Some days I really miss Sprint—4g unrestricted speed and quality service in remote areas. But a recent interaction reminded me of some of the reasons I left them for T-Mobile.

It all started when  I logged in to Sprint under an acquaintance’s account to make a credit card payment on their behalf.  Adding a credit card was very straight forward. I logged in went to “make payment”, clicked on “Add a card”, inserted the card number, expiration date, security code and zip code.  Clicked continue and then wala! I submitted the payment.

Then I tried to remove the credit card that I added. That is where the trouble began. I spent several minutes looking for the button to “remove” the credit card I added but could not find it anywhere. I finally gave up and initiated an online chat session with a Sprint “specialist” (*giggle*).

I asked the obvious question, “How do I remove a credit card from the payment options” and Bruce C., the specialist said, “I will submit the request to remove the credit card’s information from your account. …” He proceeded to ask me for the last four-digits of the credit card and the credit card holder’s name.  I thought asking for the card holders name when I was removing the credit card was strange, particularly because they did not ask for it when I added the credit card.

I assumed Bruce C. was going to provide me with instructions or a link to the page I needed to go to remove the credit card. I soon discovered that Sprint does not allow customers to remove credit cards from their own account. I thought that was bizarre and so I wanted to find out more.

Bruce C: I am creating the case to remove the credit card’s information.
Bruce C: It takes some time.
Bruce C: Once I am done, I will inform you.
You: oh. You mean it is something i can NOT do on my own?
Bruce C: No. Due to security reasons, it can’t be done online.
You: Thats odd. I can ADD but CAN’T remove?

What was even more bizarre is that Bruce C. the “specialist” initially cited security reasons as the reason why customers are not allowed to remove credit cards from their payment options. As you probably can imagine, I wanted to know more and so I continued, “What security reasons exist that make it necessary to prevent people from REMOVING credit card’s from their accounts? “

I have had online support people leave sessions before completing what I was chatting with them for so I waited until I received my case id and then I probed further. It took a several minutes, but I finally got Bruce to talk a little bit more about the “security reasons”.  Interestingly, he recanted the initial claim and changed the story.

You: Great thanks. Now can you kindly answer my other question: What are the “security” reasons for NOT allowing customers to remove credit card information from online?
Bruce C: This feature is not available online.
Bruce C: This is the reason, cust needs to contact us to get this information removed.
Bruce C: I have discussed this concern with my supervisor as well.
You: Okay. I understand the customer has to contact you. But that is not my question. My question is what are the “security” concerns
Bruce C: There is no “security” concerns .
Bruce C: Please disregard that statement.
Bruce C: I am sorry for the confusion.

As the excerpt above shows he had not answered my question yet. When I asked again, he said the reason for not including a “remove” button then became, “nobody suggested that”. At that point all I could do was laugh. After a few more minutes of chatting on the topic Bruce C. suggested that I contact the Sprint finance department 800-808-1336.

In my head I was saying, “you have to be kidding me Bruce C.! grrrrr”. That came out in the chat as, “*giggle*, really Bruce? That is the reason? Or are you not really sure?”

He responded by saying, “And we are here to remove the credit/debit card information from here”.  He also said that the reason customers are not allowed to remove credit cards from their accounts is because if some generous person logged into your account added a credit card and made a payment and then removed the credit card, you would not know who did it. #YouCantMakeThisStuffUp!

He then reminded me that I could contact the finance department and talk to them. I would contact the finance team, but I know they can’t come up with an reason good enough to convince me that it is okay to make it impossible to remove a credit card from an e-commerce account without dealing with a human.

All of the e-commerce sites that I have ever used (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Paypal) give me an easy way to immediately add/remove a credit card #GoFigure. Sprint on the other hand forces me engage with a person and then wait between seven and ten business days for the credit card to be removed.

Maybe I’m missing something. If I am somebody please help me understand!

It is situations like this that make me glad I switched to T-Mobile & that the T-Mobile/Sprint merger will probably not be approved.