April 16, 2014
Sprint Calls Customer 'Gay Sissyboy' in Email
Jason St. Amand READ TIME: 2 MIN.
A straight married man from Chicago says he received an email from phone company Sprint that addressed him as a "gay sissyboy," NBC-affiliated station nbcchicago.com reports.
Kelvin Mathews says he received an email from Sprint addressed to "Sissyboy Kelvin Gay Matthews" after he called for assistance from customer service.
"I gave [the representative] my email address, and that's the email they sent me," Mathews told NBC Chicago. He said he called Sprint on Sunday because he was receiving messages from another account he thought he closed.
When he spoke to a customer service representative about the problem he was having, he was told to check the status of his phone and of his online account. Mathews said he couldn't recall the account's login information and the rep told him he'd send him an email with instructions.
When Mathew checked his inbox, he saw the email was addressed to "Sissyboy Kelvin Gay Matthews."
"I expressed my concerns to them and how serious this is to me and my wife," he told the news station. "I don't live a homosexual life, I never gave Sprint anything to go on and think that, and even if I did I don't think it would be fair to say this on my account."
Sprint has launched an investigation into the incident but acknowledged the error. According to a spokesperson for the phone company, employees are able to change the salutations on automated emails.
"We have apologized to Mr. Mathews and deeply regret what happened over the weekend," the company said in a statement. "Mr. Mathews should never have received this email from our representative. We have dealt with that employee appropriately."
Mathews said that a Sprint representative contacted him Monday to apologize. The rep said Mathew's account would be closed with no early termination fees and agreed for Mathews to open a new business account with an iPhone with two months of free service. Mathews has yet to accept the offer, however.
"To have this email is a form of degrading someone and I think people need to know about it," he told NBC Chicago. "They're not treating customers like they should."
