I stayed with my contract as long as I could stand it. I had 3 lines with Sprint, nothing but problems from day one. Worst service I've ever had from a cellular phone company, no reception, billing for mobile broadband and failure to deliver, multiple bad phones, and the list goes on.
Anyway, I finally decided that the early termination fees were worth it. So I cancelled my daughter's phone first, since she went to college and got a line with ATT. Next, I waited for the last day of my billing cycle to port out my remaining numbers. FCC states that initiating a number port cancels the contract for a cell phone line. Sprint confirmed this in the call that followed. FCC also states that companies like Sprint have up to 24 hours to release the number. This is where Sprint jumped for the extra bucks and is trying to screw us over!
Sprint didn't release the number until the next day, the first day of the billing cycle. They refuse to acknowledge the initiation of a number port as the termination of the contract, they want to make it the time they decided to let the number go. Why? So they can bill for the next 30 days. For those of you lucky enough not to have Sprint service, you may not know that they bill for the month in advance.
So, as the double-talking "Supervisor" at Sprint kept telling me, if I had cancelled the day before, they would not have billed me for a whole month that they don't provide service.
"But I did cancel the day before" I say.
"But we didn't release the number until today, " he says "so you have to pay for another month."
"You can't bill me for services you don't provide!"
"We're not. We did provide services." he says "We provided them for the month of September."
"But I already paid for September! You are ripping me off for a whole month that you aren't providing service!"
"You should have cancelled on the 7th"
"I did cancel on the 7th!"
"Yes, but we didn't let you go..."
And so on. Round and round he went, you could even hear him laugh at his little games. I really can't understand how they retain customers, even in areas they do have data coverage, let alone here.
I even emailed their whole "[email protected]" PR campaign. You know the one? Where the CEO claims to care. Right. I got an automated "we care about your concern" email, then never heard back.
And beware of their contract, too. Your hands are completely tied, PLUS they reserve the right to change it whenever they want without notifying you directly. They just have to change their website. Not sure how that's legal...
If you live in Southern Florida, forget about Sprint. If you want a fair and honest company, forget about them, too.
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