I've never heard of a wireless company doing this, but ING bank comes right out and tells you they will terminate you if you become "needy". They call it firing their customers.

He should be happy that they've let you go, now he can switch to a company that won't screw up so much. Can he unlock his phone so he can sign up for a new provider without a contract?

Interesting...another way to get out of a bad contract sans ETF?

This is just brilliant. I can only assume someone at Sprint woke up one morning and decided to commit PR suicide.

I love the "In addition we will not require you to pay an Early Termination Fee" line.

Interesting that the fee only applies if you choose to terminate the contract, not vice versa.

Doesn't surprise me. The most expensive thing a company does is talk to a customer. At one company that will remain nameless, the cost per contact averaged $5-$7 for a phone contact with a given customer. It doesn't take that many calls before it was costing us money to keep someone as a customer. When that happened, we cut them loose.

Well... I think it is a poor business practice to drop a paying customer because you think he calls you too much.

But in the interest of free enterprise, if they don't want your business and they don't want to fix your problem... so be it!

Screw you Sprint... Verizon here we come! Oh, wait... they suck too.

It really sucks that they give him until 6/30/07 to find another carrier, but the letter is dated 6/29/07. Only ONE DAY, Sprint?

Sprint should have to pay an ETF.That would be great.

Wow.... Everytime I call Sprint, I pray that it will be the last call I ever make to them. And then they screw something up, and I have to call them again.

Waiting on hold for 20-30 minutes to reach a first level CSR is no fun for anyone.

@ThomFabian: More to the point, can HE charge THEM the ETF?

@acambras: They gave him a month, June 29 to July 30.

Still sucks even with a month.

@acambras:
They gave him until July 30, not June 30.

@missdona:
@ThomFabian:

Oh, my bad -- didn't read the post very carefully, did I? (blushes)

Still sucks, though -- I'm all for them paying him an ETF.

Ultimately, they are probably doing him a favor but giving him only a day is just crap. Also, "In addition we will not require you to pay an Early Termination Fee" is equivilant to the "I'll do this as a favor, just this once" line.

"Hey, we're actually NOT going to charge you this fee we have no right to charge. Don't you feel lucky?!?!"

The great thing about this is that Sprint will view this as dumping a customer with unreasonable CS demands, rather than losing a customer due to their shoddy billing system.

Funny. You want out of a contract because it is a financial burden or the service is not what was promised, and it costs you a fortune. THEY want out of a contract and they just send you a DIAF letter. How much MORE money would it cost them if you sued for breach of contract and discrimination? We already know it will cost em a lot of lost business since we're seeing it here on Consumerist...

@xkaluv:

This is just good business on Sprint's part. Think of it this way: they're getting $30/month in revenue from him. He's costing them (conservatively) $100/month in customer service calls.

Some customers just aren't worth having. Typically, 20% of a company's customers generate 80% of the profit, the next 60-70% generate 20% of the profit, and the last 10-20% are actually money-losers.

So what does he do now with his PCS-only phone(s)?

Sprint sucks - they have for quite a while now.
This is written into the contracts you sign as consumers.
They have a right to terminate your contract.
From Sprint's website:
'We can, without notice, suspend or terminate any Service at any time for any reason"
Granted, it's a crap policy, but perfectly legal and correct.
The upside is that now Sprint users unhappy who wish to switch without a temrination fee can do so by simply calling customer service every day to complain.
I like t-mobile. Check the service in your area and find a mobile company that offers the best service for the money.
I recommend shopping for your phone through amazon.com, you can often get new service for little or no actual money. My g-friend got a t-mobile phone and received a $75 check after all was said and done (it cost THEM $75 and her nothing, save for her monthly bill).

I'll probably catch a lot of hell for this, but regardless of why a customer is unhappy, there is a point at which that customer is no longer profitable to keep around.

Yes, Sprint could have *gasp* fixed the problem, but somewhere, some bean counter must've surmised that the amount of people calling into complain about billing disputes doesn't outweigh the cost it would be to fix billing disputes. Hence, when a customer gets out of control, you axe 'em!

