What can they do -- cancel a service you don't have when you don't pay a bill that is not yours?

Buh bye Sprint.

And then send the unpaid bill to collection and screw up my credit?

All of the above, sucker.

Every state has some sort of agency that regulates telephone companies. (Here in Wisconsin it is the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.)

Contact them immediately, along with your regular local telephone company. If necessary bring over all the correspondence from Sprint. I doubt that they took the trouble to wire up your house. Remember, Sprint sells long distance services. It is relatively easy to undo all this. Do not make any long distance calls on their connection or you will indeed have to pay for it.

Above all, grow up and start figuring out how the world really works. Unless you want to get swallowed up by it.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Wow. All those years of lawyering and I didn't know how the world works.

I don't care if you spent 65 years lawyering. Anyoe who could write what you did, displaying utter naivete in dealing with a pack of telephone slammers, would never get paid to lawyer for me.

Either that, or you wrote what you did merely to soud precocious for Dean's World. Anyway, as Dean will tell you if you ask, I am an old-fasioned man who says exactly what he thinks in all circumstances.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Slammers don't hardwire phone lines or leave technician phone numbers. A far more logical explanation is the one that the technician gave -- someone ordered new phone service and got the address wrong.

The law is sufficiently complicated these days--which is not a good thing, but it is what it is--that no lawyer can be expected to be familiar with the intricacies of so many subjects. Environmental law, consumer law, family law, several species of corporate law, yipes. I'd imagine a complete law library just for the state of California probably fills half of a good sized room.

Oh, come now people, this is just the unintended byproduct of the information revolution. You know, it also allows bad information to be distributed exceptionally quickly.

What appears to have happened is that someone did something bone-headed at Sprint and since there are only a few QA people probably dealing with literally tens of thousands of things its a certainty that only a percentage of the mistakes will be caught.

At my place of business, I am occasionally dumbfounded by the idiocy I find in the conduct of our business...and keep in mind that a lot of the mistakes we can make involve the potentional of a 10k fine per incident from Uncle Sam. We really, really try to not make mistakes - but with about 10 million customers....

The problem you find, the reason why Customer Service is stupid, is that when a problem comes up, a good percentage of CSR's just wont want to take all that effort to fix it. So, the problem is kicked down the road, hopefully not to re-appear until a time when the particular CSR is not on duty (or, even immediately - because with a thousand or so people answering the phone, its 1000 to 1 that a particular caller will get through twice to the same person; at a different company, a friend of mine related to me the story of a CSR who just "accidentally" disconnected any call which looked likely to be a hassle). This is what we get when we pay the CSR's $10 an hour, and make their bonus partially based upon how many calls they take an hour...but if you didn't do that, they'd make each call last an hour (and I, myself, have put the occasional customer in the deep freeze as punishment for annoying me...after all, while customer is on hold, I can catch upon on the sports scores).

There are two ways to get successful at dealing with customer service:

1. Demand immediately to speak to a supervisor. This will tend to either make the CSR make the extra effort in order to not have the call transferred to a manager (because some companies penalise CSR's for such transfers) or you will be immediately transferred to a supervisor who will actually swiftly solve your problem (because some companies have the policy of immediately carrying out such a demand).

2. Ask nicely; generally, a CSR gets a lot of calls from unreasonable people, a nice one makes them happy to oblige (and remember that if you are served quickly and efficiently to send a note to the company - its a gigantic feather in a CSR's cap to get letters like that).

Of course, these two things are only if you have a valid complaint. Think carefully about what you are demanding. If its something you wouldn't do for your own mother, then its something that they wont do for you, either. Things like a guy with 14 charged-off accounts pissed off that we only gave him a $300 credit line; this guy should have asked himself if he'd loan money to a guy who had cheated him 14 times...then he would have avoided being placed on hold for 12 minutes by me.

Arnold, just stop acting like a ornery senior citizen. justene was jsut reporting what happened to her. Thereis no need for you to insult her.

