More Fun With Fraud Fallout

"Experience Life At SprintSpeed" says the new slogan.  SprintSpeed apparently makes a glacier look like the Roadrunner . . .

I have several recurring bills that I've chosen to pay automatically via the credit card that was compromised over the weekend.  Of course now that that card has been cancelled, I have to make sure that each of these places has updated information.  One of these bills is for my Sprint mobile phone.  Now I am 99 44/100 percent sure that I initially set up the automatic billing via their website, but as I clicked around their twisty maze of web pages, all different,  I could not find a place to change the card information.  I didn't really want to do so online anyway, being a little gun-shy on the web transaction front at this point.  I clicked around some more until I found the list of phone numbers and called them.  After punching in my information, I got to a menu asking me to say what I was calling about.  "Change credit card" says I.  "OK!  I can help you with that!" says the overly perky recording.  But she doesn't help me, after all, she just transfers my call to a live agent.  Well, to a hold queue, where I am informed that my wait will be five to ten minutes.  When I am finally connected, the agent proceeds to ask me for the same information I've already entered into the phone system  (way to leverage the CTI there, guys!), and when she decides I might be who I say I am, asks me what I want.  I tell her I need to change the credit card used for automatic billing.  Alas, she can not help me with that.  She's going to transfer me to the finance department, but first she gives me the direct number in case I get disconnected.  (Lord knows this is actually a good precaution; my first call to Sprint this afternoon actually did result in a disconnect.  You'd think a PHONE company could get the whole concept of call transfers figured out, right?  But I digress...)

The transfer is actually successful, and I am once again asked to prove that I am me.  Once that's out of the way, the agent tells me my current balance and asks how I would like to pay that today.  I explain that I am not calling to make a payment, I am calling to update my credit card info.  She can't help me - this seems to be a common occurrence at Sprint - so she dumps me off to her supervisor.  Again with the verification.  She too wants me to pay my bill.  Jebus, Sprint, you get my money automatically every month, and it's not the due date yet.  Chill on the paying you thing.  My voice is getting hoarse from repeating my simple request.  And guess what?  (all together now) ... She can't help me.

She can send me a form, would that be OK?  OK, whatever, just please end this nightmare.  She asks for my email address.  That would be the email address that they have in their records somewhere.  Nonetheless, I just spell it out for her, and she wants me to stay on the line to verify I've gotten the form she's sending.  It comes through with no subject line and no text in the body of the email, just an attachment in Microsoft Word format.  Good thing I'm at work, so I can actually open it.  And when I do, I see that it's a Nextel form.  OK, granted Sprint merged with Nextel . . .   IN AUGUST OF 2005!!! For crying out loud, they've even dropped "Nextel" from most of their advertising at this point.  I'm not going to fill out a Nextel branded form and send it to what is more than likely the wrong address.

Supposedly, she's going to contact somebody and have another form sent to me.  It's been over an hour and that hasn't happened.

Yeah, we're moving at SprintSpeed!

x-posted to Your Call Is Very Important To Us