Sprint Customer's Number Gets Ported Without Authorization; Email To Executives Gets It Back – Consumerist Whoops! It looks like portions of our site are being blocked! Check your browser settings or contact your network administrator. Sprint Customer's Number Gets Ported Without Authorization; Email To Executives Gets It Back × Welcome to the Consumerist Archives Thanks for visiting Consumerist.com. As of October 2017, Consumerist is no longer producing new content, but feel free to browse through our archives. Here you can find 12 years worth of articles on everything from how to avoid dodgy scams to writing an effective complaint letter. Check out some of our greatest hits below, explore the categories listed on the left-hand side of the page, or head to CR.org for ratings, reviews, and consumer news. sprint Sprint Customer's Number Gets Ported Without Authorization; Email To Executives Gets It Back 4.19.08 2:17 AM EDT By cwalters sprint customer service happy endings porting eecb follow up good news mistakes Robb spent almost two and half hours with Sprint CSRs trying to find out why his phone had stopped working, and eventually he was told that it had been ported to AT&T, and that it would “take 4-5 days to try and get this number back if at all.” Fortunately, he was able to send the following email directly to their executives and got the matter cleared up the next day. Imagine my surprise today when I was unable to contact my pregnant wife utilizing my Sprint cell phone. I immediately called customer service when unable to make calls and spent a total of 145 minutes trying to resolve the problem. Along the way my call was misrouted to the wrong billing system (whatever that means), I was transferred to afterhours numbers, I was hung up on, I talked to three reps who had no grasp of the English language and one who insisted it was an equipment issue even when I told her it had been established that somehow my number had been ported without my consent or confirmation. You can only guess how much fun it is to have someone demand to troubleshoot an problem when it had already been done and demands to do it all over again only to have your call routed the wrong way again. Imagine being recently unemployed leaving applications for work across the last week with a number which is suddenly “dead”. Better yet imagine the problem if my wife went into labor or had an accident and had no way of contacting me because for 4 hours my phone was dead except for some random California number was assigned to my account (I live in Oregon). After I was finally handed off to Operator #77303 she did some checking, my number had been indeed ported out to AT&T to no one in particular it was just there. She informed me that not only would it take 4-5 days to try and get this number back if at all. She wouldn’t even try and answer me when I asked what would happen if AT&T was to use my number. She gave me a “temporary” number which would be great except for the potential job prospects which no longer have my number. The fact this can happen at no worse time seems to be my luck, the fact my contract was just renewed is ironic as I had read Mr. Hesse was going to turn things around and make Sprint a company that takes care of business- I actually believed what I read. The fact that my number could be taken away in an instant but won’t return for a week (if even at all) is disturbing. I would appreciate it if someone would contact me and restore my faith in my decision to remain solely a Sprint customer and hopefully return my limbo ported number back to me safe and sound. It’s not the end of the world but when all the events fall into place like they have for me it falls very close. Thank you for your time Robert Today we received this follow up email from Robb: Well this morning I was contacted by the executive office and basically within the hour my old number was back and functioning. They had no clue why it had been ported other than possibly someone entered another number wrong. If it wasn’t for my executive email contacts gleaned from you site I would probably be still waiting days later. Your site has made me a happy man, I can only hope someone else with similar problems is helped down the line to cut through the red tape! Many Thanks! Robert Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues. 4.19.08By cwalters sprint customer service happy endings porting eecb follow up good news mistakes Related harder than it should be Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Owners Report Phone Exchange Program Not Going So Well well now what What’s Going Wrong With Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Exchanges — And What You Can Do sprint math Family Switches To Sprint To Get Bill Cut In Half, Ends Up With Bill For $3,800 sprint error in your favor Sprint Accidentally Credits $139,000 To Customer’s Account so over overages Some Verizon Customers Say They Aren’t Getting Data Overage Alerts Anymore Previous Why Is Progressive Using "Recent Military Service" To Determine Rates And Eligibility? 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