Sprint signed David up for a two-year contract without permission after he transferred his service between a Motorola RAZR 2 and a Sanyo 8400. David owned both phones when he made the transfer last month, long after his contract had expired. Sprint recently decided to send him a letter, charmingly called “keeping you in the know,” which showed that he was the proud new owner of a surprise contract extension.
He writes:
OK, so here we go! On or about July 25th, I called Sprint to complete a simple ESN swap. And for those who might not be of the gifted mind to understand what that is, it’s simply a Phone Swap…going from one phone to the other. Now keep in mind that I already own both phones.
A Motorola Razr-2 and a SANYO 8400.
That means that I previously purchased them, and have decided to swap between one and the other.Now I am already expired as of May 1st, 2008.
So after deciding that the RAZR-2 was utter garbage that I could not stomach any longer, I called Sprint’s NO Customer Service, and informed that rep that I’d like to perform an ESN swap. Now keep in mind that this unintelligent rep never asked if it was a new or already owned phone. Just said ok….and proceeded to ask for the information.
So…needless to say… I went from the Motorola RAZR-2 TO the Sanyo 8400, which Sprint no longer sells, so it’s not a NEW phone!
Lo and behold, just a few days ago, I received a letter from Sprint in the mail that says: “Keeping you in the know”…you’ve recently made some changes…etc..yadda yadda yadda. And along with that, on the right side of the letter , I notice that My CONTRACT has been extended.
Now keep in mind, I am ALREADY EXPIRED AS OF: MAY 1, 2008! So, what this excellent, educated and “well-trained” Sprint rep did was, RENEW my agreement, without telling me, without asking pertinenet information to make a decision as to renew or NOT renew. Just went ahead and got themselves a nice fat commission that I’m sure Sprint won’t do anything to reprimand her for!
Just keep them exployed and working tirelessly, renewing unknowing customers all the time to get themselves false commissions!
I’ve stuck with Sprint since 20000, defended them against all kinds of craziness and even gone thru it previously with their “well-trained”reps, and I still stayed, but this is the last and I MEAN THE LAST GAWD DAMN STRAW!
My Account Number is: XXXXXXX
My Phone Number is: XXX-XXX-XXXXI have already been assigned a few different case numbers, of which I have yet to have ANY of them resolved. I am tired of waiting to speak with someone. As quick as it took to extend my contract is as quick as it should have taken for it to be rolled back, but of couse they never help, or the reps never know what the hell they are doing, except for: giving mis-information and extending contracts falsely!
I want this issue resolved and I want BOTH lines on my account to be without contract for this hassle. I want some type of compensation that clearly and truely says I am sorry, and not from someones mouth.
If not, then let me out without obligation, financial or otherwise and I’ll take the business to a more Realiable CORPORATION who knows how to run a business, called Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T!
And to think I canceled my AT&T line to bring that over to my Sprint account, just to take advantage of the old SERO offer.
The only problems with at&t WAS THAT THEIR PRICES WERE HIGH AS HELL. Other than that, they beat Sprint in terms of Customer Satisfaction every step of the way. TIP TO SPRINT: Get these ghetto, non-educated, can’t read, add, or subtract, low life people out of your company!
Sprint shouldn’t hesitate to dissolve the unilateral contract extension if you call the special hotline they created for Consumerist readers at: (703) 433-4401.
(Photo: The Consumerist)
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@hmk: Sprint doesn’t use SIM cards. Neither does Verizon. They’re different types of phones. T-Mobile uses GSM and Verizon and Sprint are CDMA. Don’t ask me for the details. I just know the acronyms. ;p
I think the concept of having to sign up for a contract to get the number switched to a different phone is unproductive. I’m off plan as of Jan last year. If this phone dies, I plan to ask to switch the number to my old phone. If they say I have to have a plan, I’ll tell them Sprint can either have no customer at all or the current customer w/o a contract. Their choice. I’ll happily switch to AT&T or whoever. It’s not like I use the phone much anyway.
