About two months ago Sprint announced a change to their ‘unlimited’ EVDO wireless broadband service. ‘Unlimited’ now means less than 5GB per month, or they they reserve the right to cap you, charge you more, or suspend your account. You know, typical Sprint ‘service’.
I read about the plan change on a friend’s blog, but I was having a hard time confirming it. I called Sprint, and the helpful monkey swore up and down that there were no changes being made to my account; and that Sprint did not make material changes to existing contracts anyways. Despite these assurances, I found a couple of geek news sites that supported my friend’s post, so I wrote Sprint customer service. I was informed that they had sent me a statement with the changes in the terms. I never received my 05/23 statement, the one that had the notification of plan change. Mel didn’t get her statement with the notification either, so she asked them to send her a reprint. I do not consider a 2″x2″ block of text that says your terms are changing and to contact customer service for details to be adequate notice. I think that was a pretty big ‘screw you’ for such a small block of text.
Today I called, with a week to spare, to cancel my account. The first monkey asked me why I was canceling my account. I explained that on 5/23 Sprint had sent me notification that they were changing the terms of service on my ‘unlimited’ broadband account, and that since it was no longer unlimited I was going to take my business elsewhere. He then had the audacity to try to convince me that my plan was still unlimited, as long as I did not hit the limit. I have to admit, if I threw out all logic and facts, his argument might have made sense. Being that he was full of shit, I told him that my mind was made up and that I wanted to cancel my account. At which point he transferred me.
The next person I talked to started off fairly reasonable. I explained my situation, and that I was canceling my account because I did not agree with Sprint’s change to my service plan. She confirmed in my account notes that I could cancel without penalty, and she told me she would cancel my account. Then she went off the deep end. She said that since I had a network modem, what she could do for me was trade it in for a cell phone. I asked “Why on Earth would I want to do that?” She said it was so I could keep my sprint account active. Apparently Sprint’s customer service division is located in Oz, or some other place where the grass is blue and the skies are green. I had to explain that since I only had the EVDO modem for data, not for voice, I really had no use for a Sprint cell phone, and that I just wanted to terminate my account. Supposedly this is done, and I will get a final statement that does not include a termination fee. I’m not holding my breath, as have little faith that Sprint will do this right.
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