I've ranted about online customer disservice before on this site, but visiting Sprint's PCS site today riled me up enough to complain again.  I received a billing statement by email and took a look at it.  I noticed my wife and I are being charged about $20 a month for the "PCS Vision" plan.  We're not really using it.  I don't browse the web with my phone that much (my wife never does) and the camera's pictures are so poor that I haven't used the camera that much either.  So that's $20 down the drain each month on services we're not using.

Noticing that there is a link on their site to "change plans", I figured I could probably go there and tell them to drop the PCS Vision plan.  I clicked the link and then read what was there.  All you can do from this page is LOOK AT the plans.  You can't actually CHANGE them.  To change them, you have to call an 800 number.  That's just plain stupid.  You ought to be able to request changes to your plan online.  What if I was in a real hurry and wanted to increase my plan's number of minutes?  What if I was somewhere I had web access but not cell access?  If a web site is good enough to take my order for a new phone, it darn well ought to be good enough to take my change in service plans.

Interestingly, if you want to pay your bill, order a new phone, etc., you CAN do that online.  Sprint's message to its customers is clear:  If there's a chance we can get some more money from you, we'll make it really easy online.  If there's a chance you might decide to stop sending us as much money, we'll make you call us instead, so we can try some high-pressure sales tactics on you to convince you to keep unused services.

This makes their customer service web site a "one-way" site.  It's very easy to give them your money, but unnecessarily difficult to get it back or try to reduce your spending.

And that, quite simply, is wrong.

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