If the original poster had their contract extended simply by swapping ESN’s, that would have to have been deliberately done by the rep that took the call. Even years ago when I worked for Cingular, simply changing out an ESN did not extend the contract. You still had to go in and add what was called a billing SOC to signify the upgrade, then give someone credit for said upgrade. Furthermore, you would have to go into the contract tab and set up the expiration for their service agreement. If the Sprint system is anything similar, I would suggest that it’s a piss poor attempt to get comp’d on upgrading customers without them knowing it.
In most cases, people would just dismiss letters like the one the original poster got. After 6 months, the customer should be considered vested again and the commissions paid out. While I wouldn’t necessarily push the issue that the rep was out to defraud the poster, there is a good chance that this is the case. Calmly, politely and professionally state your case. Give Sprint all the facts and see if they won’t agree to remove the contract extension. A phone call can still do wonders if you are nice about it. When a rep stands by policies and procedures, don’t get mad that that rep. They are doing their job and you should be glad that they are. Thank them and speak with a supervisor, who is in charge of making those types of exceptions. If the supervisor does not want to own up, call the previously mentioned hotline for Sprint.
Document everything that goes on in the event you still have problems. [This would be a good time to then notify The Consumerist] Above all else, remain civil. At the end of the day these are people, too. They don’t want you to be any more upset about Sprint’s service as they are. Hell, they may actually like Sprint in addition to working there. It’s their job to assist you, not piss you off. If you can’t get over the fact it is not personal, have someone else help you.
Sprint recently renewed my contract as well without any consent. I wasn’t planning on canceling but they increased the price of my aircard plan & it just wasn’t worth it anymore. They had added a 2 year contract, but it had a 0$ ETF, you might want to find out if that’s the case……She kept telling me I was still in contract, but then @ the end of the call she was like, OH, SRY THERES NO ETF JK
@atrixe: He must of meant B.C.
I agree, maybe the name calling was a little uncalled for. You could just as easily said “I believe that your customer service should be retrained in contract extensions.” but belittling people doesn’t go over well — I actually find I need to wait a day or two to calm down, before I can write a letter worth their attention.
@Mollyg: Completely agree. I would hope that Sprint joined the cell phone community and doesn’t extend contracts for changing your minute plans. The OP doesn’t say he changed the plan, but even so — if there wasn’t a purchase of a phone – how can they constitute a new 2 year agreement?
The situation blows overall.
@dragonfire81: No they won’t. Sprint will not release him from the contract without a lawsuit being filed. Which I have done against this sorry excuse for a company.
“TIP TO SPRINT: Get these ghetto, non-educated, can’t read, add, or subtract, low life people out of your company!”
Funny, that kind or remark in a comment would get disenvowled, yet it’s fine in an OP?!?!?
@newfenoix: As a former Care rep, I can tell you from firsthand experience that if he gets the right person on the line, they can void out the contract extension for him.
Also whoever posted that Sprint does not use SIM cards is correct, only Nextel phones use SIM cards, CDMA based Sprint phones do not.
If you call Sprint to simply swap phones (in other words activate a phone you already have), there should NEVER BE A CONTRACT EXTENSION, period. If you are calling to order a new phone to replace one you have, then of course there’s a contract but if you already have the device and are activating it on an existing line, the contract should not be touched (the system does not automatically extend a contract on an equipment swap, the rep has to input it a certain way to cause this to happen).
As a current Care rep / Escalations agent for Sprint, I would like to echo and confirm some of the points brought up here. But first, @sw4383, just wanted to let you know that our current system can and does attempt to extend contracts on accounts with expired contracts when performing sertain changes (namely plan changes and ESN swaps). It is a system default, but it can be overriden by the rep. Obviously this rep did not override the extension, which could have been intentional, or also could have been accidental. Since it doesn’t come up during most changes (it’s not often reps work on accounts with no current contract), it can be easy for an agent to miss or ignore.
In any case, a simple follow-up call to Care could have resolved the issue. Agents like myself (regular agents, not Escalation agents) could have corrected the contract issue – the evidence necessary to reverse the change would likely have been apparent to anyone who accessed the account.
