My father had an interesting story about what happened to him this past weekend after making an electronic payment of $49.99 USD to Sprint for his cellphone bill. When he checked his checking account, he owed the bank $23,000 USD for covering a $49,990 USD overdraft by Sprint. He jawbones Sprint to get his money back. Now he’s arguing with the bank over a $30 USD overdraft charge for the regular phone bill that came in while his checking account was in the red. Bad enough that Sprint misplaced a decimal point, but why did the bank accept such an outrageous amount in the first place?

Updated 29 February 2007: Sprint still wants $49,990 USD from my father’s checking account by charging him for a second time. After another jawboning phone call where he got put on hold for a short 47 minutes before getting his money back, the bank was kind enough to let my father put a stop payment on the electronic payment without charging him for it. No wonder The New York Times is reporting that Sprint posted a $29.5 billion lost for the quarter. Senior citizens like my father won’t let them keep the extra change. The only reason why I don’t have problems with my Sprint account is that I still write paper checks for the utilities.