Sprint Cancels Difficult Customers' Contracts
I got a Sprint Letter last year
Last year Sprint notified me by letter that I had 30 days to find a new provider. It was a real inconvenience for us and we did not have a land line and had four lines on the family plan. We had a line for each family member. As a result, we had to get four new phone numbers. The reason they cancelled us was not because we weren't paying our bill. The full amount was always paid on time. We were cancelled because we roamed too much! We had two boys in college and my husband traveled frequently for business. They sold us free roaming and we had a large package, but free roaming isn't really free roaming if you roam alot.
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It's free because you didn't get charged for it. Doesn't mean they have to keep letting you do it! And how come you couldn't port the numbers?
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We were from a small town and had never heard of this happening before. I know it sounds stupid, but we were afraid if we ported the numbers, Sprint was going to tell our new provider, don't contract with these people, they are all over the country. Stupid huh?
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Ahhh wish you coulda posted here last year. What carrier did you end up going with?
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We went with Verizon. The real pain occurred at no fault of the cell phone company. My husband received a great job offer after all of this. After 50 years in Illinois, we moved to New Mexico. In 2006, our family of four has had twelve phone numbers. A real inconvenience but the last four were by choice.
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This is unfortunate, I agree. But you would be surprised at how common this is in the industry. It's marketed as free roaming to customers, but the company still has agreements with the other carriers that you end up using. This is actually very lucrative for all parties involved, except the customer. When you use your phone in roam for more than 50% of your service, you are actually violating the contract you agreed to, and that's why you were forced to find another carrier.
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Yeah, most roaming plans allow you to roam up to 50% of your minutes. Beyond that is violating the agreement to which you most likely agreed. However, the sales rep should have made sure that you understood that when selling you the plan. And Sprint should have at least sent a warning letter first, to allow you to alter your roaming habits.
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I'm not stupid. I'm an RN with an MBA. I put my husband through college and have a son in law school and a son that is a senior in private college. The point is the letter is insulting. It's pretty much a get the heck out of here letter, like we had done something wrong. I asked my employees if they had ever heard of a letter like this and no one had. I guess I felt embarrassed.
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You go girl! I mean, it's not like they advertise, "Free unlimited roaming, unless you use to much."
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No. Don't get me wrong. I completely agree with Omagus, there should have been some kind of notice. In fact, this is really rare that just out of nowhere you would get a letter, because what happens is... when you go over %50 of your calls being roaming, you are then charged Roaming fees. So you should've seen your bills getting higher WAY before that notice letter informing you of the overage.
I can't for the life of me remember ANY company ever advertising UNLIMITED roaming, granted, it is implied, but as far as I can remember these are advertised WITH ROAMING INCLUDED. (Also it is noted clearly in Sprint broschures that if you go over this percentage you may be charged. But then again nobody ever reads those things either.)
The other pa...
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I can't for the life of me remember ANY company ever advertising UNLIMITED roaming, granted, it is implied, but as far as I can remember these are advertised WITH ROAMING INCLUDED. (Also it is noted clearly in Sprint broschures that if you go over this percentage you may be charged. But then again nobody ever reads those things either.)
The other pa...
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Sorry, if I overreacted. When we purchased the four phones, we told the salesman which states are sons were attending college and which states my husband traveled. He got out the map and showed us that is was all within the coverage area, so we purchased four phones. There wasn't any type of disconnect fee or penalty and they let us keep the four razor phones, which Verizon wouldn't accept so we had to get four new razor phones. I should have read the small print and I didn't. I assumed the salesperson would know if there was anything in the small print he should alert me to. You are right, live and learn.
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Just because you'll have coverage in all states you were going to be in doesn't mean it won't be coverage in roaming. Also I am a Sprint Employee and I always encourage my customers to read over their contracts before signing them if they don't read over them its their own fault if they violate their agreement. i would think it is just common sense that you read something before you sign it, don't you think.
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Yes, you are right, I should have read the fine details of the contract. I guess I don't have very much common sense. In fact, in his new VP job, my husband was concerned his new employees might not have much common sense either. He was so concerned, he switched his entire company to another provider. Maybe you should start a new saying, "Sprint, the phone company for only those with common sense." I hope your employment at Sprint is met with only those with common sense so your life will be easy.
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I don't have to hope for that because I tell my customers to read the contract in it entirety before they sign it.
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I don't think that's a fair statement to make. Other than the fact that many people don't look over the fine print, the roaming plans are important enough to merit the sales rep discussing it with customers. There's a huge difference between being able to roam whenever you want and only being able to do so 50% of the time.
Like I said earlier though, while Sprint should have at least given fair warning, I would put most of the blame on the rep who sold the plans.
Like I said earlier though, while Sprint should have at least given fair warning, I would put most of the blame on the rep who sold the plans.
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Hey T-Zag, a question. I always found the sprint phone easy to use and the bill understandable. I was terminated for roaming too much, not calling customer service. I don't believe I ever called customer service. If I had found the common sense to read the fine details of the contract, under the statement telling me they could terminate me for roaming too much, would it also have said they could terminate me if I called customer service too much? Or did Sprint just get rid of those people under the "We can terminate you for any reason at all" statement?
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More specifically, it would have said something to the effect that "Sprint reserves the right to cancel this account at any time." ALL carriers have something like that.
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In all fairness to Sprint, they were nice about it. Our situation was just unusual. At the end of 2005 we had a land line, a land business line, a land fax line, and four cell phone lines (7 numbers). For Christmas, we thought we would get everyone new razors. I don't know if porting was an option then, but we ended up with 4 new numbers. The letter from sprint came in August 2006 when the car was loaded up to drive our youngest out of state to college so we pulled into another provider and got a new plan (4 new numbers). The following month, my husband could not turn down an out of state job offer that allowed me to retire so we got four new numbers. So in the past 18 months our family of four has had 19 phone numbers. That probably...
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