To reiterate, if you’re a Sprint customer on a current contract calling to swap a phone, the system will NOT try to extend your contract. If your contract has expired and you call to swap, then it may try to extend the contract. May. The agent can override it. If it’s a concern, just ask the agent about any potential contract issues.
I would like to add that it’s refreshing to see this thread wasn’t immediately a dogpile on Sprint. This company has it’s issues (mainly it’s archaic billing software) but as someone who spends all day trying to resolve issues like the one above, I like to see that I’m not wasting my time. The mere fact that this didn’t turn into a Sprint bashfest means that all hope isn’t lost.
A few things. I take it you were on a month to month plan when you did that. The thing is, whenever you do an ESN swap, nine times out of ten Sprint systematically renews your contract. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s stupid.
Second, if you sign into your account on Sprint.com, you SHOULD have been able to do the ESN Swap yourself. The less you have to deal with Sprint reps, the better.
@Roundi I worked for Sprint earlier this year. Yeah, the billing software is just…ugh.
I am aware that the contract extension can be overridden. I still think that having it as the default is ridiculous.
@Dyscord Agreed. There are a lot of things I would change if I had access to the account software’s backend.
Good call on the website. Sprint Customers! You can do almost all basic account functions (Payments, plan & feature changes, equipment swaps, etc) from the website. Most of the time, it works. Not that I don’t like getting the calls, but at least if you use the website, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves if something goes wrong. [www.sprint.com]
Well, THAT rant was pretty much useless.
Sounds like someone just wanted to vent.
With that said I have little to no sympathy for this person for a
couple of reasons:
1. Contract expired already yet he wanted to change phones…what
good does that do if you don’t have a contract?
2. Did not, nor made the attempt to proofread his rant before sending.
3. Be the bigger person if you want to be taken seriously…the last
line was absolutely uncalled for.
I wouldn’t respond if I saw that in my inbox either.
@SuffolkHouse:
Corporate backscratching will occur as long as corporations have more power (read: Money) than people. There will be no changing this because the people in power don’t want to change this, and the Business lobby is very good at getting the people it wants in power.
That being said, the OP has tried to get the situation resolved numerous times. Read. The. Letter.
I have already been assigned a few different case numbers, of which I have yet to have ANY of them resolved. I am tired of waiting to speak with someone. As quick as it took to extend my contract is as quick as it should have taken for it to be rolled back, but of couse they never help, or the reps never know what the hell they are doing, except for: giving mis-information and extending contracts falsely!
Sprint Bashing is perfectly justified. This is “profitable negligence” which should fall under the same category as “malice”.
@ReidFleming: That’s too nice.
he was doing ok until he started calling them names and insulting all of the sales staff. And demanding compensation. I think termination of the contract is enough, but asking for extras? From a company you don’t want to do business with. What’re they gonna give you? A free phone they won’t make money from? Credit to a non-existing account? What a pounce.
“I have already been assigned a few different case numbers, of which I have yet to have ANY of them resolved.”
Crap, missed that part. Man, do I feel ashamed. We have no such case to rectify a contract issue. No wonder this didn’t get resolved in a timely manner.
Looks like whatever agents this guy dealt with prior to writing this letter didn’t do their jobs. Submitting cases for an issue that could have been rectified in real-time, with a little research, means the agents were either too intimidated to touch a contract (most agents see it as “serious business” and will not touch one even if there is a valid error that needs correcting, fearing loss of job if they do) or they simply didn’t want to help. The OP’s rudeness and frustration are a little more understandable now.
Sprint customers, take note: if an agent claims they will need to submit a case to resolve your issue, ask them to double-check their information resources to see if one is really necessary. I am probably broaching corporate confidentiality by saying so, but Sprint recently found that 82% of cases submitted by agents are invalid. Almost all issues can be solved in real-time.
@dragonfire81: I tried that the second time. They said it was a shame, but they would rather see me go than help me out. Second time, I didn’t even bother. After hemmoraging the millions of people they lost, I really doubt one more is a big deal to them.
@Cyco: I’m intrigued. What exactly is your issue? If you’re still with Sprint, I might be able to help.
