Sprint's Insecurity and Non-Privacy policies

This is just an informational post rather than a rant about Sprint's world-beatingly bad customer service....

Earlier this evening I received an email at my SptintPCS email address. I immediately noticed it since it was the first email of the year for the account. What I found was a note welcoming me as a Sprint customer (I became one in 2001) and confirming account details. I feared a phishing attempt but allowed for the possibility that Sprint was doing something nice for customers, so I read the message.

It began "Dear Randale". Since that's not my name I was puzzled. Phishers usually do better. But sure enough, it seemed to be a legitimate welcome message, what with the warnings about early termination penalties and whatnot.

The stunner followed the unsigned closing: the account holder's name, account number, Sprint phone number and account passcode. In other words, I had received an email providing unfettered access to another customer's account.

I kid not; see the first attached image which contains the entire email (with portions blurred to protect the innocent).

Then the real funny stuff starts. See the second attachment for Sprint's assertion about how much that care about privacy. It makes a great segue to the third attachment which shows where that link leads! :browani:

[At the end of the email is another privacy link which does, in fact, lead to the privacy statement.]

I called Sprint to explain the error and encouraged them to notify the account holder identified in the email so that s/he may reset the account passcode. The barely intelligible customer "service" rep was reluctant to do anything at all. I finally got her to agree to notify her superior about the incident, and I called the phone number in the email and advised directly what had happened. Geesh!

[Fyi, I suspect that Sprint may not have done anything untoward, but rather the accountholder may simply have entered my email address rather than his/her own. But When advised of such a breach, I would expect a far, far more vigorous reaaction from any organization. Once again, shame on Sprint!]