Sprint has joined the ranks of cell phone providers whose former (and current) sales reps are beating down the Consumerist’s door, eager to tell all. Let us move without delay to the confessions of a former Sprint sales rep:
•Get the Sprint Employee Referral Offer: “Get on the SERO plan! Sprint Employee Referral Offer. It’s a nice little plan designed specifically for friends and family of Sprint employees. They require that you have an email address of a Sprint employee, but that’s simple to get. Remember that business card the sales rep gave you, or should have given you if they’re were good. Take that name and use it, john.x.doe@sprint.com. To see the plans themselves or sign up, go to www.sprint.com/sero ($50/1250 minutes/7pm nights/unlimited vision)”
•Play the Extended Service and Repair Program Game: If you’ve lost your phone or dropped it in water, you can buy a new “broken” phone on ebay, activate it, and take that one into the store for ESRP benefits, according to our tipster. “Phone doesn’t work? Water damage? What are you to do! Buy a phone on ebay, it doesn’t have to work so long as it hasn’t been flagged as lost or stolen. Get the phone activated and take it into the store. They’ll fix or replace it usually on the spot because you have ESRP. Now keep in mind, if you do this excessive times, we’ll refuse to service you (the system counts how many times you’ve had a phone replaced/serviced).” (This might be illegal somehow, we don’t really know.)
•Buy your phone at the end of the month when the reps are desperate for commission on activations. ” Reps will always discount phones, they don’t make commission on the price of the phone, they make it on everything else. They’re also desperate for activations (best time to go activate is near the end of the month when they’re truly desperate). Add a few accessories or get that 2nd line, just return them later, you still get the awesome deal on the phone.
•Cancel without ETF By “moving” to the middle of the desert: This is an old trick, but the tipster says it works with Sprint. “Want to cancel but are stuck in a contract and don’t care about keeping your number? Change your billing to e-billing (to avoid a paper statement), call customer care and have them change your address to an address not covered by the network (go on the website, find a hole, do a google earth search and find an address around there). Then say, “oh my, well if you can’t provide service to me there, I’ll have to cancel.” Sprint is now obligated to cancel your contract without a termination fee because if they can’t service you, how can they charge you for service? Usually they want to cancel your number, but you might be able to convince them that Company B has coverage and you would like to port.
•Retention Specialists have power: Cancel everything that’s not required in your contract. There’s a retention offer waiting for you. Example: “there are retention offers for things such as text messaging (unlimited for $10 I believe), plans, services, etc. Just ask! “
•Get a big discount for working for a big company (or saying that you do): “Get a discount because you work for the man! Are you an employee of a major organization? Tell Sprint you work for them then! You’ll get anywhere from 7-28% off of your monthly bill. Tip, Chase bank employees get the highest discount (I believe it was 28%). Even if you don’t work there, they don’t ask for proof that you do. “
Thanks to the Sprint Guy for these excellent tips! Where are you Alltel? U.S. Cellular? We’re listening if you want to confess… tips [at] consumerist [dot] com.—MEGHANN MARCO
(Photo:cmorran123)
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File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. They will contact Sprint for you and get you what you want.
I was a Customer Service Agent of Sprint I will keep my name unknown for security purposes…. last month I didnt want to continue working there, its a great place, lots of friends, but i didnt feel quite right helping people as I used to do… We are trained for 6-weeks before we end up getting calls, we are trained first of all to trick customers and sell them something, whenever an agent fixes your problem hear carefully at what they say at that point since its probably selling something… Since I want to get a balance on this, i will get you some tips to get free things from Sprint.
When the agent customer service answers a call they cant transfer you to a supervisor, you have to say it twice before they can transfer you.
If you want to cancel the contract before the ETF they will tell you to be transfered to another department probably “Accounts Management” which is not the case, that departments real name is Retentions in which agents are trained to give you free things for you not to leave. Agents are paid for every customer that doesnt leaves the company so probably they can offer you from Free Minutes or Discounts upto Free Cell Phones from $150-$175 dollars worth. In this department “Retentions” they CANT cancel your account if after that you dont take the offer they will transfer you to anotherrr person that will finally terminate the account.
