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May 5, 2008 5:20 pm US/Pacific
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Call Kurtis: Big Sprint Bill
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
Kojiro Kawaguchi lives in Woodbridge, an area surrounded by vineyards. Getting a signal on his Sprint cell phone was a constant problem.
"At home I only get one or two bars on Sprint and when it goes to one, I get a dropped call," says Kojiro Kawaguchi, former Sprint customer.
His wife even had to drive into Lodi to make long distance calls.
"Then people wonder what you're doing in the parking lot just sitting there off to one side, " says Mich Kawaguchi.
When an employee at the Best Buy in Stockton told Koji his two year contract with Sprint expired on March 1st, he couldn't wait to switch over to AT&T.
He knew he'd get a signal. He could see the AT&T cell tower from his house.
Koji ended up buying a new phone at an AT&T store in Lodi.
But shortly after, Koji says "I received a letter from Sprint saying I terminated early."
Sprint billed him $155.38.
Turns out, Koji's contract didn't end until May 16th.
"For $155, I could've waited another 2 months" says Koji.
So Koji called Sprint and a customer service representative agreed to look into it and consider lowering his charges.
Koji waited and didn't pay his bill.
A few weeks later, a bill for $15,538 showed up.
"Whoa! I mean they're trying to scare me so I kind of got angry and thought the best thing to do is to call Kurtis" says Koji.
We contacted Sprint. They said every notice that went out on April 17th added two extra zeroes to the bill.
In a statement they claimed "several thousand payment notices displayed decimal points, misaligned by two places" and that
"it was only a cosmetic issue on the letters dated April 17th."
They blamed it on a computer upgrade.
Koji tell us, "I thought this bill was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen."
They assured Koji it was a mistake and he didn't owe 15 grand.
But back to the original issue of the early termination fee.
Even though he had 2 months left on his contract, Sprint decided to waive the $155.38 he owed.
"I feel great " says Koji.
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