Yesterday morning I visited sprint.com to check out their phones and plans, and noticed a strange problem. In Firefox, the page listing their phones flickered constantly, as if repeatedly refreshing itself. I found this a little disconcerting—should I trust a technology company with a broken website?—but decided to go with Sprint/Nextel anyway. They had the cheapest plan, the cheapest phones, and their coverage map showed better coverage at my home than any other provider.

In fact, it was clear they were in the middle of upgrading the site. Between Monday and Tuesday the look and feel had changed. On Monday they would ask you up front if you wanted to deal with Sprint or with Nextel; by Tuesday this choice had disappeared, and you could go directly to selecting phones without worrying about which branch of the company you were dealing with. I figured they were having some hiccups with certain browsers, but surely the site would work well enough when it came to real interactions.

Still, I didn't make an order right away. Later in the afternoon I went back to sprint.com and placed an order for two phones (one for my wife and one for me) and a plan. The whole process seemed pretty user-friendly and smooth—until I came to the very end. After I had gone through the credit check, after I had given them my address and credit card number, after I had attempted to transfer the numbers from our old phones (unsuccessfully), then at the very end I got a page that said, Error. Transaction failed. Our servers our funky right now. Try again later—or something to that effect.

Uh-oh, methought. Did the transaction go through or not? I watched my inbox for a confirmation email for half an hour or so, and nothing came through. So methinks: When they said transaction failed, I guess they meant the whole shebang.

So I go back to the sprint.com website with the intention of emptying my shopping cart and saying goodbye to Sprint/Nextel forever. But when I click the "remove all items" button, the site doesn't empty my cart. Instead it gives me an offer for a $50 rebate on my purchase. So here's a handy tip for consumers: If you make an order at sprint.com, first fill up your cart, then try to empty it, because they'll give you a hefty rebate.

Ordinarily I'm the sort of person who runs screaming when companies do this sort of thing: I like to buy what I want, not what people want to give me a quick "deal" on. But in this case I decided that the extra $50 made it worth another try. I wasn't going to find a better deal from another provider.

So I went through the ordering process again. I do another credit check (ouch—haven't I heard that it counts against your credit score every time you have a credit check done?), enter my credit card number again... Interestingly, though, this time the site lacks an option for transferring my old phone numbers over. Does it remember the previous failure? Or are they still updating the site on-the-fly, so that an option that existed 30 minutes ago has now been retired? Could that be the reason the first transaction failed?

So I submit a second transaction. Guess what? It fails again—with the same message.

Well, obviously that's a deal killer. Sprint wants to sell me communications technology but their web front end can't communicate with their server back end during a sensitive financial transaction. My trust and patience are spent. I go to another provider and order my phones and plan there.

That's when the nightmare began.

Well, actually it began this morning when I received two emails from my bank saying, "Um, it looks like you've got some fraudulent activity going on in your checking account. Better call us." So I don't call them (my old cell phone is caput—that's why I'm trying to order new ones), but I check my account online and see what they're looking at: Two orders from Sprint totaling almost $300, along with another from my new provider.

Let me be clear: sprint.com told me the transactions failed. I never received a confirmation email, an invoice, a receipt, a final "please print me" screen—nothing like that. Sprint just charged me. Twice.

I consider placing a stop payment on the charges, but they seem to have already posted. Either way, if I can get Sprint to refund me, this problem will soon be a distant memory. So I decide to call Sprint immediately.

The charges in my bank account are listed as coming from Sprint.com, and they have a toll-free number embedded. So I borrow a phone from a friend and call the number. I navigate a voice menu. The nice robot lady asks me for my account number. I don't have an account number, I explain. She doesn't understand—she says it's all the same to her if I use my Sprint phone number rather than my account number. I don't have a Sprint phone number. When she realizes I'm numerically challenged, she forwards me to a real person with a real Indian accent.

Now, you need to understand. I love India and I love Indian people. We took the kids to an Indian culture festival a couple of years back, we love India so much. And I don't begrudge companies for outsourcing their customer service to India—though it does, one must admit, say something about the priority that they put on customer service that they consider it something they can offload overseas. But Indians need the jobs; and they usually speak English very well. Yet, one does get the sense that a customer service assistant who is 8,000 miles away is somehow detached from one's problems, doesn't one? And what I'm needing is engagement, not detachment, because this company, after all, has just defrauded $300 from me (as another of their customer service reps will later admit. Stick around.)