I just don’t know how you want to make a change to your account but don’t have a contract. Sprint should have been more clear on what was happening, no doubt about it but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to be re-upped.
I’ve been with Sprint for a long time. I had a few minor problems and all have been resolved quickly and with consideration for my problems. Heck I walked in once with an accessory that was 14 months old and stopped working. They pulled up my account to confirm I bought it there and just gave me a new one without any hassle.
@ouiserboudreaux:
Not unreasonable? Why? Did sprint offer him a subsidized phone or a lower rate for the contract? You may like not having choices and being locked in or charged fees, but most people strongly dislike this.
AT&T has never extended my contract without my explicit agreement. One of their resellers did, but AT&T was very quick to reverse it. I even got a call back from the front line tech the next week to make sure everything was still ok. To bad they are expensive, but I use them because I need phone that works.
@Roudi: One of the problems I had was that I had two discounts on my bill. The first was a 10% for being a long time customer. The second was my employee discount I got through the company I was working for. About a year and a half ago I signed up for the SERO plan and at no time was anything said about my discounts. Last Dec. the 10% was knocked off my bill, but I never noticed it until Apr. I called and after speaking to three different reps through out the day (all who I had to repeat the entire story to) I finally was told that there was a system change in Dec that for reasons no one understood, my discount was taken off, but that they would look into it. I get a call in June from an rep who says she has it fixed and was going to retro the discount for all the months I missed on to my next bill, making bill a whole 5 bucks. I was estatic. Next month comes and I notice the retrod bill, but that they changed my discounts again. There was still just one discount, but they changed my employee discount from 25% to 10%.
Once again I call and speak to a rep who tells me that it would take 24hrs to look into it. That evening I get a call I missed. I tried calling back and speak to another rep who I had to go through the entire speil with again. She credits my account an extra 15% and tells me she will look into it. The next day I get an email stating that since I’m on the SERO plan, I do not qualify for any discounts. A couple of hours later, the rep that said she would look into it calls me back with the same exact news. It doesn’t matter that I had the discounts when I signed up for the SERO plan or how long I had them, they would not give them back.
I called the special hotline and was told the exact same thing. I was told it was because the SERO plan I have has been turned into a version of the Everything plan and because of that, I’m SOL.
If I had been told this from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but to just yank something they gave to me, one of them as a gift, is just poor customer service in my opinion. They lose customers by the millions and they can’t do something extra for those that choose to stay. I’m not a complainer or begger. I don’t tie up their lines asking for free stuff or whining about my service. I’ve rarely had a problem with Sprint and I would tell everyone I know about how happy I was with their service. I read about how people are getting all kinds of ammenities from customer service of little things, but when I call in for my issues, I get turned away cold. It does not make me want to stay in the least. Sorry about how long this was.
I am in a contract with sprint. I have been a loyal customer of sprint since
1999 and have enjoyed my service with them. I recently moved to Greenville
north Carolina where I get great service, everywhere but my house. I get NO
SERVICE in my house. I was told that I could set my phone to roaming and I
would get service and I wouldn’t have to pay for it. I turn my phone to
roaming which I have to keep it on to get service around where I live and it
drains my phone in less than half a day. So I call sprint back and explain
my problem and am told that I can spend $99 dollars on a signal repeater for
the house and pay a slight charge of $5.99 a month to use it in my house. I
explained that I didn’t want to add any charges to my plan and that I didn’t
want to purchase a repeater and I understood that they could do nothing, but
all of my roommates have Verizon service and they all get FULL service in
our home. I explained that I would like to terminate my service with sprint
and move to Verizon in order to actually have service in my home and was
told by the representative that because there was another course of action
(although it would cost me an extra $72 a year and $99 upfront) that I could
not end my agreement and if I chose not to pay I would be sent to
collections for the charges of $200 for the early termination and for the
entire length of my contract I have left. I don’t understand how I can be
charged for a service I am NOT receiving. I cannot be help to this service
when I have to purchase something extra just to make it work can i??? Help
me out here if you can.