Fair enough, I'm not entirely certain if they charge you anymore. They used to though because I checked my minutes at the time. Cingular here though.

That's kind of my situation. I bought the Fusic, and no one told me that the Power Vision package would change since it was a different phone. I got charged for over 1000 text messages. When I went in they couldn't figure out what happened and then it clicked with the girl that that's what it was and that not a lot of the workers knew about the change. Great. So they were supposed to take off the text charges, and she added on the $10 unlimited texting. Great. I go to pay my bill, which still has the $400 charge, and it won't let me pay anything because of the merger. Great now I had late fees. This went on for over a month. They never took the charges off, and now my bill was $700, because they also never added the unlimited text. I had to go back in, and me and the customer service guy sat on hold for a half hour with Sprint so they'd take the charges off. Phew ok they're taking the charges off. There was $90 left which was also supposed to be taken off, but the unlimited text was all set. A week or so later, that charge along with late charges were still there. So I went BACK in and got it all taken care of.

If I didn't like my phone so much, I'd have demanded them to break my contract or threaten with a lawyer or something. I never had problems with Sprint until the merger, which I've heard the same about Cingular and AT&T, although I had BAD problems with AT&T.

Do deal with Sprint, tell them you want to cancel. Sound serious.

You'll be routed to the "retention" department. You then let them sweet talk you into remaining a customer so long as they give you a better plan, fix all your problems, etc. The retention folks have quite a bit more power over your plan than regular customer service folks. If you play this well, you can end up with a far better plan, more features, etc. for less money.

That's how I got my Treo for $150.

I've been with Sprint since 1998 when it was still PrimeCo. I've never had a problem with them -- and apparently they had record of that -- and when I decided to call to "cancel"...they did their darndest to keep me as a customer. I had no intentions of cancelling. Once I found out that that's how my friend got his Treo cheap, I decided to try that out too. I researched what the other providers were offering and used that to my advantage.

At this point I really don't see myself switching carriers. The guys at my local Sprint Store are honest, friendly, and helpful. I go to them instead of calling Support and they're the reason I've stayed a customer. I'd take those guys over Linda from India any day.

I ordered a phone and added a line about the 15th of May or so. There were all kinds of problems and I didn't get the phone until June 4th, my order mysteriously disappeared or was canceled, I was asked to pay a deposit, which was erroneous. Then my credit card was charged three times for my second line. I wasn't on hold for less than half an hour before I spoke to someone with any call, one lady hung up on me, so I went to the mall to the local Sprint store (it isn't a corporate one). They tried to call and get my issues fixed, and they got so frustrated they terminated a call with their own people.

I finally got a phone June 4th, and it had the wrong phone number attached, upgraded my old phone, and that phone never showed up. I spent three hours on the phone with them trying to sort out ESN numbers and phone numbers. Yet again my order disappeared mysteriously, and I had a second phone number in another state, but I only had one phone and one phone number. I finally went to a corporate store in another town, and spent...


FOUR AND A HALF HOURS THERE! I also spent another hour on the phone getting the phone set up. I told them I wasn't leaving without a working phone, with the phone number in the area code I wanted for that family member.

That was a Friday and I was given a credit. Saturday my bill gets processed and they charged me for three cellphone plans, overages (which were a result of calling sprint phones, and if they had the plan right wouldn't have happened), and also for the phone I already paid for and received June 4th. I called them, was on hold for 45 minutes before I got an answer, and it was so jacked up the guy had to call me back two hours later. According to my calculations, with the amount of credits I have received, I won't be paying a bill until late October, and that is if they don't mess up again. My account still has two cell phone plans showing, and if my bill is messed up again, I am going to cancel on the 30th day. In my mail that Monday I received a Hallmark card thanking me for my business, oh the irony.

To be honest I had only one problem with Sprint in the past four years I used them, and it was about paying my bill. Due to me being a complete space cadet, I would forget to pay my bill until the day it was due. I'd pay it, but due to timezones they considered it late but I got a refund for those two times. My personal favorite was when my sister had a broken phone, and they e-mailed her saying they tried to call her repeatedly and couldn't reach her. Well seriously, if the phone doesn't work...

Trust me, this is a HUGE problem even when dealing with Indian call-center workers in India. Every month, without fail, they screw something up on my mom's cellphone bill. The latest fiasco involved her attempting to pay her bill online and it not working, informing her she had to register her phone numbers first. This did not work, so she called the call-center for help, only to be told that this simply wasn't possible. She attempted to use logic on the guy, asking him how exactly it was possible that she couldn't do something that they'd told her to do on the bottom of her bill, and all he could do was just insist that it wasn't possible. I'm guessing this is because that's all he's been 'taught' to say. Once in a way she gets someone who has the ability to think outside the box, but it's a rare occurrence.

Actually Retentions doesn't work as well as it used to, because too many people know about it.

Nowadays, the best way to get things done and done right is to call Executive Accounts, which will take you directly to those working for Gary Forsee. The people who were originally cancelled and then reinstated used that number to get their plans reinstated.

Agents that think outside the box may get a better customer satisfaction rating, but they usually are penalized by their superiors for not following the script. Its really a double-edged sword!

laffing @ the hallmark card....wow....

warning about t-mobile hotspots
 

This is for anyone who is subscribed to T-Mobile Hotspots and tries to cancel it - when I called them once to get the password, they told me they couldn't give me the information because I wasn't the primary account holder, even though I had all the requisite information. Since nobody ever used it, my dad told me to unsubscribe from the service, which I did online. This was spring 2006.

Fast-forward to April of this year, my dad finally opens up one of the T-Mobile statements (since my parents live in India, he generally doesn't check the bill and it gets paid automatically by CC - BIG mistake). He looks at the bill, and notices that it's much higher than it should be, and after confirming that neither one of us (me or my brother) has exceeded the minutes/messages per month, scans the bill REALLY closely until he realizes what the hidden charge was (and it was not immediately apparent) - yes, they were still charging us for the T-Mobile Hotspot.

Calling customer service turned out to be a huge headache, they claimed they had no record of us ever unsubscribing, and tried to hold it against my dad that he'd used it two weeks earlier in England (to which he replied 'Yes, but if you look at the past two YEARS you will realize this isn't a consistent usage pattern). It took the better part of an hour to get the damn thing cancelled and even then they would only agree to refund about $60. So if you're trying to cancel your Hotspot service with them, be dogmatic and insistent and set aside a good chunk of time to do it.

also get a confirmation number for the work order, have them e mail it if possible or somehow get a hardcopy...if all else fails look at the follwoing bills for 3 months to make sure the charge is truly gone