This makes me laugh - Michael, you're so much better off without these clowns.

I'm a current Sprint customer and I can totally see them doing something like this! I'll be the next one one the "needy" customer hit list. I call them average of once a week to "fix" there computer glitch that for some reason snips me for going over my alloted monthly dollar amount even though I upgraded my plan and tripled my minutes to avoid this. Each week I'm told the problem is fixed only to get snipped again next week. Ha ha maybe I'll bump it up to calling every day and they can do me the courtesy of releasing me from my hellish contract.

You know, when it all comes down to it, they do not want your business. I am not sure why this is a problem, because frankly, leaving Sprint is something I see people WORKING to accomplish on a regular basis.

I have to wonder what merger put insurance company personnel into this decision loop, they are usually the ones that drop you for using the service you are paying for when you dare to actually use it.

Am I seriously the only person who's happy with Sprint service? So happy, in fact, that I've been with them five years and only signed two one-year contracts the first two years.

I've been out of contract for about three years, but my plan is an old retention plan that can't be duplicated, so it forced me to buy a barely used Treo when I wanted to upgrade phones.

I recently switched mobile phone providers from T-Mobile to Sprint. My sole purpose for switching was due to the fact that I receive a 24% discount with Sprint because I work in the health care field. While with T-Mobile I'm happy to say that I rarely had any issues, and if I did I would contact Customer Service and they would be fixed without a hassle and on the spot.

After switching to Sprint I have had nothing but issues with billing and their service options. I've had to wait for 30 minutes or more to speak to a Sprint representative, and if you go the a retail outlet the wait is an hour or more. How are we the consumer being held liable for their mistakes? It's not our fault that their reps are not fully trained. Are not aware of their own systems. I guess sooner or later I may end up in the same predicament...having to switch providers because I called their Customer Service line one too many times.

Something needs to be done!!!

In the hypothetical and having nothing to do with the specific issue at hand:

I think it's pretty silly to fire a customer for just being annoying, and not breaking his/her TOS or or being abusive to staff. You never know when the owner of this $30/month account is going to be head of IT or telecom for a F500 with hundreds of thousands of wireless dollars to spend. Oops.

OTOH, if a customer is truly abusive (repeatedly) then it is the company's obligation to fire that customer, IMO. Not doing so sends a really demoralizing message to staff that they need to take shit with no consequence on the other side.

Note that my opinion is only in cases of true "abuse" - getting frustrated, but not abusive, with an incompetent/unhelpful/snippy CSR should not be grounds for firing the customer.

Although I can understand, to some degree, Sprint's POV about how much it's costing them because he calls Customer Service, I would think that they must keep some record of WHY he is calling (I know, this is silly, right?!) and since he's calling for the same reason every month, wouldn't it be cheaper for them to just fix the mistake then to lose the customer?

Regarding the one-day notice: Sprint managed to misplace my payment last month. They sent me a letter giving me notice that they would shut me down unless I paid within seven days of the letter. (Dated Thursday, received Monday evening, giving me three days to resolve it.)

It certainly seems like they're trying to reduce their customer base, doesn't it?

I like how the letter is terminating his contract for calling customer service too much, then at the end tells him to call customer service if he has any questions or problems.

i got rid of Sprint because of their crappy customer service. guess i wasn't the only one with that problem.

Um, this has got to be a joke, right? A big, wet, sloppy April-Fool's-in-July joke?

This needs to get on your local investigative t.v. newscast. NOW.

@beyond: LOL. I think if I were to get to that point, I'd call Customer Support everyday to check on the status of my port.

LOL. This cracked me up for some reason. "We're breaking up with you because you keep annoying us." I've never heard of that before, quite amusing actually. I mean, I think it was a pretty crappy thing for Sprint to do, but there are plenty of other cell-phone companies out there if Sprint doesn't want his business. I'd happily move on to another.

So who are the "number of others" that Michael referred to in his letter? And how did he find them? Is there a support group or something? Or does this happen so often that a few of his colleagues got the same exact letter?

Sprint's new hold music.

