so apparently Sprint has done this A LOT. no wonder they receive the Hall of Shame. haha


Sprint dumping 1,000 customers

I read somewhere that they deemed all those who were regularly calling customer service 40-50 times a month those they dumped. I dont know how to feel about this, I'm sure they were costing Sprint $$ by calling so often but if they had legit problems that something else. Business is business i guess and if you hurt the bottom line then "be gone".

Sounds like a PR nightmare going forward for Sprint but it might help their bottomline. Anyone on here getting cut?

yea, it would be interesting to see if anyone has gotten cut from the BB forums.

i think this is going to be a domino effect, and Sprint is in DEEP sh*t. even regular customers might start complaining just to get out of their contracts for free.

yeah, well I've heard the stories about other carriers where if you call "enough" they will give in and let you leave but this is different. Sprint has some definite issues over the next few years.

hmm...well wouldn't that suck if only one carrier had coverage in your area but it was spotty and always having maintenance problems and you called a lot b/c you wanted service etc. then, you're let go and you're forced to be without a cell phone.

the way sprint presented this issue, they said that after the company was ranked the hall of shame, people started FLOODING in with complaints and that's when they started letting people go. i'm not sure which came first. honestly, i think the hall of shame was a result of customer complaints, and i think Spring has A LOT of public relations and CS issues to work out. what sucks is that when they acquired Nextel, they got all their crap too b/c Nextel coverage absolutely blows.

i'm not sure who to believe...sprint or everyone else. something tells me certain people over did it, but i would bet to say a significant amount of calls were legit

I agree, major problems if your in an area where Sprint is the only provider (if those areas exist). There are some major PR issues with this move but I'm sure there was a decision made in some board room that sounded like "every CS call costs us X and if the average customer calls in 50 times a month then we are not making the Y that we need to make" kind of reminds me of the insurance industry and we know their PR problems.

I'm leaning towards siding with the customers simply because they have a track record of having bad CS and that in turn leads to more calls.

Well really they have CRAPPY billing. I hated sprint.


I've heard bad stories from every company. I had one bad run w/ Tmobile but they ended up fixing it and treat me better than ever.

My run w/ sprint was this.

3 lines, 1 account, 3 different plans.

Plan 1. Had a lot of txt.

Plan 2. Had a lot of min and international plan.

Plan 3. Lots of min and some txt.


They seemed to get these three plans mixed up w/ the users EVERY MONTH. I would call in and spend 2-3 hrs a month having to go though this. Just to see it redone the next month. We had to leave sprint w/ a $1000 balance that did not belong to us. I'm sure they work for others but for me it's just a no go.

Tmobile has IMO the best plans and coverage for what I need.

out west there exist those areas. for example, there was a BB forum member who lived in Oregon where Sprint was the only provider for his area. If Sprint was to have maintenance issues and neglect to fix them in a timely matter due to the fact that possibly the customer base is very small for that tower, people would begin to complain A LOT. Sprint obviously has bigger and better projects and improvements to be working on, than devoting immediate resources to fix a tower or cell site issue that only has a hundred or so people using it in one particular small town.

For example, t-mobile was doing maintenance on a cell site at work and it was down for 2 weeks (drove me OFF the wall), and i called EVERY day to get status. I b*tched and whined and complained and yelled for every day for about 14 days. some days on the drive home i would call up and complain. i would demand to speak with supervisors, regional engineering techs, the whole 9 yard. and you know what...all that b*tching paid off because they finally sent someone out to fix the tower manually (instead of trying to fix it from a remote location) and they met up with me to make sure that everything was good. that's right, they sent out a HUMAN BEING to make sure that my service was good. it was a regional engineering tech. now THAT'S what i call good service.

if t-mobile took sprint's viewpoint on my issue...they would have just dumped me and i would be looking for a new carrier.

true, if theres a gripe then they "should" not get rid of the customer but I can assume you might have people that make it a regular thing to average alot of calls every month. I have a friend that works in t the Tmo CS center in south Florida and he tells some stories of some people who are regular callers and its common to have people call in to gripe about their phone or the ringtones or to simply talk.

theirs nothing better than getting good service and doesnt sound like any of the companies have it quite right but dont really think its possible.

I read an article on this somewhere (I'll see if I can find the link) that it wasn't just because the people called in for service frequently, but that they were attempting to jilt the system. A lot of the folks had actually requested refunds repeatedly or were searching for various monetary compensations, etc. Evidently, some of the people hadn't paid a wireless bill in months!

