3G for Wirless Hotspot - Added Fees
Complaint
Steve Biodrowski
Country: United States
We bought a ZTE Peel 3200 from eBay, thinking we could use it as a wireless hotspot device for my wife's new iPod, and cancel our old T-Mobile 3G service for her BlackBerry cell phone.
We had planned to sign up with Virgin Mobile's 20/month plan; unfortunately, it turns out that the ZTE Peel comes in two versions, one for Virgin Mobile and one for Sprint, and ours works only with Sprint.
So we went to the local Sprint store to activate service, and we are told that the cost is $30/month - $5 more than our old T-Mobile 3G service and $10 more than the Virgin Mobile Service we had hoped to get. We decided to try it anyway and see how it went.
First problem: the rep at the store adds an $8.00/month insurance premium on the ZTE Peel. This a device that costs less than $20 (you do the math and decide whether it's worth it). We tell him we don't want the insurance; he says he'll take care of it.
We go home and later I look up the account online. The $8.00/month insurance is still there. Fortunately, I can delete that.
Unfortunately, a while later a new fee shows up: a spending-limit fee of $5/month. We were not told about this at the time we signed up. We agreed to $30/month, not $35. So I call to complain and am informed I can get the fee waived if I sign up for Sprint's automatic payments.
But now my wife and I are fed up. We agreed to one price, and then Sprint started trying to add extra fees without informing us of them.We don't want to be involved with a company that treats its customers that way.
So I call up Sprint to cancel. They say we will be charged an early de-activation fee. Why? Because the ZTE Peel is showing up as if it were purchased in the store. My understanding of early deactivation fees is that they are to prevent someone from signing up for a 2-year contract in order to get a great new phone for a reduced price and then canceling after a month or two.
The telephone service rep at Sprint tells me to go back to the store and get them to fix the paperwork, so that it shows that the Peel was not purchased new at the store but merely activated there. I go back to the store. They say they cannot help me. It does not matter where the device was purchased. All their service comes with a two-year contract, like it or not.
Strange how no one mentioned this at the time we set up the service. In fact, we were told just the opposite.
Now Sprint refuses to terminate our service without charging us $200 for early deactivation!
What exactly has Sprint done for us that deserves $200? Omitted crucial details when we signed up, charged more than we used to pay at T-Mobile and would have paid at Virgin Mobile, and on top of that added fees that we did not agree to.
By the way, it's all our fault for not cancelling within 14 days. (The 14-day limit is another little detail that no one mentioned when we activated service.)
Needless to say, we are not happy with Sprint right now. We want to pay them for the couple weeks of service we got from them, and put an end to the whole affair. But Sprint doesn't want to let us go, without making us pay for being so stupid as to get involved with them in the first place.
We never want anything to do with Sprint again.
We had planned to sign up with Virgin Mobile's 20/month plan; unfortunately, it turns out that the ZTE Peel comes in two versions, one for Virgin Mobile and one for Sprint, and ours works only with Sprint.
So we went to the local Sprint store to activate service, and we are told that the cost is $30/month - $5 more than our old T-Mobile 3G service and $10 more than the Virgin Mobile Service we had hoped to get. We decided to try it anyway and see how it went.
First problem: the rep at the store adds an $8.00/month insurance premium on the ZTE Peel. This a device that costs less than $20 (you do the math and decide whether it's worth it). We tell him we don't want the insurance; he says he'll take care of it.
We go home and later I look up the account online. The $8.00/month insurance is still there. Fortunately, I can delete that.
Unfortunately, a while later a new fee shows up: a spending-limit fee of $5/month. We were not told about this at the time we signed up. We agreed to $30/month, not $35. So I call to complain and am informed I can get the fee waived if I sign up for Sprint's automatic payments.
But now my wife and I are fed up. We agreed to one price, and then Sprint started trying to add extra fees without informing us of them.We don't want to be involved with a company that treats its customers that way.
So I call up Sprint to cancel. They say we will be charged an early de-activation fee. Why? Because the ZTE Peel is showing up as if it were purchased in the store. My understanding of early deactivation fees is that they are to prevent someone from signing up for a 2-year contract in order to get a great new phone for a reduced price and then canceling after a month or two.
The telephone service rep at Sprint tells me to go back to the store and get them to fix the paperwork, so that it shows that the Peel was not purchased new at the store but merely activated there. I go back to the store. They say they cannot help me. It does not matter where the device was purchased. All their service comes with a two-year contract, like it or not.
Strange how no one mentioned this at the time we set up the service. In fact, we were told just the opposite.
Now Sprint refuses to terminate our service without charging us $200 for early deactivation!
What exactly has Sprint done for us that deserves $200? Omitted crucial details when we signed up, charged more than we used to pay at T-Mobile and would have paid at Virgin Mobile, and on top of that added fees that we did not agree to.
By the way, it's all our fault for not cancelling within 14 days. (The 14-day limit is another little detail that no one mentioned when we activated service.)
Needless to say, we are not happy with Sprint right now. We want to pay them for the couple weeks of service we got from them, and put an end to the whole affair. But Sprint doesn't want to let us go, without making us pay for being so stupid as to get involved with them in the first place.
We never want anything to do with Sprint again.
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