Signing up with SPRINT is a Faustian bargain -- they lure you in with cheap rates but they get you back in the end. I had been waiting for something like Epinions to come along so I could warn others not to make the same mistake I did.

I bought a PCS phone at a local retailer and called Sprint to set up service. Then on my phone bill I see that sprint has charged me $200 for the phone that I bought from someone else. So I call and ask why they were charging me $200. They said that it was "just temporary" and the charge would go away by my next bill and told me I didn't have to pay it. I didn't believe them, but I said ok, I'll wait for the next bill.

To make a very long story short, despite 7 calls to customer service (each time I was told that it was their mistake and the charge would go away) eventually they cut off my service due to "non-payment". Finally after being without phone service for two weeks and right before they were about to discontinue my account (reactivation costs $250), I finally got through to a "billing specialist" who commuted the charges.

Also they signed me up for options (and billed me for them) that I did not request. I sometimes get roaming charges when I make calls from my office (which is right in the middle of the calling area).

I don't believe that my experiences are atypical, but I think that a lot of times cell-phone service is damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't. Despite my misgivings about SPRINT I don't know who else to recommend.

But my advice to anyone buying a cell phone is to do more research than you think necessary -- since the networks tend not to be compatible, once you sign on & buy a phone you're more or less stuck.





Recommended: No