A year or two ago, Sprint PCS was advertising their prepaid wireless service offering — "My Wireless" — and the PreCash service that let you add money to the account. It had the standard provisos, if you didn't add at least $20 every 60 days, you forfeited your balance. Nothing unusual or bad, they had to protect themselves against perpetual carryovers from abandoned phones.
The interesting thing was the method for payment. You couldn't just send money to Sprint, they wouldn't accept it. What you had to do, was go a "participating retailer", give them your account card, and make a payment there. Hmmm, OK, didn't seem like anything threatening — and actually kind of convenient, all we had to do was go to Wal-Mart every two months and re-up.
Then in January this year, the cashier looked at the card and told us they didn't handle payments on it anymore. Hm. We called Sprint's support line for a list of alternates. The computerized message said go to Radio Shack. We went. We were told, "We've never accepted those cards." DOUBLE HM. I called Sprint customer service and got a human. He told me Sprint had canceled the plan. TRIPLE HM, they didn't see fit to tell anyone in advance or anything. I asked how I get my balance back. He told me tersely, "No refunds."
He did say that if I wanted to continue under the plan, I could. Well gee, that'd be really nice I said, if there were anywhere I could make a payment — which I now couldn't.
So in a few weeks my $250 balance was zeroed and I couldn't do a thing to stop it.
So a couple weeks later I call up Sprint to formally cancel the account. The service rep wanted to charge me $150 to "cancel my contract." I told her there wasn't any contract, it was pay-as-you-go — and she says the account didn't show that. Hm #4. Not only does Sprint cancel it without warning, then they cover their tracks and pretend it never existed.
I finally convinced her there wasn't a contract and she sets aside the fee. Then she told me I had to pay an outstanding $4.05 balance on the account. Again I told her, pay-as-you-go, there couldn't be a balance on it. Well guess what, there could, because Sprint allowed a couple of phone calls to be completed AFTER the balance had been zeroed. (Gee, as though that was my fault.)
Rather than leave it hanging and end up with a black mark on my credit rating, I paid it.
But I also filed a complaint with the FTC. If you've been ripped off by Sprint, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do the same, at ftc. Gov. The FTC responds to mass complaints, not individuals. If enough people go to them with a Sprint ripoff report, then eventually Sprint will be called to account.
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