The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs announced yesterday that it settled a lawsuit it had filed against Sprint and Nextel over misleading advertising of cellphone plans. Consumer Affairs alleged that Sprint used fine print footnotes to change the meaning of the primary claims being made by the advertisement. Â In particular, while Sprint boldly advertised “All incoming calls are free”, the mouse print indicated there was either a 10 cent per minute charge or a monthly fee associated with the service. Â With respect to another claim, “Nationwide long distance included. Every minute, every day,” the fine print indicated certain circumstances when a 25 cent per minute long distance charge would apply.
Sprint Nextel will pay the city $295,000 to settle the case. Â In its press release, Sprint denied breaking any NYC advertising laws and said, “DCA never contested the truthfulness of the Sprint or Nextel advertisements…”
Hmm. Â It looks like Sprint’s press release may have been missing an asterisk and footnote about how it defines the word “truthfulness”.
Im glad I read this. I am shopping for a cell service and a friend told me that
Verizon offers free incoming calls. I’ll be sure to stop at the pet store and
get a mouse to read me their disclosure before I sign.
Thanks for such a great web sight !!
A cell phone company finding a way to slip extra charges into your bill?
I find that hard to believe.
I’m shocked. Shocked!
Nextel also says free nights and weekends. Nights starting at 9p…I have notice every time when I check my messages (people leave me the time they call) they say they called at 9:30p Nextel-Sprint says the call came in at 8:30p. I have complained to Nextel about this numerous times. So what else do they charge us for we are not aware of.
This is very interesting…does anyone have any suggestions on how to take some action?
-Joe B.
I worked for Sprint, as a customer service representative about five years ago. They are the most deceptive wireless carrier I know of. Visit the following two sites to get an eye full: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/sprintpcssucks/ and SprintSTILLsucks.com
I left in the middle of a shift one night because I had had enough of their deceptive practices. I’d taken a job with them after working three years for BellSouth Mobility, after they were acquisitioned and changed their name to Cingular. Cingular didn’t treat the customers as fairly as BellSouth so I became disgusted with them and in looking for a job, ended up with Sprint PCS. THE MOST deceptive company!
We were monitored very closely to be sure we tried to sell products to customers even when they told us they weren’t interested in the product. We’d be taken off line to go to the manager’s office for them to sternly give us “tips” on how to force the people into other services. A couple of reps were fired because they were caught not pressuring customers to purchase the Sprint long distance services for their home phone services. I didn’t pressure them either and got in trouble more than once and had I not gotten fed up and left I feel it was just a matter of time before I was fired.
It was a mess, and they rarely would give any credits to customers for incorrect billing which almost all bills were incorrect. They also would add 12 month contracts to accounts without telling the customer they were added. I stayed in trouble because I wouldn’t do anything deceptive and was sympathetic with the customers rather than with Sprint, and this is why I left in the middle of my shift one night. I was just fed up!
They offered their employees free wireless service with them, and wanted to know why I kept the service with my wireless company that I had when I started working for them. I told them that my service was superior to Sprint’s and that my carrier had nationwide coverage in all cities, which Sprint still does not have.
They lie to customers, telling them they have coverage in their area even if there is no coverage. One night a customer called in from somewhere in the state of Kansas, trying to get her new phone activated, and we couldn’t get a signal strong enough at first to do the activation. She finally went outside and climbed a ladder to the top of her house in order to get a signal strong enough to get her phone activated. I could hear coyotes or wolves howling in her yard she was so far out of the city! It took a total of two hours and three or four phone calls from me from time to time, before the signal finally got strong enough, but I asked the woman if she planned to make and receive all her calls from her roof top? I strongly advised her to take the phone back to the store and get a refund.
The reason they have so many customers is because of something they call ASL accounts (Account Spending Limits) which is offered to anybody who wants an account but can’t get one with other carriers because of bad credit. once the account reaches their preset amount the system shuts the account down until the customer calls in and pays it back down to under the preset amount (which was 125.00 during the time I was employed with them).
My 2 cents on that company from hell and all of what I wrote is the truth, and you’ll find more horror stories at those web sites I shared.
Correction, the site I was actually speaking of has been in existence for more than 5 years and ended with DOT ORG, not DOT COM. The old DOT ORG website seems not to be working, and the one with the DOT COM extension seem to be an entirely new site with just a few entries. If you can find the original site you’ll really see what kind of company most people view Sprint as being.
Sprint called me saying that they noticed that I had gone over my minutes, offered me a new/better plan and an upgraded phone with a rebate of $150. They sent me a lesser phone and added a line w/o my permission. When I canceled it they charged me $465.20 in fees and told me to “read the fine print in my contract!”