Antioch couple charged for 'free' Sprint phone upgrade

ANTIOCH, Calif. (KGO) -- The promise of a free phone upgrade didn't work out as planned for an Antioch man.

No matter how hard he tried, this man just couldn't connect with the customer service reps to get the matter resolved.

Stephen McLennan wanted to upgrade both his phone and his wife's phone.

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The couple is on Sprint's Flex plan. The plan allows them to upgrade their phone each year at no charge.

"That's what we've usually done. In this case, it didn't happen that way," said McLennan.

Stephen ended up getting billed for one of the two phones he upgraded.

"They said it's because I purchased the phone. I'm trying to let them know it's not what I was trying to do. I didn't purchase the phone," he said.

Stephen escalated his complaint to a supervisor who promised to remove the $300 charge.

But one week later, the charge had not been removed.

"This is when we start going crazy because we're trying to figure out why you charged us and two, why is it on our bill."

Sprint told him it needed the old phones back before the bill could be corrected.

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But the phones couldn't be returned until Sprint sent him the shipping labels and packaging.

That finally all happened, but the charge remained.

Stephen says it quickly went downhill from there when his wife tried to make a call.

My wife went to go use it and she's like, 'Steve, our phone are off. What do you mean our phones are off?'"

Stephen said his phones had been shut off because their account was delinquent.

The couple immediately paid their bill to get their phones back on expecting a refund later.

When that still didn't happen, that's when they called 7 On Your Side and we called Sprint.

"So I contact you guys and within days, they contact me back. Letting me know they found the problem, fixed the problem, refunded everything. We don't owe anything."

We reached out to Sprint for comments several times, but the company did not get back to us.

Click here for a look at more stories by Michael Finney and 7 On Your Side.