The people at Sprint do not reach the lowest depths of stupidity. For that you have to look at regional phone companies. My Dad noticed the phone had been disconnected. He thought my Mom had just forgot to mail the bill. No biggy. He asked Mom to stop by the local office to drop off a check on her way home from work. They no longer take checks in person (new policy that started that month). You have to mail them to the regional center. Interesting to note: THE COMPUTER SHOWED THEY HAD PAID THE BILL. Local people had no idea why the phone had been disconnected. Couldn't reach people at customer service at the regional office. Mom, practically bizerk, had to go home and lie down. Then ... the phone rings. Its the people from Regional Customer Service, asking for the woman of the house. Dad, against his better judgement, woke Mom up to take the call. After expressing exactly what she thought about spending her day chasing this problem, and not waiting for a response of any kind, she gave the phone to Dad and laid back down (she has a blood pressure problem). Dad, aka Mr. Calm, pointed out to the rep that Mom was a little upset. He also asked why the phone was dissconnected and how they knew to call. The customer rep had gotten a rather interesting fax from the powers that be at the Regional Company insisting they call the account and talk to them in person. The rep had no idea what was going on. She did manage to tell Dad that the phone was turned off for non-payment on the second line into the house. THEY DON'T HAVE A SECOND LINE. He pointed this out. She insisted that its company policy to turn off all lines if one is overdue. Once again. THEY DON'T HAVE TWO LINES. Dad is not quiet so calm by that point. The woman insists they do. Then ... she notices the address on the other line is different. Same last name, same street, different house number. She says she's "sorry for the inconvience". Dad thought he would like more than "sorry", so she gave him a $100 credit on his next phone bill.

The saga continues: The people who had the overdue bill down the street had REALLY paid the phone bill. The woman of the house had totally freaked on the Regional Company and skipped customer service altogether to abuse upper-level-administration (hence the fax to call her or else, and the rep called the wrong house). Regional Company insisted she send in a copy of the canceled check to prove payment. She sent them one (this cost her $40 for bank fees and FedEx). They lost it. She had to send them another one. This whole thing was dragging out for weeks. She had to repay the phone bill to get the phone turned on. They finally got it straight that she had paid them in the first place. So, they mailed her a refund check. They made the check out to cover EVEY MONTH SINCE THE ORIGINAL MISTAKE (three months). The next week Regional Company called to suggest that they return that check and Regional Company would send them another check for the right amount. The man of the house suggested that Regional Company send a copy of the canceled check to prove that Regional Company over-refunded. The rep from the company sighed. It was over.

Weirdest customer disservice problem I ever had wasn't even mine. One day maybe 10 years ago, I came home to find a message on my answering machine. It was from the local veterinary clinic, some dude calling to inform a lady (let's call her Mrs. Smith) that she should stop by to pick up some medication for her dog Bruno.

Well, I phoned back, got this same dude on the line. I said I didn't want Bruno to miss his medication, so I wanted to let him know that his message to Mrs. Smith had ended up on my answering machine.

He said, "Is this 555-1234?"

I said, "Yeah, that's my number, but I'm afraid I've never heard of Mrs. Smith or Bruno before. Maybe she accidentally gave you the wrong number."

He said, "You're Mr. Smith." Not a question, a statement.

I said, "Uh, no, my name's Paul Burgess, I'm afraid I've never heard of Mrs. Smith."

He said, this time in a rather peremptory tone, "No, your name is Paul Smith-Burgess."

I said, "?????"

He repeated, in an even louder and now rather angry tone of voice, "I said, your name is Paul Smith-Burgess."

I said, "No, I think I know my own name. And I'm afraid I've never heard of Mrs. Smith before."

He boomed angrily into the phone, "Your name is Paul Smith-Burgess, I heard it on your answering machine!!!"

