Verizon/Sprint (or Any Cell Company) - Bad Business July/August 2002

So a couple of years ago, I was sitting pretty with Verizon. Except that every month, I went over my minutes. Seeing an ad on TV, I called to see if I could get the deal. Verizon was very good about upgrading your plan. Unfortunately, it turned out that I only had a "dual-mode" phone. I needed at "tri-mode" phone in order to get the deal. To get that, of course, required a two-year contract.

But this whole thing soured me. Why would I rejoin a contract that was limiting me so?

I decided to abort. The first woman I spoke to said that it would be over $100 to cancel my contract. Really? Because when I signed up, no one mentioned the excess fees involved in cancelling (Remember Lease prices before the big disclosure scandal?). So I stayed for another month and called back. This woman said that it would be about $40 to cancel. Sweet. I talked to my wife, set up an account with Sprint, and called them back. Suddenly, it was over $100 again.

What?

So I dumped on a supervisor. This was not acceptable. But after wrangling and complaining, I still was only let off at about $87.

Point being: Get the cancellation info in writing before you commit. They're all shady.

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My one friend was happy with Sprint forever. Praised them whenever he had a chance.

But then he went to Mexico.

He was sold a package that would allow him to call home in the US for a very small fee. The package cost about $75. When he got down there, he could rarely get connected. And when he got back, he found that the times he did get connected cost him several hundred dollars.

Did I mention that this was his honeymoon?

So, speaking to a supervisor, he found out that the package never shoud have been sold to him, especially by a lower-level, local person. But they wouldn't reduce his bill.

He spent a good deal of his wedding money paying for Sprint's goof.

Lesson: Speak to a supervisor before purchasing ANY plan.