Some Sprint Customers Don’t Get No Satisfaction

Fans were screaming in the upper reaches of Jack Kent Cooke Stadium at the Rolling Stones concert here recently, but it wasn’t for Mick and Keith. They were irate about the awful seats they got from the show’s sponsor, Sprint Corp.

Sprint offered new customers nationwide “a special privilege.” An Aug. 18 news release promised, “Sprint customers will be granted special access to the front of the line for a shot at buying some of the best tickets in the house for Rolling Stones concerts.”

That sounded great to Janet Payne, a die-hard Rolling Stones fan in Fredericksburg, Va. After she called to change her long-distance service to Sprint, the company put her through to Ticketmaster for Stones tickets, days before they went on sale.

She asked for the best seats available and agreed to pay $60 apiece - the top rate - for tickets that, she was told, were in the 22nd row. When she got to the stadium, “They kept directing me up, up, up to the very top of the stadium.”

Payne said she ended up in the 22nd row - but in Section 454, along with about 40 other “furious” new Sprint customers. She was so high up, she said, “the Rolling Stones looked like little stick figures.”