Cricket Customer Disservice Internet

On or about the 17th of March, I became aware that my daughter's Cricket phone account had been suspended due to the inability of Cricket to process the automatic payment. This was because of a change in the debit card number with which we had set up the automatic billpay service. The previous month, our bank, USAA, notified us that there had been a breach of security through a vendor with ties to USAA. Therefore, our existing debit cards had been cancelled in lieu of issuance of new cards and card numbers. Realizing the reason for the service interruption, I called Cricket's customer service and gave them the new card number. I was told that there was a $15.00 reconnect fee, which I agreed to pay as the error had been mine in not notifying Cricket of the account number change.

On or about the 19th of April, this process was repeated. My daughter informed me that her phone had been turned off. I then called Cricket again and went through the same explanation. I agreed to pay the $15.00 fee again, although I was reluctant to do so as I felt that this was due to Cricket's oversight not mine. Had they correctly entered the change into the automatic billpay database the first time, the phone would not have been disconnected and, indeed, I would not now be writing this letter. None-the-less, I paid the reconnect fee, the phone was turned back on, and life proceeded as usual for another month.

On or about yesterday, the 24th of May, I called to activate a new phone as my daughter's phone had quit working last week. I was then told that, before they could proceed with any other action, I would have to pay the past due amount and yet another $15.00 reconnect fee. It seems that the payment, submitted again under a now long-defunct debit card number, was declined a third time and, consequently, the phone had been turned off a third time (my daughter was unaware of this since her phone wasn't working). Since the customer representative I was speaking with informed me that they could not make adjustments to accounts I was transferred to an account manager. After a few minutes of MUZAK the line was answered by what I can only surmise was a representative (she only said the perfunctory Cricket greeting, listened to my own perfunctory disgruntled Cricket customer complaint, and promptly re-engaged the MUZAK I was on hold for another 20 minutes!!

I finally hung up, called again, went through the ubiquitous Sudoku-like number selection menu and was introduced to Tony. I then re-explained my situation to Tony, acknowledged that I realized that this was not of his doing and that I understood that he was not in a position to give me yes or no answers with any degree of finality. Tony then informed me that he could not even transfer me until the account was brought up to date. He needed a payment of some form or he could restart the automatic bill pay (I did not even realize that the automatic billpay feature had been terminated automatically when the old debit card had been declined). He then went on to explain that there would be the monthly fee billed this month and then, next month, I would be billed the monthly fee plus the you guessed it - $15.00 reconnect fee. He also reiterated the reason that the phone had been cut off and remarked about the history of the other two service interruptions.
All of this was old news. I restated that I was not going to pay the reconnect fee a third time, restated my reasons for taking this stance, and asked again to speak to someone who could try and rectify this situation. Again, Tony told me that before I could talk to an accounts manager, I would have to make some type of payment via bank account, credit card, etc. I did not want to proceed with giving out any active account information until I knew that I would not be charged with any reconnect fees and that the billpay would be properly set up to avoid having to go through this again. This debate continued in a circle a few more times and I had now spent almost 40 minutes of my time on this. I finally told Tony that I wasn't going to debate this anymore and that I would simply cancel the account and write letters to the BBB, the Army consumer affairs group, and to Cricket, describing the events that led up to the loss of their customer. Tony said that was fine . . . and then went on to inform me that they had evidence that on the 17th of March I had called up to reconnect the phone because payment had been declined and also evidence that I had called on the 19th of April for the same reason. He was arguing my argument back to me!! I actually thought for a minute that I was being Punked by Aston Kucher.
I can only assume that, when there is no other rational argument in their favor, Cricket trains their highly intellectual customer disservice representatives to repeat already agreed-to account facts over and over again with increasing amounts of verve. I suspect that this is done in an attempt to trick the customer into thinking that they have made some sort of mental blunder along the way. I must say that after the now 45 minutes of mind-numbing time I had spent on this, I was probably ripe for some sort of Jedi-mind-trick.
Needless to say, I am no longer a Cricket customer. Instead of working with me, connecting me to someone who could rationally sort through the issue, adjust my account, and properly set up the payment arrangements, Cricket's customer disservice system had me in a redundant argument (in which, two distinctly opposing viewpoints did not even clearly exist) with someone who could not have helped me in the first place. The result for Cricket is that, over $15.00, they potentially gave away $3,486.00 of business (this does not figure in rate hikes or any added services). My daughter is finishing the 8th grade and we will, in all likelihood, provide her with phone service through college albeit now, not with Cricket.

Shep
Sanford, North Carolina
U.S.A.

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