Sprint Now Offering To Pay Up To $350 In ETFs For People Willing To Switch To One Of Its Framily Thingies

Months after AT&T and T-Mobile dueled over subscribers by offering to pay them to get out of their current contracts early, the folks (frolks?) at Sprint are finally (frinally?) getting into the game with a temporary deal that will reimburse up to $350 in early termination fees for people who dump their current plans and switch to one of Sprint’s Framily shared-data plans.

Additionally, the wireless provider says it will give new customers up to $300 in trade-in credit for their current phones.

The ETF reimbursement comes in the form of a Visa Prepaid Card that will come 10 to 12 weeks after making the switch to Sprint, so people who take advantage of the deal will need to be able to afford to wait upwards of three months to get that money back — and be aware that it’s not money that is easily put back in their bank accounts.

According to Sprint, the offer starts today and runs through May 8, and is only available through Sprint stores or the Sprint.com website. New customers will need to register with Sprint and provide their final bill from the old wireless carrier in order to receive the reimbursement.

The Framily plans start at $55/month for one person. That gets the subscriber unlimited talk and text, and access to 1GB of data a month. Each person that joins a “Framily” group brings down the monthly base price by $5, with each member getting a base allotment of 1GB of data. Individual users can pay additional fees for more data without affecting the other group members’ plans. Additionally, everyone is responsible for their own bill.

Fans (Frans?) of the plan say it’s more flexible and affordable than competitors’ shared-data plans, while critics point to Sprint’s smaller footprint and relatively slow rollout of higher-speed networks.

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