Complaint Review: Sprint/Earthlink - Inglewood California

Sam, I never claimed to be an expert or Sprint was a parent company of Earthlink or a majority shareholder, and all your FCC blubber gave me a headache. I neither know or care about the DSL relationship of Sprint lines and Earthlink service. But Sprint has, in the past, owned shares. This is known to be true. Check your reputed unerring sources you quoted again, or go back to doing what Sprint employees do best as taught by Esrey, which is ripoff honest hard working people of their money.

If you were to research the histiry of Earthlink, you would see the timelines and the connections to several companies(ATT&T, Mindspring, et al)that offer a DSL type of connection. As you know(since you are a reported expert on Sprint) Sprint in May of 1999, established a relationship with Earthlink in order to provide DSL service to them. Please bear in mind that Sprint LOCAL, not PCS was originally a company that started with the railroad and laid down some of the first cables in the USA. Sprint in the 80's then partnered with Nortel to replace the old copper and iron cables with the new fiber optic cable that allowed faster and clearer conversation. At that time, cable companies also vied for use of the same cables since they could handle so much more variance of signal. When the cable companies merged in the early 90's, the PCS division was born. Sprint has the only 100% DIGITAL coverage in the US, much as PDC is used in Japan. Now that you have a clearer vision of where things started, let me help you understand the relationship between SPCS and Earthlink. We provide the DSL fiber capability, and they provide a revenue avenue. We, as employees recieve a discount, and nothing more. We also get one from Radio Shack, and we do not own them. Do you see the connection yet? Okay. So now you understand that SPCS is not the parent company or the majority holder of Earthlink. If you need further education, please feel free to access the Internet and check with the FCC, who can and will provide the correct information you have tried to proclaim. Next time, please take a moment and be sure you know what you are saying, as it only makes you look like you like toblame others for your own issues.

Lynn, your statements might be relevant except for the fact that EVERYTHING ex-employee John said is true. If you or any one of these people had bothered to research anything about your current employer Sprint PCS (Pretty Crappy Service) as I wish I had before joining up, is that Sprint owns a substantial share of Earthlink. Earthlink sales representatives offer Sprint LD when selling their internet service. Think of it as a Maximize for Earthlink much like Sprint PCS' Maximize is Long distance from the FON division. Sprint PCS sells lousy equipment from electronics manufacturers and lumps responsibility for said equipment on those manufacturers, overbills for minutes of service it can't accurately calculate, and is so disorganized its downright comedic. That is why it is a money pit. The longtime CEO was forced out due to use of a tax shelter...what more information do you need to understand that Sprint is a Enron or Worldcom just waiting to happen??

John, I hate to say it but you dont know what you are talking about. Sprint does have contractors for some of its services, but all in all most of us that are working for Sprint, really do go to a Sprint location, that means that if you are calling customer service, you get a REAL Sprint employee, the stores that are Sprint owned, really have Sprint employees, I apologize if you are not happy with the fact that you dont work for Sprint anymore, but I am tired of ex-employees going on sites like this one and degrading a company that they no longer work for, sounds like disgruntled ex employee would be a better title for you.

I agree with the person who stated you have no idea what you're talking about. Sprint and Earthlink are two different companies. I work for Sprint in customer service and I can tell you right now, the only involvment Sprint has in any kind of internet service is just by providing the lines. Earthlink provides the service (hence the name Internet Service Provider). Granted, you may have received charges on your Sprint bill for services related to your Earthlink account but as stated before, it would be charges for the line itself and any long distance charges you yourself incurred. This is by no means Sprint's fault. Make a mental note: if you have to dial 1 before the area code, it's going to be long distance and you will be charged. Don't go around falsely accusing a reputable company because you can't figure out that it's your fault you got charged. I have to deal with people like you every day who have no idea what their talking about. Try using problem solving skills before jumping to conclusions about whos fault it is.

sprint doesn't give two shits about its customers. If they mistakenly overbill you, they will shut your service off,insisting that you are refusing to pay 90% of the time, and filing credit reports against you that are near impossible to remove,even when sprint realizes it was there mistake. I have worked for 3 large corporations,(microsoft, nextel and sprint) and sprint is by far the worst for screwing its customers over. Each of these large corporations have one thing in common. They contract all there customer service and generally anynumber you call them at to 3 party companies, whom of which make it even worse (AKA NCO FINANCIAL) word of advice: be careful of these large corporations, especially sprint as they have millions of customers and billions of dollars to play with. Bottom line is they dont care who they screw over.

The simple fact that you think earthlink is a part of sprint leads me to believe you dont know much about what you are talking about. I have worked for a few different ISP's and have had my fair share of different services myself, and ALL of them say everywhere that you need to contact your local phone company to make sure that the number you are going to use is a local call. If you dont realize that your dialing a long distance # then how is that their fault?...If your son is calling his girlfriend who lives in the next town and then at the end of the month you get a HUGE phone bill...do you blame your phone company? no. you blame your son for dialing a long distance #. You cannot expect a company to know what is long distance and what isnt when people half the time do not even know what a local call for them is. An ISP can only provide numbers for you to dial...your the one that dialed the number, no one MADE you do it. This issue sounds like you dont know what a local call is for you and that you are mad because you messed up. Im sure that when you were set up with the acct, they informed you of this, and also in ALL of the software is made overly clear that you need to check before you dial.

In the Earthlink Service Agreement, and also in the software when you install it, there is a disclaimer that advises the consumer to check with the local telephone company to make sure the number will be a toll free, local call before using it. When you speak to a representative, they should also verbally give this disclaimer. If you ever speak with an ELNK rep and they do not give this disclaimer before or after giving you a dial-up number, get their name so you can let someone know. Unfortunatly, you are stuck with the $225 bill. And the outcome would have been the same if it were AOL, or MSN, or any other national provider. When national companies give out dial-up number, they only know which one seems to be closest to your location. The telephone company is the only one who would know if it is local or not.