After hearing this you are more probably to get free stuff from Sprint, and i repeat ASK AT THE END NOT TO BE ADDED NOTHING MORE AT YOUR PLAN because i used on cusytomer service to get paid by every sell in which i ended selling 20 a day, getting almost 80 extra usd per day.
Another thing they teached me was not5 to give adjustments for Sprint Pcs data or Internet, So I will recommend hen you get that case to ask for supervisor twice or tell you want to cancel so you are transfered to Retentions
Oh! And for new custoimers when you get activation fees on cellphones or upgrade fee when getting new phone, just call Customer Service with a good tone of voice and tell them that in store they didnt told you about those charges, since we are foced with that to give you an adj for the FULL quantity being charged on that.
Any more info you want to get on this you got my mail
viko.nava@gmail.com and i will be happy to help you out with your questions.
i work for sprint and here’s a couple of other things..
- sign up for TEP, it’s worth it. i work at a service and repair location and trust me, it’s a damn shame to see people coming in an paying $15-$55 (plus tax) to have their phone fixed. on lower model phones (those that don’t have the multimedia features), if you wanna keep the bill low, that’s fine but most definitely on the PDAs
- since i do work for service and repair, reminder for PDA owners, PLEEASSSEE back up (hotsync) your phones information before coming in! the software comes with the phone for a reason! i hate watching people’s numbers, calenders, etc. get erased because of a technical glitch.
- be nice to reps, we give you more if you act more humanely.
things off of this article… sero is very amazing, not too sure i like the ebay idea (lost or stolen phone? SOL), retention has magical ways, and working for chase or boeing (hint), awesome savings.
i can go on and on about the service and repair locations but in the end, most likely no, you can’t upgrade your phone or downgrade it because you don’t like it, i’m sorry. we follow a list, we’re unfortunately very precise. if you push the manager a little (and by a little, your phone better be dead and you shouldn’t be yelling too much), than you have a shot.
Sprint has poor, poor customer service and they are a bunch of Thieves. Switch to Verizon when you can, they are kind and do follow through with what they say they are going to do. We just had an experience that a rep indicated a charge would be removed, yet we still received a bill. When recontacted sprint, there was a notation in there system from the rep, however, they couldn’t do that, even though the rep said it would be taken care of. Now we owe another $200. What a bunch of thieves!!! I will provide as much negative feedback to as many people and as many ways I can to discourage signing up with this fraudulent company!!!
@submetropolis: Too bad that when people think like you and are dishonest like that, it ruins it for everyone else. The vacation plan is offered for a reason. That reason is not a “contract loophole.”
Add me to the list of very pissed off/unhappy sprint customers. Everytime I added something to my account they screw it up and I get bogus charges on my bill. The newest started in October when the Centro phones came out. It is April now and I spent over 20 hours on the phone with sprint trying to get my account close as I can to what I had before the new phones. I now have to pay for data and text services that were included in my plan being told there is no way for them to return my old plan to the way it was Thier retentions dept supposedly got it close a month ago and were supposed to adjust some charges to get my bill down closer to what it was before. They were unsuccesful and when I tried again to get it fixed last night I was told they Can’t/won’t do it. They said they had all thier discount codes taken away from them and I can’t even get what I was promised on my last call nor will they do anythig to try to fix it now. I am sorry this rambles and the details would take a book to list. I just advise you to stay away!!! They seam good at first they suck you in and when you start to rely on them they screw you. I now have 5 phones with 1-2 yrs to go on the contracts I am going to eat alot of cash to get away from this sucky company. Thanx for the vent.
@cde1948:
The comment about all of these postings suggesting deceit to get a discount is not entirely true.? Such as, calling just before your contract is up to cancel in order to alert the Retention Dept.? This is just good ol’ fashioned bargaining.? Also, though I would not recommend lying about who you work for to get a discount, you could try and see of your real employer gets a discount.? Lastly, the SERO plan is for friends and family of Sprint employees so if you happen to be friends with or related to a Sprint employee, you honestly qualify for this discount.
I was surprised to find out my employer qualifies for the discount plan, I just had to ask.
There are honest methods to be gleaned fro this site if you put your mind to it.