EDIT: link! Exclusives: Sprint Customers Terminated For Complaining Too Much Were Scamming Sprint For Free Service - Consumerist

i'm probably in the minority, but i dont think this is that bad (unless sprint is the only carrier who provides service in your area). these people are calling what, 40-50 times per month? thats (an average of) at least once a day. if you need to call your carrier one to two times a day for every day of the month, clearly, there is something wrong and you're dissatisfied with the carrier. they're giving you time to find a different provider and waiving the ETF. sounds ok to me.

Well, it's just the typical mindset...complain about bad service but never thank for good!

Nothing but anti Sprint FUD. These deadbeats were calling 30-40 per month looking for credits and discounts, Sprint even mention one customer that hadn't paid anything since 05. They tried to please these people and many got repeated credits to shut them up. Like anything else, they kept milking the cow and Sprint put its foot down. I feel sorry for whatever carrier gets these customers.

Since one has to pay an ETF if they leave their contract early, does Sprint have to pay if they dump you?

Gee lets see what was it you called me a Verizon Fanboy hmmm I guess the same could be said about you and sprint huh.

Nope. and free to transfer numbers to other carriers.

I guess if someone don't like Sprint and want out of the contract, call Sprint more often.

I know I wish i would have waited because i know i would have been one they got rid of.

They only got rid of the ones that had a massive amount of credits due to complaints.

Sorry, but I think if more companies would do that, it would weed out the dumb A$$ people that make all of our rates go up.

Healthcare, insurance...just an example, they get worked over, there going to pass that buck off to us to pick up.

I work for a software company and there we have customers that call in for support that want us to reboot their servers for them!

WAY TO GO SPRINT! (Even though I think your service sucks)

here is another article on the issue, and it has some interenet stats on $ related to customer service calls

Splitting up with your cell phone carrier - Page1 -Â* MSN Tech & Gadgets - News and Features

I got out of my contract with Sprint. I told them I moved to an area that didnt have cell service. They requested proof that I moved to this address. I made some stuff up and faxed it over. They never got it and it dragged on for a month or so of collection calls for the early term. fee. then I re-faxed and had so many calls i lost count. I had to get angry and make demands before they finally said they would waive the early term. fee. I only had to pay some data charges, which was like $25. Not to bad to swith from sprint to Cingular/At&T with the same number..*evil laugh* I did it just so I could get my precious bb pearl! I love it.

This is Why Sprint Sucks. Their Plans Suck. Their network sucks. And their customer service sucks. Why doesent someone buy them out.

Sprint has some of the best and most reasonable plans. The Sprint network is great and their customer service is some of the best. Who should buy them out? Drop a call Cingular or pay for every little thing Verizon? Don't think so. I think Sprint is right to get rid of customers that drive up costs for the rest of us.

I compared what I have with verizon and to get the same thing with sprint is 70 bucks higher and I cant get unlimited txt to any carrier for my secondary users.

So the price comparison isnt valid

It must depend on where you live because I also have Verizon and Sprint is less in everything plus Sprint offers free incoming that Verizon doesn't. Verizon BB data plan is $59.99. Sprint BB data plan is $39.99. Sprint doesn't cripple internal features of the BB such as GPS like Verizon does.

wrong i pay 49.99 for my data
but have top pay 20 bucks each for sms on sprint vz its free and i dont care about the GPS thatw why i have a gpa in my car. so please give us a new argument that ones getting old.

$70 higher then Sprint?, give me a break. I find that very hard to believe. Lets see a breakdown of your great Verizon service and its cost.

i can easily believe it. Dawg prob has multiple phones

its 60 bucks just in sms messaging alone.

My gawd. If someone called 40-50 times a month and complained, I would dump them as well. What the hell could they be complaining about if they called that many times?!?! Is it the same complaint 50 times or 50 different issues???

Some people just LOVE to ***** and complain about every single issue whether their fault or not. Frankly, I am glad that Sprint 'pimp slapped' them to another carrier.

Funny how the news story didn't say what the 'average' complaint was about.

I want to know who has that much time to call lol. Perhaps they should get a job and then they could pay their bill instead of complain about it.

Seriously though, they call each transfer a "new call" and if you "get disconnected" you have to call back. As soon as Sprint took over Nextel, my CS experience went to crap and I would get disconnected quite often - even in the menus. We are now mostly t-mobile except for a few people with coverage issues or contracts that aren't up yet.

Some customers aren't worth supporting at any cost. So I agree with the decision. Free market does work, people.

Aaron