We’ve been trying to get out from under das boot of Sprint for a couple of months now. On Black Friday, I did a quick search on getting out of a Sprint contract. And there it was, Sprint was going to make a change to their administrative fees and someone had used that has the basis of a “Material Change” to the contract.
As we were heading off to pick up the kids from the grandparents’, we grabbed the mail from the day before. We found our latest Sprint bill outlining the changes that are to go into effect. We immediately contacted Sprint to see if we could get our contract cancelled. Of course, the CS rep we spoke to said that we wouldn’t be able to get out of the contract without Early Termination Fees (ETF). We asked to speak to a manager. The person that got on the line, wasn’t much more help; typical Sprint Customer Service. When we asked to speak to their manager, we were told everyone else had gone home for the day. We had them log a ticket and they said someone would call us back on Saturday. A Sprint CS rep called us on Saturday, but we we’re unable to speak to them. We arranged on a Monday call back.
My wife called me on Monday stating that Sprint had called back and said that yes, it was a material change to our contract and that we could port our numbers with no ETF. I almost immediately went to ATT’s website and started researching phones. I had already purchased an iPhone about a month before, and since I had to make sure my wife didn’t steal it every day, I already knew what I was going to get her. We had to find two phones for other members of the family. We were hoping to get a phone with a slide out keyboard and also cheap. But that just didn’t happen; we ended up going with the Sony Erickson w580i.
The Sprint saga is coming to a close.
Now, moving on to our experience at the AT&T retail store. I’m not sure when it happened, as we left AT&T for our home phone service almost 3 years ago, because of poor customer service and availability. Now, we are using them for our wireless coverage as well as their U-Verse TV and Internet service. The two times, I’ve been in AT&T retail stores in the last month and a half, I’ve actually left happy. That has never happened at a Sprint store. Our salesman was patient, even though we had our two son’s running around like crazy hooligans. And, I recommend that if anyone from AT&T happens to read this. Get some games on the demo iPhones in your retail stores. Our five year old was less than thrilled with the fact that he couldn’t play games on the iPhones like he could on mine. Anyways, we walked out about an hour later with a new iPhone, 2 w580i’s, and a family plan.
Also, AT&T, please try out your website with an iPhone. I have more Safari failures on your website when viewed through the iPhone browser than anywhere, except maybe the Monster.com website.
You can find more information here: http://consumerist.com/5098064/reader-escapes-sprint-with-no-etf-thanks-to-admin-fee-increase
If I comnmuiacted I could thank you enough for this, I’d be lying.