ARGGGGHHHH!!!!

Well, my previously pleasant and relaxing day has been blown out of the water. We picked up the mail around 5:30 only to find a Sprint bill. I was a bit curious because we cancelled our Sprint service last month, so I opened it right away. There was a $200.00 Early Termination Fee!!! Sprint contacted us last year and said that our contract had expired, but if we'd renew for one more year, they'd give Arthur a new phone for free. He told the guy that he'd had some bad reception and was considering switching phone companies. The guy said that the new phone should get better reception, so Arthur agreed to renew the contract for a year. When we received the next bill, they had charged him for the phone, and it was very expensive. He called them and told him that he'd agreed to a one year contract extension in exchange for the free phone. The woman said she'd take it off right away, although we were still charged for shipping, activation fees, and such.
Fast forward to this year. We still weren't pleased with the service, so we decided to switch companies. Before we got the new phones, Arthur contacted the company to find out the exact date and time that the contract expired. They told him that it would expire on August 27th at noon. No year was specified, so we naturally assumed that that meant this August (it was not yet August when he called), since it had been nearly a year since we renewed. We waited until the evening of the 27th to get our new phones, so I was sure we were not in violation of the contract. After receiving the bill, I called customer service. Between the two of us, we spent over an hour on the phone with Customer Service. They said there was nothing that they could do. According to their records Arthur made a verbal agreement with the sales rep to a renewed 2-year contract. He kept telling her that he'd agreed to a one year contract, but she insisted that their records showed a two-year contract. She said that when the woman took the charges away for the new phone, she marked him down as having agreed to a two-year contract. This is such a mess. After over an hour on the phone, absolutely nothing was resolved. The woman refused to acknowlege the possibility that the woman Arthur talked to could have misunderstood or written down the wrong thing, let alone that she could have neglected to inform us that the agreement required a two-year contract.
I've spent the rest of the evening online researching our options for resolving this, because I am NOT paying $200.00 for something we never agreed to. I looked Sprint up on the Better Business Bureau website, and they've had 31,323 complaints about Sprint in the past 36 months! For comparison sake, US Cellular has only had 1213 complaints in the past 36 months. I got an e-mail addy that the BBB recommended customers contact if they want to contact Sprint about a problem. I e-mailed that address and told them the issue and let them know that if I was not contacted with a resolution by Wednesday, I'd be reporting them to the BBB, FTC, State Attny. Gen., and state Public Service Commission. From what I read online, others who contacted those agencies received a call from Sprint resolving the issue. Apparently, many others have had their contracts renewed without their consent. I found a whole web forum devoted to people who'd been ripped off by Sprint. From now on, I look up EVERYONE I do business with on BBB.org. In the meantime, please pray that this will be resolved soon. I don't want to mess up our credit, but neither do I want to pay for fraudulent services.
On a brighter note, we kept our sweet little nephew today. We took him with us to Bass Pro. He loved the great big fish. We really enjoyed having him.

I'm baaaaaaack!

Obviously, it's late, so I don't have much time, but I wanted to post just to let everyone know that I am still alive. We finally got a new computer, so I'm going to post a quick pic or three just because. :-) I'll try to post more frequently now that it will be easier.

The first pic is of Arthur with my cousin's baby, Megan. The next two are pictures taken on our 1st anniversary by my very talented cousin, Crystal. Arthur grudgingly agreed to dress up and go to the park to take the pictures. Hehe, it was a little embarrassing because everyone that drove by honked, but it was fun too, and I thought the pictures turned out great! Thanks, Crystal!
Hopefully more posts will come soon!