But this is a real Indian accent, meaning that I can't understand her. I explain my situation, my lack of an account number or phone number, my experience with the site. I'm not sure if she gets it. But she tells me she needs to connect me with Sprint customer service. Which confuses me, because that's who I just called. "No, we're Nextel," she says—at least, that's what I think she says—and forwards me to another number.

So I navigate a menu, and talk at a robot lady, and talk to another customer service rep, this time an American. He is surly and brusque, not friendly-and-incomprehensible like the Indian girl. I explain the situation again. He puts me on hold. The music is a pleasant 70s-era vibraphone ensemble. He comes back. He can't find me in the system. "Did you order by phone or through the site?" I explain again that I ordered through the site. "Ohhhh," he says, as if experiencing an epiphany. "You'll need to speak to the web department." I think this dubious, but what choice do I have?

I call the number he gives me. Menus. Robot lady. On hold (Vivaldi this time). Indian again, a young man who sounds rather coy and nerdy, but with excellent English diction. I tell him the story. He takes my name and social security number. On hold. He comes back. I'm not in the system, he explains. I need to speak to Sprint's web department, he says. "I thought this was Sprint's web department," I say. "No, this is Nextel's web department," he replies.

Now at this, I must confess, I begin to feel a bit miffed. So I explain to him that I've just spent an hour on the phone being given the runaround and I want him to solve my problem. So he tells me he'll call Sprint's web department on my behalf and sort it out with them. He puts me on hold. Flight of the Bumblebees, punctuated by "We value your call" announcements. Ten minutes later, he's back. "You're not in their system either," he informs me. I can see I'm just getting started.

My journey through the bowels of Sprint's customer service system takes over 4 hours. I dial 8 separate numbers and am forwarded to countless others. The high point comes when I contact "Customer Care" (snort!) at the suggestion of a rep who thinks that although I'm not registered as a customer with Sprint or Nextel—despite the fact that Sprint/Nextel just charged me $300—as I've tried the billing department, credit check department, and new sales departments for both phone and online sales for both Sprint and Nextel respectively, then "Customer Care" is no doubt where I'll get the help I need. I call Customer Care, and after going through the usual rigamorole end up with a young, hip, gum-chewing Indian man who immediately asks to put me on hold and then does. Except he doesn't—his finger misses the hold button, apparently—and I hear him kibitzing in Hindi with his friends. The only word I recognize is "pizza." When he comes back, I begin to explain my problem, but he cuts me off in mid-sentence and says he is forwarding me somewhere.

"Worldwide Services," the lady announces.

"Uh, say again?" I reply.

"Sprint Worldwide Services," she repeats.

I stammer, I grunt. "How— why did I end up at Worldwide Services?"

She hesitates. "I don't know, sir. I have no information about where you—"

"I was just speaking to Customer Care and the next thing I know I'm speaking to— I don't understand why I'm—" And here, I must admit, I really thought I was going to cry. But I didn't. I'm a man, and I was born before 1980. Tears, no; lump in throat, yes.

In these few moments interacting with this woman I can tell that she is an older, Southern black lady and that she has a comforting, experienced, kind-yet-no-nonsense attitude to life and customer service. Don't ask me how I know—you can just tell these things.

So I say to her: "Look, I need some help. You're just going to have to play psychotherapist for a minute. I've been getting tossed around the Sprint/Nextel phone system for the last 4 hours. Nobody seems to be able to or want to help me. And I'm all out of ideas. I just— Could you help me figure out who can really help me?"

And in a comforting, maternal, patient voice, she says, "Of course I can, honey. Why don't you just tell me what the problem is." This makes me want to cry more. But I don't.

So I tell her. And she gives me advice.

"The first thing you need to do is to call your bank and have them put a stop on the payment." I tell her I don't think it'll work, but it's worth a try. She says, "If you want to put me on hold, I'll wait while you call them and take care of that." Wow, I think, somebody at Sprint (she turns out to be at Nextel, actually) finally knows how to serve customers. But I tell her the phone I'm using doesn't have a hold feature. I'll call the bank after she tells me how to deal with her company.

She explains to me that the Sprint website screwed up. It charged my credit card but didn't complete the sale. I'm not even in the system. They might send me the equipment, in which case I can just refuse it—but they might not. "You need to call your bank," she says, "and let them know that there has been a fraudulent purchase made from your account—because that's really what it is—and you want to stop it before it goes out."

So I thank her, and say goodbye, and call my bank. They tell the charges from Sprint had gone through immediately; a hold was never an option.

Labels: technology