"You Talk Too Much"
Run-DMC
[www.azlyrics.com]

Sprint sucks, good riddens. Were you under contract? If so, I'm sure you could sue for breach as I doubt the terms and conditions say the can cancel for calling too much. I bet if he wanted to cancel for all those reasons, Sprint would fight to keep him, or charge the ETF. Sounds to me like its time for the I-Phone, I mean, the timing couldn't be better.

KAIKHOR, you are absolutely right - it would be much more profitable to fix the problem than to drop him. The problem is, they're not bright enough to do that kind of analysis. They need to distinguish between customers who call a lot because they're high maintenance, and customers who call a lot because Sprint has made a mistake and isn't resolving it properly.

Unfortunately, they're using past call volume to predict future call volume, without looking at the underlying cause. If only they'd apply a little more intelligence to the process, they could have happier customers, reduce their costs, AND maintain their ongoing profits.

Based on their behavior to date, though, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Is no one else suspicious about this? They don't like customers having unlimited text messaging, so they continually charge them for it. If the customer pays it without complaining, Sprint wins. If they call and complain every month until Sprint drops them as a customer, Sprint wins. Sounds like grounds for a class action to me.

@rocnrule:
Sorry, but you cannot sue a company like sprint for breach of contract - it is explicitly stated in their contract that they can terminate the contract at any point and for any reason.
Too bad, but true.

@TinaT:
Tinat - I think EVERYONE is suspicious about this. But it doesn't matter. All the customer can do now is sue in small claims court for the overcharges. Since he claims to have 8 of the 10 dollars credited, he'd likely only win 2 bucks a month for each month. He's only been a customer since 05, so at best he is legally entitled to $48.
That hardly seems worth it.

Personally I am camped with Z47. In a sense sprint just gave all of us a 'get out of contract card'. Don't like their service? Just start calling customer service too much.

Next question. How much is too much?

Does this surprise anyone?

a 30$ a month plan with unlimited texting being cancled? Especially if he is calling them over and over.

The plan is worth nothing, and he had to be the nail that stuck out. And the nail that sticks out gets hit.

When i had a problem with sprint, I ended up paying 150$ less a month for all of my phones I have with them. (6) Which is still over 200$ a month, but alot less than where I started.

If this guy really was paying 30$ a month for service, he made a HUGE miscalculation on his leverage. Customer service is all about leverage. If you are already making the phone company no money, they arent going to want to keep you.

I'm more worried if they report this to the other phone companies. What if he tries to go to another horrible phone company and they refuse him, because, "Sprint told us you never STFU." And he just never gets another phone?! o.o

The company I work for needs to be able to do this. "Ma'am, if you keep being abusive, we'll have to fire you as a customer... and keep your money you've given us so far! Mwhahahahaha!

@dbeahn: You'd THINK that would be incentive to fix billing errors the first time. Particularly when they're small enough to be eaten up in just one or two calls.

I had AT&T (before the merger) for about 2 years, and I had two major billing errors with no apparent reason, and one because my roaming was set incorrectly. The first two took two billing cycles each to resolve.

@endless:

It isn't like he wanted to be calling them over and over. He wasn't trying to get "leverage." It sounds like he would have been perfectly happy having his billing fixed and then never calling them again.

This story is about Sprint fucking up, and Sprint reacting badly to it. Michael didn't cost Sprint money, Sprint cost Sprint money.

@nachas101: The lawsuit wouldn't be for the contract termination, it would be for deceptive trading practices. Deliberately overcharging customers when you get tired of honouring your contracts is an act of bad faith.

(Although in respect of the contract termination, Congress should pass a law invalidating contracts that only one of the two parties are allowed to enforce.)

@LewisNYC: I have seen that happen. MCI screwed my sister over (Did we say 5 cents a minute? We meant 25.), so my father cancelled the MCI contract for all 18,000 of his employees. Mwa ha ha.

He said that his MCI rep didn't even sound surprised when he called to find out why the contract was cancelled.

He's on the SERO plan, which means Sprint is barely making any money off of him anyways.

Here's a hot tip kids, if you're abusing a service like SERO, don't call Sprint constantly demanding they "fix" things.