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From: bcsaic!carroll@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Make Sprint Put it in Writing!
Message-ID: <11755@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 5 Sep 90 19:34:48 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 622, Message 2 of 12


In article <11454@accuvax.nwu.edu> v116kznd@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes:

>In article <11386@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon)
>writes:

>>Are you SURE Pac*Bell does the billing for Sprint? I have received a
>>bill directly from Sprint since my account was absorbed from US
>>Telecom, previous to which time I received a bill directly from THEM.
>>The only Sprint calls I am aware of that are billed by Pac*Bell are
>>those made by customers who don't have a Sprint account.

>I've heard that the way Sprint works is that if you are a frequent
>user, Sprint will bill you directly, but if you're an infrequent user,
>they will bill you through your local phone company.

	I think that it very likely depends on the local telco. I have
been a Sprint customer since 1982, and I have always been billed by
Sprint, even during months when the bill said "$0.00", which in my
case was not uncommon for a few years. Moreover, I haven't heard of
anyone else up here being billed for their Sprint accounts through
USWest (for about one year of my Sprint-customer-hood, my local telco
was General Tel of Indiana; for two other years, it was GTE Northwest.
Otherwise PNB/USWest.)

	Neither would I be surprised if it were just that the Sprint
billing department handles different accounts different ways, for no
compelling reason. That would be consistent with my experience with
Sprint.

>So, at least, my experience agrees with what I've heard.  I'm sure
>that if I was really interested in knowing, I could call up Sprint and
>ask them.

	Obviously you've never called Sprint to ask them anything
else.  (Read the other recent postings on this subject, which are
corroborated by my experience.)

>  I don't like the phone company acting as a bill collector
>myself, but Sprint hasn't tried to rip me off yet, so I am not
>terribly concerned, yet.

	Good luck. Long time Sprint customers will remember the class
action suit that was required to get Sprint to stop billing us for
busy signals and no-answers.

(Before I hear from the I-love-Sprint / I-work-for-Sprint /
Sprint-would-never-do-me-wrong crowd, just let me say that I stay with
Sprint because I like the idea of being able to call across the
continent and have it sound like I'm just across town. When AT&T can
claim an all-digital network, maybe I'll switch back.)


Jeff Carroll
carroll@atc.boeing.com