Almitra Buzan, and her husband Robert, made a visit to a Sprint store in Missouri due to a Wi-Fi disconnection on her cellphone. Almitra got connected to a racist instead.
After the couple left, a repair technician accidentally gave her phone number to the next customer who wound up texting Almitra a slew of violent racial threats.
“This man sent texts that were violent and racist,” she told The Kansas City Star this week, while holding back tears. “All of this tells me this is a really serious situation, and it makes me fear for my safety.”
To make matters worse, the violent racial threats appeared to be coming from her phone.
“How’s this coming from my phone” Almitra told KCTV. “My phone’s in my hands.”
Out to dinner on the last night of June, Almitra’s mother was home watching their kids and texted her and her husband in a group chat about how she had fallen while playing a game with the kids.
The text, read “I am glad Will & Jenni-Ri are here. They helped me up. That was a shock to my system!”
The husband received the text but Almitra’s phone still wasn’t working. Then the group chat received another text, seemingly sent by Almitra that alarmed them all.
“Well f*ck that little c*nt Jenni I’ll make sure I whoop her little a** real good ok granny Will that make you feel better”
Her husband called his mother-in-law, Maat, to notify her that his wife did not say that. Soon came even more vulgar and racially offensive texts from this unknown person.
“Tell Rob I said to suck a dead N**ger’s d*ck.”
“Initially, we thought it was someone who worked at the store who had seen us and that was really scary,” Almitra told KSHB. “We were just shocked and confused.”
The couple went into the Sprint store to remedy the situation.
A spokeswoman for Sprint, Lisa Belot, issued the following statement:
“In order to protect their privacy, we do not typically disclose details of customer accounts. However, I can confirm that the Sprint Care team has been in contact with Ms. Buzan to address this issue.
“The error was caused by a third-party repair technician and we have taken corrective steps to ensure Ms. Buzan and others on her account do not receive erroneous messages. We have apologized to Ms. Buzan and offered credits and services as well.”
The Buzans told Sprint they wanted one year of free service, new cell phones and an identity theft protection plan, which was suggested to them by the local police, however the counter-offer was much lower.
Richard Layne, a Sprint executive informed the couple the best he could do was to pay off the $532 balance on their bill and make them eligible for upgrades.
The couple didn’t feel this was enough to compensate them for what they had gone through. Almitra describes the incident as leaving an “emotional scar” and a “disruption to their lives”
Sprint claims the package was adequate, however when the couple tried to accept it, they were told the matter was still under review by the company’s legal department.
