So here is an interesting scenario. This isn't really a story about a sucky customer but a sucky situation for two customers.
Short Background: I work for a prepaid cellular phone service provider. We use CDMA phones which uses ESN's instead of SIM cards for identification of the phones. In order to activate a phone we assign the Phone number to a specific ESN. Now in theory every CDMA phone on the market should have a unique ESN. This is an 11 digit number that follows a few rules because the computer stores it in a hexidecimal format. Computer techs know what i mean, and possibly some people who do some more advanced maths, but sufficing to say in theory each and every phone on the market should have a unique ESN.
Now, I say in theory. Every once in a great while an ESN gets duplicated and put on to two different phones. This is a rare enough occurrence that in 6 years of working in this industry I have only ever seen it personally happen 3 times across many hundreds of thousands of transactions.
So, I am dealing now with an issue that has taken place over the course of the last 3 days. We have been made aware of an issue where an ESN has been duplicated. One of the phones belongs to an active account in New York, the other belongs to an active account in Ohio.
Now comes the monkey wrenches:
1: The New York account has been active longer by a whole 1 month.
2: The Ohio account has had his phone longer. The New York account just got his 2 months ago as a result of purchasing a replacement phone, reasons at this point are unknown to me AFAIK he just wanted a different phone.
3: 4 days ago the OH account owner called to find out why his phone was not working. Well, the ESN had been changed over to a NY phone number. He of course never authorized this. So, the CSR changed the ESN back to his phone number and placed the NY account on a dummy ESN that we have on a phone in house.
Of course the NY account owner called back the next day to find out why his phone was not working. He ended up being transfered to a supervisor because the CSR taking his call rightly told him that we could not turn his phone back on and offered to send him a warranty replacement because his phone is under warranty.
4: The phone in OH is not under warranty, the customer has had the phone for about 3 years. The phone in NY is under warranty as it was just sold within the last 2 months.
So this is where I come in. The supervisor went ahead and reactivated the NY account and opened a ticket to have the warranty replacement processed which I have done and set up the phone to be shipped. In the meanwhile the owner of the OH account called again to find out why his phone was not on. The CSR who took the call turned his account back on thus turning the account in NY back off.
Today I fielded a call from the customer in NY. This was through our regular customer service line. IE as far as the customer knows I am just a regular grunt. In actuality I have authority on par with a supervisor in this case because the issue is one of a warranty claim now
Now he explained his situation to me and as soon as he mentioned New York and Duplicate ESN I knew who he was. He said he was told that if his line got deactivated again to just call us back and we would turn it back on. There are notes on his account showing this. There are also notes on the OH account to the same effect.
I told him I would not turn his account back on for the following reasons:
1: To turn his account back on, I would be turning off the account of another paying customer.
2: In order for this cycle to stop someone has to be told no we will not turn your account back on. I'm sorry to say I'm making the decision of it being the NY account because we have already warrantied your phone. The owner of the OH account does not have a warranty on his phone thus we are unable to extend the same courtesy to him as we are to the NY account.
3: Sorry, luck of the draw in this case to. This issue will continue.
I posed the question to the NY customer of "What do I do when the OH account owner calls me back? Tell him I can't turn his phone back on?" Ultimately until the warranty claim gets processed one of these two customers has to be without service. Since the claim got in after 4pm on friday the actual shipment will not occur until Monday. Shipping to NY is 1 to 2 business days for us so the NY customer will be without service until At least Wednesday at the latest.
He of course screamed and yelled and pissed and moaned to speak with a supervisor. Since in this situation I have some authority I put my foot down and said no. He ended up hanging up on me. I have not yet heard from anyone on this issue on whether or not he has complained, but so far no one has turned his account back on yet.
I left detailed notes on the account saying not to turn it back on until the warranty replacement has been received.
So the question I have is, what would you do and or what do you think?
Short Background: I work for a prepaid cellular phone service provider. We use CDMA phones which uses ESN's instead of SIM cards for identification of the phones. In order to activate a phone we assign the Phone number to a specific ESN. Now in theory every CDMA phone on the market should have a unique ESN. This is an 11 digit number that follows a few rules because the computer stores it in a hexidecimal format. Computer techs know what i mean, and possibly some people who do some more advanced maths, but sufficing to say in theory each and every phone on the market should have a unique ESN.
Now, I say in theory. Every once in a great while an ESN gets duplicated and put on to two different phones. This is a rare enough occurrence that in 6 years of working in this industry I have only ever seen it personally happen 3 times across many hundreds of thousands of transactions.
So, I am dealing now with an issue that has taken place over the course of the last 3 days. We have been made aware of an issue where an ESN has been duplicated. One of the phones belongs to an active account in New York, the other belongs to an active account in Ohio.
Now comes the monkey wrenches:
1: The New York account has been active longer by a whole 1 month.
2: The Ohio account has had his phone longer. The New York account just got his 2 months ago as a result of purchasing a replacement phone, reasons at this point are unknown to me AFAIK he just wanted a different phone.
3: 4 days ago the OH account owner called to find out why his phone was not working. Well, the ESN had been changed over to a NY phone number. He of course never authorized this. So, the CSR changed the ESN back to his phone number and placed the NY account on a dummy ESN that we have on a phone in house.
Of course the NY account owner called back the next day to find out why his phone was not working. He ended up being transfered to a supervisor because the CSR taking his call rightly told him that we could not turn his phone back on and offered to send him a warranty replacement because his phone is under warranty.
4: The phone in OH is not under warranty, the customer has had the phone for about 3 years. The phone in NY is under warranty as it was just sold within the last 2 months.
So this is where I come in. The supervisor went ahead and reactivated the NY account and opened a ticket to have the warranty replacement processed which I have done and set up the phone to be shipped. In the meanwhile the owner of the OH account called again to find out why his phone was not on. The CSR who took the call turned his account back on thus turning the account in NY back off.
Today I fielded a call from the customer in NY. This was through our regular customer service line. IE as far as the customer knows I am just a regular grunt. In actuality I have authority on par with a supervisor in this case because the issue is one of a warranty claim now
Now he explained his situation to me and as soon as he mentioned New York and Duplicate ESN I knew who he was. He said he was told that if his line got deactivated again to just call us back and we would turn it back on. There are notes on his account showing this. There are also notes on the OH account to the same effect.
I told him I would not turn his account back on for the following reasons:
1: To turn his account back on, I would be turning off the account of another paying customer.
2: In order for this cycle to stop someone has to be told no we will not turn your account back on. I'm sorry to say I'm making the decision of it being the NY account because we have already warrantied your phone. The owner of the OH account does not have a warranty on his phone thus we are unable to extend the same courtesy to him as we are to the NY account.
3: Sorry, luck of the draw in this case to. This issue will continue.
I posed the question to the NY customer of "What do I do when the OH account owner calls me back? Tell him I can't turn his phone back on?" Ultimately until the warranty claim gets processed one of these two customers has to be without service. Since the claim got in after 4pm on friday the actual shipment will not occur until Monday. Shipping to NY is 1 to 2 business days for us so the NY customer will be without service until At least Wednesday at the latest.
He of course screamed and yelled and pissed and moaned to speak with a supervisor. Since in this situation I have some authority I put my foot down and said no. He ended up hanging up on me. I have not yet heard from anyone on this issue on whether or not he has complained, but so far no one has turned his account back on yet.
I left detailed notes on the account saying not to turn it back on until the warranty replacement has been received.
So the question I have is, what would you do and or what do you think?
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