All Sprint All The Time
Sprint update time! Back story is here.
The lady I've been working with at Sprint called me with an update today, as promised. She got back the information from the billing department about my data charges as well as some things they wanted her to talk to me about. The message she left on my voicemail (I couldn't answer right away when she called) indicated that there did appear to be an issue with how the phone was sending the picture data, but it was unclear whether she meant on their end or mine. As in it sounded kind of like she was setting up to say that I wasn't sending picture mail correctly, but at the same time it sounded like she was saying there were issues with the way the phone itself was sending the data, not anything I did.
I called her back to clarify. She said that the billing department thought the issue might be with how I was sending the messages. Specifically, if I was sending them with text or not. Of course I am sending them with text. I'm filling in both the subject field and text field for most of the picture messages I'm sending. I asked her if that meant that she was telling me that I could send pictures, just without any text attached and that cost extra. She said that, no, I should be able to send them with text, that's just what they thought might be causing the data usage fees. That if text was attached the system didn't catch it as picture mail, but as email, thus charging me data usage fees.
I'm really glad that rather than just taking the easy way out and saying "the problem is text, so you can't send any text" she seems to be actually trying to fix the problem. She even said in the voicemail that they're trying to find the problem so that I can send picture messages without incurring any data usage fees and that I should be able to send with text attached.
She ended up calling me back on Sage's phone, so I could use mine to send a test picture message, walking through step-by-step what I was doing to send them. She's passing that information back down again.
As glad as I am that they are genuninely trying to fix the problem, I have to admit that I'm just tired of the whole thing. I haven't been able to use my picture mail in a while now and the answer I got to asking if I could start sending picture messages again yet was "Well if you have to send one, I can refund any charges, but it'd be better if you'd continue not to until this was fixed."
There's the part of me that thinks it was ridiculous to have to go to this level to find someone to take the whole situation seriously, when I know for a fact it's a systemic problem and there are many people having this issue. How many of them are still getting told that what they're really paying for is the ability to send texts, but actually sending them costs extra? Based on the comments to the Consumerist article, lots of people are buying that line. Several people commented saying it was basically my fault for not reading or understanding the ultra fine print and Sprint was right. That proves that people really will believe just about any lame line fed them sometimes. Especially since now I have Sprint admiting it IS an issue, I was right all along and I shouldn't be getting charges for sending the picutre messages.
Vindication is progress, so I'll take it, but I'm exhausted by the whole thing and I'm still paying for picture messaging, but can't use it.
