Credit balance not refunded

why didnt you stop payment immediately with your bank? You have to be
kidding, a $4,300 dollar mistake and you're still waiting for a
refund?

Your bank's billpay department should be able to resolve this in a
matter of minutes. Have them set up a 3 way between you, the bank,
and sprint. The bank will fax over the copy of the canceled payment
and sprint will give you the money back. I have done this so many
times for customers its not even funny.

I'm so sorry to read this and I really don't know how I'd approach it
myself. It's an easy error to make and sprint should be able, by
simple rules of accounting, surely see for themselves they have your
money in their possession. While I also question their motives in
needing your entire bank statement. All I can add is maybe reading
your contract with them carefully about arbitrating disputes and maybe
sending a letter to Billpay to alert them of your problem.

At any rate I hope this gets straightened out for you soon!

You should contact your Bank and see what they can do. They may be
able to research this, otherwise, I would remit the Statement of the
Proof of Payment to Sprint to get this resolved.

Have you tried contacting Sprint Customer Care to put in a request for
"request for refund"? If you overpaid your bill, they are entitled to
give you a refund without providing copy of your bank statement.

Regards,
SN associate

Were you drinking when you made that transaction? That's a pretty big
mistake to make, so I'm curious. Whenever you pay bills that way you
should triple check your work to ensure you did it correctly because
inevitably companies take forever to rectify those type of errors.

Bad situation, but you are partly to blame.

What a mess. This is a lesson for everyone to watch what they're doing
when paying bills.

I hope you're not having financial problems because of being out of
all this money at the moment.

Good luck to you.

You made a mistake - hopefully they will finally come around and
acknowledge that it was not just a slight overpayment that will get
"eaten up" by your next monthly bill or two. This was an innocent
mistake and you should get your money back. I can see it taking a few
weeks as they research it and make sure that they are not giving you
back false funds, that they actually got the money, etc. However,
anything more than 6 weeks from when you told them about it is a crock
- and I generally like Sprint!!!

Best of luck - let us know please!!

This seems pretty straightforward to me, and absent a really good
explanation for why they want the entire statement (perhaps someone
thinks the money might already have been refunded and wants to see
whether it went back to your account?) I think you're right to refuse
it.

Once at a new job (working overnights) I got a check for 2 weeks' pay
when I had actually only worked for 1 week. I phoned the central
office when I discovered that the check was too large and immediately
they threatened to file a police report against me for theft if I
didn't devote the day (which I would ordinarily have slept through) to
taking the check back to them. Giving it to my location manager (who
went off work right when I came on) so he could send it in with the
regular paperwork would not be acceptable. I did give them the check
back ... and it took them more than a week to issue me the correct
amount of money.

I really wish companies would hold themselves to the same standards
they hold other people to. If you had owed $4346.00 and paid $43.46
you can bet they wouldn't think 6 months was a reasonable time for you
to rectify your mistake. Even figuring that it was your mistake
originally so they deserve a little slack, 6 weeks would be
outrageous.

Good luck with it.

Do the local news shows in your area have consumer reporters who will
go with viewers to try to solve problems like this and then report
them on TV?

Wow...I don't blame you at all for being uncomfortable about sending
in your bank statement! I would call them and ask what info they need
from it and go over the rest of the info with a sharpie.

This is such a crock, but seeing as it's Sprint, I'm not surprised in
the least.

Here's the thing, they are full of it if they say they can't verify
that you sent them $4300 too much. From an accounting standpoint,
there is $4300 too much in their Receivables account and that should
be relatively easy to confirm on their end without seeing any of your
information (unless they stiff lots of people for more money than they
are owed).

Do you have a contract with them? If you don't, I would cancel my
service immediately and then if there is a creidt balance on your
account, they would have to pay your money back. As it stands they
are dragging their feet and making up excuses because they know you'll
be using their service every month and they have guaranteed payment up
front.

I think its disgusting that Sprint does this and based on your letter
and my own experiences with them, I would gladly steer any potential
customers away from them.

But I have a bad feeling that as much work as you have already gone
through trying to get your money back, the only thing that will get
some reaction from them is an attorney threatening to sue.

I wonder if you could sue them with interest for holding your money
for 6 months - What's the going interest rate on CD's at right now?

As straight forward as it seems to you Nancy, I would contact this
person in their refunds department to ask why he needs a copy of the
entire back statement. I would further request why you would not be
able to give him an edited version, without the personal information
he is not entitled to.

As long as this is an overpayment or credit, it seems pretty direct
that you are entitled to a refund. I would not get greedy, however,
and request "restitution" for YOUR mistake.

Ultimately, after you document your requests well enough, I wouldn't
hesitate filing within a small claims court for a refund. I would
think most judges would agree you are entitled and include the court
filing costs within any monies awarded.

It can be very difficult to get money back that a company owes you.
Fortunately, I no longer work, so I have virtually unlimited time to
sit on the phone. Nonetheless, it can take many hours and several
calls to get satisfaction. So, I can believe this happened to you. I
have also been asked to submit my bank statement, and you can believe
I did since I wanted my money back. It can all be so frustrating.

What I have found to work extremely well is the BBB. Two times in a
row, I have had non-member companies respond quickly and positively to
complaints. I see a lot of people pooh-poohing using them, but all I
can say is people started jumping immediately when I contacted them.
Maybe it is when you are dealing with a member company that the
problems arise.

Good luck. You just have to keep trying and find the right road to
pursue.

If I've read your letter and responses correctly:
-you paid online and forgot the decimal, paying Sprint $4346.00
instead of $43.46
-Sprint credited the $4346.00 to your Sprint account, acknowledging
that you overpaid by over $4300
-Sprint knows they owe you this money, but they refuse to put it back
in your account or cut you a check

I overpaid DirecTV by $18.00 when I cancelled my account, and it took
them 6 months to send me the check. I found that aggravating, I can't
imagine how mad I'd be if they had thousands of dollars of mine. As
long as Sprint has already acknowledged that you did indeed over pay
them that amount, they should expedite the money back to you, with or
without the bank statement.

Good luck recovering your money. I know I'm going to be a lot more
careful paying online after reading this letter!!

Nancy K.,
You have a good point.
However, they probably know more about you than you think at this
point so the Bank Statement probably would be no big deal.
Is there an office that you could physically walk into and show the
statement to without loosing control of it?
What does your personal banker have to say?
Good luck and do drop back and tell us how this shakes out.
Bill R.

A. They acknowledge that you paid them $4346.00 and B. They have
received multiple statements from your bank that your account WAS
debited $4346.00. I agree with you. There is NO logical reason that
they would need to see your entire bank statement. They know you paid
it, they know it came out of your account. You're right, they have no
business knowing what else you spent your money on that month. I can't
believe that they're doing this. Why would an entire statement prove
anything that a statement form the bank showing that specific debit
doesn't prove? I think it's complete bull. Good luck to you.

Why don't you submit you bank statement. If this really happened, then
you shouldn't have any problem proving it. Sprint needs the bank
statement to verify that the incident happened. Sprint is not going to
just believe you and hand you $4,300!

Harleycat is 100% correct - - how much did they credit your account at
the time of the overpayment? You are going to have to show Sprint some
sort of proof that you overpaid by $4,302.54 as they aren't just going
to cut you a check based on your word.

I find it a little odd that this happened five months ago and you have
been sitting around with over $4,300 floating around somewhere ever
since. And I don't feel that you are due any "restitution" as you
made the original error and it is your responsibility to get it
corrected.

Did they credit it as $4346.00 or $43.46? If it's $43.46, you will
need to submit some form of proof, they can't just take your word for
it and send you $4300.