Cell phone company accused of taking money from dead woman

CHIPLEY — A Caryville woman claims Cricket Wireless is still collecting payments on her sister’s cell phone account after her sister died.

Sherry Bryant has been a Cricket Wireless customer for eight years but now, she said she wants nothing to do with the company.

Bryant’s twin sister Shelley, who was also a Cricket customer, died two months ago. Shelley authorized Cricket to automatically withdraw monthly payments from her checking account.

Shelley died on August 6 and Cricket withdrew a payment on August 10. A second payment was taken out on September 13.

“Her bank account is now in the hole which can’t be closed because the money has to be put back in the bank account before it can be closed, the bank can’t stop the recurring payments because the contract is with cricket wireless,” Bryant said.

To complicate matters, Bryant said Shelley lost her phone in June and the account somehow ended up with a different name and new password.

Bryant said Cricket wouldn’t allow them to get a new phone, so she added Shelley to her account. However, Bryant claims Cricket continued to charge Shelley’s bank account despite the unexplained account changes.

“Cricket Wireless refuses to do anything to help me stop the recurring payments,” Bryant said. “They ask for her PIN when I give it to them they tell me it doesn’t work, and the security question won’t work and there’s nothing they can do to stop the recurring payments.”

She claims the Cricket store in Chipley tells her to call corporate, and then corporate tells her to go to her local store.

“I have physically went to the bank to try to close the account, I have taken her death certificate to the Cricket store in Chipley and I just can’t get any help from either their cricket customer service or their corporate office or the store in Chipley,” Bryant said.

Bryant claims the Cricket store manager refuses to help her.

“She has threatened to have the Sheriff’s department physically remove me from her store, has banned me from her store, both the last two times I’ve gone there Monday and in September she’s told me that she refused to help me and that she would have me removed from her store,” Bryant said.

At this point, Bryant said it is not about the money. She said she just wants to be finished with Cricket.

“Eventually I can pay off that bank account and close it, but there will be another recurring payment coming from cricket on the 10th and that’s what I’m trying to stop — having another payment come out of that account,” Bryant said.

The Cricket store in Chipley declined to give an interview on the issue on Wednesday.