time our son was attempting to establish credit and she signed ....or something... for getting him an account...  She thinks a payment must have been missed by him as that was the time he was graduating from the university.....  Yes, I was quite irritated.....still am......which is probably why I am referring to her this time as "my wife" rather than the "fetching Mrs. Mikey."   

[mascot]

Oh, I hate Home Depot as well.  I do on-line payments and for some reason my payment wasn't recorded the day I had it marked and HD charged me $35 for a late fee on a $23 balance.  You're right, they just don't give a crap and pull this "it's not our card, it's a bank card and we can't control that".  I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the card in front of them and told them to close the account.  They told me to call the number on the back of the card (that I just cut into pieces).   Besides, 21.9% interest is highway robbery.  I avoid Capital One, HD, Citibank, and a few others. 

I do have an Amex card with a good rate, and I make on-line payments there too.  One month I brain farted and the bill was stuffed inside my junkmail that I never sorted through, and I panicked.  So I called and spoke to a woman there and just explained what happened and told her I could pay it over the phone or through my bank.  She looked at my payment history and saw that I always overpaid and that it was always early.  She told me that she would note that and that it wouldn't affect my rates because I was a "good customer".  Too bad HD couldn't work like that.  They lost me because of their uncaring ways.

[Mikey]

Besides, 21.9% interest is highway robbery.

I probably wouldn't feel as bad paying that interest rate if they at least would stick a gun in my face.....