I said, "Oh? Well, listen to this." I pushed a button on my answering machine, and the message played over the line: "Hi, this is Pastor Paul Burgess. I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name, phone number, and a message at the tone..."

Bloodied and bowed but not defeated, he said afterwards, "Well, 'Pastor Paul Burgess,' that sounds like 'Paul Smith-Burgess.'"

I said, "Oh. Well, I just wanted to make sure Bruno didn't miss his medication."

Since I was in a fairly good humor that day, I decided not to mention that this dude's boss, the veterinarian, was a parishioner of mine, and in fact an Elder on our church Session; and that in a town of several thousand, I could easily be over at the veterinary clinic within 5 or 10 minutes, to discuss this little misunderstanding face-to-face. By the way, is Doctor So-and-So in right now?

Come to think of it, that was one of the most blogosphere-like experiences I've ever had, out here in meatspace.

Sid,

I am in fact an ornery senior citizen. And I worked my ass off for 69 years in order to become one. So what of it?

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

How many years do you have to work to become "always right about everything"?

You don't get to be right about everything by working -- you gotta be born that way. And I should know, because I was.

BTW, in some parts of the country, Sprint is the local phone company. An ex-girlfriend of mine in Texas lived in a Sprint zone for a while. She reports that they suck just as badly as a local telco as they do as a wireless carrier.

My Sprint horror story: when I got a cell phone I went with Sprint for some reason that escapes me at this time. Since my credit was less than perfect, they demanded a $120 deposit. (I charged this deposit to my credit card, the irony of which completely escaped them.) When I canceled my account, rather than sending the deposit back, they conveniently "forgot" to actually close my account; they were debiting my monthly charge for the service I had canceled against the deposit. They had stopped sending me statements, though, so it wasn't until I called to find out where my deposit was that I found out what was going on. At that point there was like $40 left, and they did send that to me, but since I could have made a call if I wanted during the months after I "canceled," they insisted that they had indeed provided service during that time period and refused to give me that portion of my deposit back.

So yeah. It's almost certainly not over. You're dealing with Sprint. It's never over when you think it is.

"dowingba",

I never ever once on Dean's World have written that I was right about everything. Or for that matter, that I was right about anything in particular. Or that I ever cared one way or another.

The fact is, I don't really give a damn whether I am right or wrong. I believe in nothing at all, but I think about many things, analyze them to the best of my ability, and in turn, I write about many of these. I'm not interested in proving myself right, but only in expressing what I think. That is the sole reason I post comments to Dean's World. You are free to accept or reject my judgements and analyses for whatever reason you wish.

The one compensation that you get when you approach old age and begin awaiting death is that you can start addressing the world with utter and complete truth as you see it. Because by then, you have nothing to gain, nothing to lose. You will croak on a certain day not yet known to you but nevertheless inevitable, no matter what you say, what you pray, whatever. Consideration of all that, plus about 26 cents, buys you a cup of "senior" coffee at McDonalds.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold: There's another thing we have in common. My mother died at 51 and both her parents died in their 40s. So I also live life as if there's not many years left.

Justene,

My father died in 1979, three months short of 87. My mother followed him in late 2000, having just turned 94. I am in considerably better health than either of them (combination of physical fitness and diet).

But all this counts for little. I am going on 70, but I could die tomorrow. From your writings, you must be far younger, but you could live past 100.

Never mind the years. The idea, I think, is to live each hour, each day, each week, each month to its fullest, because any one of them could be its last.

In any case, I think one's only immortality in the family and the lifetime accomplishments one has created. Nothing else. And I think this is true for all living humans. No exceptions.

I understand from your posts and comments that you are some sort of judge or court official. I would like to discuss with you some time how judge's instructions to juries have come to dominate courtroom trials and frequently their outcome, and as a response to this, the idea of jury nullification in accordance with an idea posited long ago by Alexander Hamilton. (The one whose face stares sternly out from United States currency of a certain denomination).

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI