How to best drop Sprint.

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

Sprint has dead zones at my work, my home, and daycare, so I’m dropping them when the contract is up August 26th and going to Verizon.

But I’m worried. I have heard so many nightmare stories. I swung by a Verizon kiosk today, and the unknowledgeable sales gal there told me to come down on the 27th and NOT to call sprint.

My thought is that if I am on Sprint for even a portion of a day, they are going to charge me for another month (or maybe claim they have me for another two years). I want them to know I am jumping ship, so I can have them stop billing me. So, is it so bad to call them? I’m thinking that the Verizon salesperson is trained to tell me not to call them, lest Sprint give me a sweetheart deal. But since I don’t see any cell towers popping up near my home, work, and daycare, Sprint is out no matter what. So I won’t be falling for any Sprint sales pitches.

Second Question:

My current phone has the world’s dullest ringtones. I found a way online to make my own, and it requires 3 applications, various tweaks, and then I have to say and sign the alphabet backwards, without vowels, with my eyes closed. Well, not quite that, but I work at a supercomputing institute, I am a sys admin, I have technical skillz baby, and I never could get one of my homemade ringtones to work. So, are there any phones available through Verizon where I can just use a nice .wav for a ring? Or one that doesn’t require backflips to make my own ringtone?

Your opinions are welcome. Thanks.

#2

When I canceled my Sprint service, I called them up, told them I was ending my service, and they transferred me to a retention guy. Thing was, I didn’t give a crap about moving my number to another company, so I went off and got my new phone and then called Sprint afterwards. There’s not much they can pull to convince you to stay when you’re already gone. (I’m hearing the Eagles in the background…) They pro-rated my last payment & mailed me a check for the difference. I can’t see how you should be warned NOT to call Sprint. That’s just insane, and I smell shenanigans. I think you should start writing down notes and names for when you tell the FTC and/or FCC.

#3

I think that’s for number retention. AT&T told my husband not to call Verizon first when we were dropping my coverage by them and changing my cell number over to AT&T. If you cancel at your old company before starting up service with the new, you’ll lose your old cell number.

#4

Can’t Verizon set a start date other than the day I am there? That seems so backwards.

#5

Having worked for SPCS (in retention, no less) – here is my advice:

If you want to keep your current number, verify when your contract with Sprint is over – do not rely on your own records, make them tell you definitively. After the contract is up, go to Verizon and begin the number porting. Do Not Call SPCS to cancel. If you cancel your service, the number is retained by SPCS and you will not be able to port it. Verizon will do the rest for you. After a few weeks, you should receive your final bill from SPCS. Dispute any charges you think are not legit immediately and then pay your actual bill. You might actually receive more than one bill from SPCS after your number is ported, depending on how long it takes and where it falls in your billing cycle.

#6

Can’t you go in set everything up with Verizon before the finish date and have it set to activate on the final contract date?

(Says the guy with no experience dealing with cel phone companies)

#7

No. Porting is still a touch-and-go thing. If the port requests hits SPCS prior to end-date of the OP’s contract, she will be subject to the cancellation fee. Service with the new company begins the date the porting starts – no company wants to pre-date a customer. It’s too much work. Every cell phone company I have ever known of works in the now and cannot set changes to happen at future dates. It is in the company’s best interest, of course.

#8

Just to let you know, I let my expired contract lapse with Sprint, and I became a month to month customer automatically for about 6 months…I was waiting for the new Palm Centro to get released before signing a new contract (and thus getting a big discount on a new phone). I was surprisingly even able to keep my same plan ($15/month for unlimited data!) which was no longer offered, even after signing a new contract! As long as your contract is expired, and your monthly bill is paid Sprint should have no right or cause to charge you a termination fee.

One warning about Verizon - they are the biggest ripoff cell phone company there is, and they tweak their phones so that you can NOT create and upload your own ringtones (or download photos, for that matter) for free. They will CHARGE YOUR EXTRA in order to transfer files between your phone and computer, via their website.

#9

Da-amn, I knew I’d get info from the dope. Good things to know. Litoris, thanks for explaining the reasoning behind it.

#10

Anytime. I will point out as well that paying your bill on time every month is the most effective way to be sure that SPCS (or any company, for that matter) will want to keep you as a customer and will kiss your ass up one side and down the other. Obviously, your value as a customer increases with the amount of your monthly bill, your on-time payments, the less you call and bother the company and how seldom you ask them for things like a new phone, etc. Just threatening to cancel will not immediately result in getting a great deal.

When you do decide to leave, give SPCS 2 months to send all of your bills, then call and verify that you do not have anything else due. Trust me on this – sometimes, especially with roaming, it can take a couple of billing cycles for charges to come in from outside sources. Go over your final bills with a fine-toothed comb, and if you find discrepancies, and dispute anything you find odd immediately. By agreeing to their TOS, you agree that any charges not disputed within 30 days of the bill being printed are valid and you will pay them.

#11

New Verizon retailer here.

(We mainly sell wireless internet gear but we have access to the phone side as part of our contract)

Data cables for pretty much any of the more feature rich phones are available and easily facilitate this for no extra charge. If you are looking for ease of interface with a PC, research your phone a bit before committing to buy. Plenty of the phones from all providers share the problem you are experiencing, its not a Verizon specific problem.

This is the exact reason why we as a computer shop were approached by Verizon because we can set this kind of stuff up for the customers where a Verizon store is generally not allowed to touch a computer.

#12

I advise dropping them from a great height.

#13

Hm, not necessarily. I just switched from Sprint to Verizon, and since I was within two weeks of my contract being up, they just let me go.

Maybe they wanted to get rid of me because I was so tired of their bull[stuff] that I paid them whenever I got around to it. :stuck_out_tongue:

#14

I have had two Motorola phones from Verizon. These phones are built with the capability to interface to a PC to allow transfer of sound files, images, and video,. But Motorola has configured the phones, according to Verizon’s specs, to disable the capability. There are instructions available on the web for how to change the configuration but you have to really know what you’re doing (can you read hex codes?) and will probably void your warranty. I do not know if this is still true of the phones Verizon sells today. They have drawn a lot of criticism for this from a segment of the community.

#15

I’ve made my own ringtones using sound editors (Audacity is a good free one) and sending them to my phone as MP3 files. Some phones might still read WAV files but they’re way too big to be practical.

#16

That is exactly what those rotten jerks did to me. But luckily I only had to pay for an additional month for a phone that I had not used for the previous month. They’re teetering on the edge of going out of business, and treating your customers badly is not the way to retain customers.

When you try to disconnect, you’re transferred to their best sales people in “Customer Retention”, who get commission for every disconnection they can retain. They can offer you much better deals than anyone trying to get your business in the first place.

At least talk to the retention weasel, and call the company you do want with whatever their offer is. It gives you a better bargaining position.

#17

I dropped Verizon for US Cellular for connectivity reasons. I was happy with Verizon otherwise.

I had no problems with retention people, but I never gave them the chance. Someone called about a month before my contract was up, trying to talk me into renewing. I told them that while I was otherwise happy with Verizon, I moved out of the area where I signed up, and to an area where connectivity sucked and they had no presence. I absolutely was not going to renew. She said very well, and she would note my account.

THe very same day my contract was up, I went to US Cellular, got 2 new phones, and transferred my numbers to the new contract. I never heard a peep out of Verizon.

I previously had a Cingular contract, and they were real bastards to get rid of.

#18

Where in the living hell do you get your information? No one at the call centers for Sprint are on commission. If I had been on commission when I worked there, I would have never left! You don’t get any brownie points, any extra money, anything for retaining customers other than job security there.

And here I thought this board was about fighting ignorance, not promoting it…

#19

She’s going to have to take off and nuke them from orbit.

It’s the only way to be sure.

I’ve certainly been tempted to do this many times. The rage I have for Sprint can not even go into a Pit thread.
Oh, Litoris,

I’m ending my contract in a month and half.

To complicate things, the contract is for me and my ex wife. The phone number listed as mine is used by her and vice versa. We’ll both want to keep our numbers after we divorce from Sprint.

Any tips?

#20

Yep, porting is really the best way to deal with your sitch – have her contact her new company to port at the same time you do – most like (but it might vary with another company, so double-check) what she will have to do, since the account is in your name is either a) get a form notarised by you allowing her to port the number from your name into hers or b) have you port the number in your name, then transfer the account into her name. You do not want to do that via SPCS before you leave them – it will put both of you into a new contract.
Like I said, with porting, you do not have to contact the old provider, only the new one. If you and your ex will be porting to the same new carrier, I would recommend going in together (assuming you’re still friendly) and talking to them to make sure what they suggest is the best way to do it.