Buyer Beware
Written: Sep 23 '00 (Updated Sep 26 '00)
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Pros: None
Cons: Activation fees
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| classic10s's Full Review: Sprint Mobile Phone Service in New York |
Buyers beware...Sprint PCS FREE & CLEAR is anything but "free." First, you buy a phone, become a customer and then decide to trade up on phones for better reception or more features. Guess what? If you've purchased the phone outside of a select few Sprint Service Centers, at let's say Radio Shack or other affiliates, you must ACTIVATE the phone through a Sprint customer representative. That Sprint representative will bill you for an ACTIVATION FEE even though you're already activated and an existing customer. The buyer will pay an additional $29.95 for some phone operator to walk you through a programmable sequence that clearly isn't worth the price. Fight them on it, and they'll turn your service off.
Secondly, Dual Mode Phones (Analog and Digital capability) that come straight from the FACTORY are always programmed to the AUTOMATIC menu which means mid-call you'll be cut off in a digital and have to redial in an analog to get clear reception. Costly and very expensive. Read your manual and make DIGITAL your default when booting up your phone. That way you will be within your DIGITAL minutes and you will not pay the ridiculously high per minute ANALOG rates.
Thirdly, we've all been in the middle of a wireless call and then "BAM!" the call drops because the signal has faded or you've mysteriously 'gone out of the range.' You probably wonder am I getting charged for that marvelous 'clear as a pin drop' transmission? Well, you are unless you hit *2. I just found this out through a hour-and-a-half phone conversation with a customer advocate--from a landline phone, of course. I asked her how she calculated that I had a dropped call? Her answer: when you immediately call the same number back again. Great. So, I follow-up with a question. I ask "my call drops because I've gone out of range or hit a bad cell of reception, how can I complete a connection when I can't get any reception?" Her response: let me talk to my supervisor.
Buyer beware: every month (like we've got the time to do this, huh?) have a customer advocate go through your bill to see if you've been 'overcharged' for your number of minutes. Will you receive a monetary credit on your bill? No. They'll only give you free minutes.
Am I drawing a pretty clear picture here for you? Buyer beware.
And lastly, I recently had three older phones lying around and handed them out to my summer interns and when their term of employment was up I had asked Sprint PCS to discontinue the service on the three listed phone numbers. Listen to this. They said--even though I hadn't received my hard copy bill in the mail--"sir, you're still going to be billed for the activation fee," TWO DAYS AFTER MY BILLING CYCLE HAD ENDED. I asked the manager in the phone center "if she new when any one of her credit cards billing cycle ended," and her response was, "no sir." Then why am I getting billed for an ACTIVATION FEE when these phones are no longer active. Can you spell PRORATE?
In short, Sprint PCS is trying to scrape every nickel and dime out of you the buyer and loyal customer.
So please BUYER BEWARE. Double-check your bill at the end of each month and make Sprint PCS accountable for every charge.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 69.95
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Epinions.com ID:
classic10s
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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