Get Out of Sprint Free 153
hyades1 writes in to let us know that Sprint has extended to Jan. 31 the time in which subscribers can switch carriers without paying an early termination fee. "Last month we learned that Sprint was increasing its administrative fee to $0.75, giving customers until January 1 of this year to back out without a penalty. It seems that $0.75 wasn't going to cut it as Sprint has raised its fee yet again, this time to $0.99. Customers now have through January 31 to sever ties sans-ETF, so if you missed the boat last month you're in luck. Though some customer care reps apparently aren't yet aware of the change, we did confirm it with Sprint so keep trying and as always, contacting them via chat seems to go a bit more smoothly than calling them up."
Re:Is this really what passes for news? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is there a way to get this with Alltel? (Score:5, Informative)
Do any of you know of a way to escape contract with Alltel without paying the early termination fee? I'm sick of the 5-7 day delay in getting my voicemail messages! ):
Claim they're breaking the contract by not providing you with service. You're paying them to deliver messages in a timely manner, not take messages like shithead roommates.
Re:Is there a way to get this with Alltel? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wish tmobile would offer the same (Score:3, Informative)
Or buy a cheap replacement phone off Ebay and then wait until your contract is up.
Re:Is there a way to get this with Alltel? (Score:3, Informative)
Alltell is being bought out by Verizon, so perhaps that will resolve your problem (and if they're changing fees, it may give you an excuse to bounce). However I've had Verizon's cellular service for over a decade now and have never had the VM issues you describe, so it may be worth just waiting it out. I'd recommend checking howardforums.com as it's one of the best cellular forums on the net.
Re:Is there a way to get this with Alltel? (Score:5, Informative)
Thank you for that information!
I found the FCC's Electronic Consumer Complaint [fcc.gov] site and I guess we will see how it goes.
Again, thank you (at least now there is some hope) (!)
Re:wish tmobile would offer the same (Score:4, Informative)
Re:CDMA (Score:1, Informative)
The reason my company choose sprint was due to price. And the main factor in the billing between them and the competition (AT&T, Verizon, etc) was the data lines. Most of our phones are are PDAs and with Sprint the most basic unlimited data line is $10 a month per line. No one came close. The cheapest AT&T and Verizon could do was 50-60 per month per line.
Personally I don't like Sprint (mainly due to coverage) and I tried my best to get the price so we could switch, but sadly it came down to price.
My Experience (Score:5, Informative)
The same thing happen about a year ago with international messaging rate hike. I called to cancel my plan but the rep. tried to argue that it doesn't constitute a "material change" to the contract. Seriously? Anyways, after threatening to call the California Public Utilities Commission failed, I actually called the California PUC. The PUC rep. told me that before I file a complaint, I should speak to their executive accounts customer service people so he transferred me over to their number. Some Sprint person picked up and was about to redirect me to retentions again but I told him very clearly that I've been forwarded by the PUC and am about to file a complaint. At that point, he actually forwarded me to their executive accounts people. I spoke to the lady and laid out my argument by reading the back of my bill, which contains the terms, along with the notice of the rate change. She put me on hold for a few minutes to check some stuff over and agreed with me. She even went so far as to put my account on hold and save my number so it can be ported to a new carrier. I switched to Virgin, who ironically is on the Sprint network, but having no contracts is awesome.
Hope that helps anyone trying to leave Sprint. Don't let the retention rep scare you. If you have something like a PUC backing you up, use it! Know your rights.
Re:I thought ETFs were going away? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ETF is only 99 cents? (Score:5, Informative)
But it does add up. That's 99 cents per month, or $12 per year, which granted isn't much. But when you add an "FCC" fee, "communications" fee, "we got sued by somebody and are passing the legal expenses onto our customers" fee, and the "just for the heck of it because we can" fee every month, you can be looking at a pretty hefty bill.
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Informative)
This applies to any contract. Regardless of what is written in the agreement, no party to a contract may make a material change to an agreement after the fact without the other parties (possibly implied) consent. A material change is any change impacting the substance of the agreement - ie it might have impacted your decision to enter into the agreement in the first place. Money of any kind is almost always considered material. Maybe if we're talking a 50 cent error in a $100M real estate deal it might not be - but nobody would even bother to try to extract an extra 50 cents on such a deal anyway.
Is your credit card company raising interest rates (outside of the variable terms already set forth)? Just tell them no. They can choose to close your account, but you can pay off the remaining balance under the original terms. Or, they could choose to continue under the original terms (which is fair).
Anything to the contrary in any contract you sign of any kind simply isn't enforcable. Any court would throw out terms allowing unilateral changes after the fact. They might be able to imply consent if they clearly warn you of the changes and then give you a reasonable time and reasonable means to inform them of your intent to not accept the change.
Disclaimer, IANAL...
Re:how does this work? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wish tmobile would offer the same (Score:4, Informative)
Why get a replacement at all?
Just scrap the GSM phone.
When you are around the computer use voip... if not, well, people can send you an email!
And, use the free time you just got with all those useless calls to get a nice warm cup of *whatever*, and relax...
Re:wish tmobile would offer the same (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. These days, even if you've exhausted your contract and have gone monthly, they don't care about retention. At least, AT&T doesn't.
Re:wish tmobile would offer the same (Score:4, Informative)
Sprint will, or at least they used to. Last time around I got them to take a percentage off the top of the bill every month.
Re:I thought ETFs were going away? (Score:3, Informative)
Just to let everyone know, you can also port your number without ETF within Sprint (ie: Sprint -> Boost Mobile). Boost Mobile doesn't have contracts... *hint* *hint*
- John