Sprint Accidentally Credits $139,000 To Customer’s Account

What would you do if you received a bill credit that you didn’t deserve? How about if you received a bill credit that’s enough to buy you a modest house in most of the country? Just ask the Ohio Sprint customer who opened his wireless bill and saw a credit for $139,419.89.

A closer look at this bill showed that there had been dozens of payments posted to this account, all from unfamiliar credit cards.

“I noticed MasterCards, American Express and Visa cards sending credits to my account, with confirmation numbers, but none of those cards were mine,” he told the consumer reporter at WCPO-TV.

First, he was worried that somehow his account data or the last four digits of his credit card number were being posted to other customers’ Sprint accounts, since that’s what he could see of their accounts.

He was also concerned as a human being for the people who were accidentally posting payments to his account. Were they being charged twice, or were their payments not applied to their own accounts?

A Sprint spokeswoman stepped in to help once WCPO was involved, and explained that the company had goofed when setting up this customer’s account. Instead of payments being deducted from his bank, his Sprint account was being used to process payments for other customers.

“He has no balance,” says the rep. “His account has now been updated with the correct information so he will no longer receive bill alerts. We apologized to the customer for the inconvenience this situation caused.”