Sprint terminating my contract for too much roaming

[gimme5]

Originally Posted by freeza

Pay for the Airwave like an honest citizen and not try to get it for free? My bad for not trying to help the guy rip off a company. I'm sure if it were your company people were trying to rip off then you'd have a different view.

For users like me, with borderline coverage but who can still make and receive calls, if I were to get a free airave, yeah, it would be a rip off.

I think for users with legitimate problems like the OP, they should give it to him for free. It's not a rip off if the user has a real problem.

Everybody wins! I mean, scenario A: Sprint loses a $200/mo customer. Scenario B: they end up paying I don't know how much to Verizon for his roaming. Scenario C: They give him a free Airave (which they don't lose much money on), they save themselves the cost of roaming, and they keep $200+ in their pocket every month. No brainer really.

[freeza]

Originally Posted by gimme5

For users like me, with borderline coverage but who can still make and receive calls, if I were to get a free airave, yeah, it would be a rip off.

I think for users with legitimate problems like the OP, they should give it to him for free. It's not a rip off if the user has a real problem.

Everybody wins! I mean, scenario A: Sprint loses a $200/mo customer. Scenario B: they end up paying I don't know how much to Verizon for his roaming. Scenario C: They give him a free Airave (which they don't lose much money on), they save themselves the cost of roaming, and they keep $200+ in their pocket every month. No brainer really.

Thanks for the well thought out reply.

I mean yeah it sucks that coverage is spotty, but to 'deserve' free stuff because of it is, in my opinion, totally not right. It's like saying because the tires your car came with suck in the winter that you should deserve FREE snow tires. That's what the majority of people in this thread are saying. Sprint is not offering the Airwave for free so why try and get them to give it up for free? I'd rather the OP switch carriers instead of trying to get free stuff out of Sprint because "their coverage is crappy." Maybe I don't know what i'm talking about here, but as far as I was aware, Sprint had a coverage map that indicates where they would get service and where they wouldn't. Even entering your zip code on the Sprint home page shows this. Now if moving to an area with little to no coverage is what the OP did, then Sprint has no obligation to give him free stuff because of it.

[SporkLover]

Originally Posted by freeza

Right....and with the number of posts suggesting people use SPRINT phones on VZW service, i'm sure that's helping Sprint out in the long run instead of suggesting them to buy the Airwave. If Sprint decides to go the way of Circuit City, your use this awesome phone on VZW service goes right out of the window. Way to try and help a struggling company.

The company is struggling because of their own actions..... not the users. And a sprint phone on Verizon networks doesnt hurt them if they aren't subsidized. If it was a full purchase then whats the issue?

Pay for the Airwave like an honest citizen and not try to get it for free? My bad for not trying to help the guy rip off a company. I'm sure if it were your company people were trying to rip off then you'd have a different view.

Your analogy of snow tires was not a good one. With Sprint you are paying for a service, and they are the ones that tell you if your home address or area you are in the most is under coverage and whether or not they can service you. If they cannot do that with their normal cell tower coverage, why shouldnt users try to get them to provide the coverage anyway they can?

When you buy a Vette, Viper, Porsche, WRX STi, Evo, etc etc that come with high performance street tires, you shouldnt be expecting to be able to use them all year round. However, when Sprint sells you service and they say it covers your house, you should expect them to be able to carry through.

[freeza]

Originally Posted by SporkLover

The company is struggling because of their own actions..... not the users. And a sprint phone on Verizon networks doesnt hurt them if they aren't subsidized. If it was a full purchase then whats the issue?



Your analogy of snow tires was not a good one. With Sprint you are paying for a service, and they are the ones that tell you if your home address or area you are in the most is under coverage and whether or not they can service you. If they cannot do that with their normal cell tower coverage, why shouldnt users try to get them to provide the coverage anyway they can?

When you buy a Vette, Viper, Porsche, WRX STi, Evo, etc etc that come with high performance street tires, you shouldnt be expecting to be able to use them all year round. However, when Sprint sells you service and they say it covers your house, you should expect them to be able to carry through.

Um, how do we know Sprint said anything about their coverage covering the OP's work? As subscribers we should take a tad bit of responsibility in the matter to find out before hand if our providers will work where we are located. I'm assuming Sprint worked just fine for the OP until the job came along, in which case, no, Sprint has no obligation to give away free stuff, nor do they have an obligation to carry through on anything.

[gimme5]

Originally Posted by freeza

Sprint is not offering the Airwave for free so why try and get them to give it up for free?

You're right about that, they didn't offer it for free. But nobody is suggesting that the OP goes into a Sprint store and 5-finger discounts one. It's more like "Hey, I know you guys want me off your network, but there's another option here that you might not have considered...". If they still want him off the network, it's their choice. If they want to keep him, it's also entirely their choice.

After all, people (some more deserving than others) have gotten them for free, and this scenario is exactly why Sprint does give them away for free in order to avoid losing a customer. The retentions department gives them away to customers who call in to say "My coverage is not good enough, I'm going with Verizon". The only twist here is that the OP didn't call and complain, he figured "Well, my coverage sucks, I'll just use my free roaming".

To me, it looks like a mistake, Sprint didn't consider the free airave option, which I think they should have in this case. Perhaps Sprint never updated their procedures for when a customer roams too much. They should.

Imagine how much better this would have been:
Customer roams way too much, Sprint calls and says "We noticed you're roaming a lot, are you having coverage issues? Yes? Okay, we're sending you a free airave, thanks for choosing Sprint!"


Edit: Oh, and one quick note, the coverage map changes all the time. I signed up, I saw my house was well within the limits of Sprint's coverage. I received my phone, and noticed that it would sometimes roam if I went to the backyard or the family room. A couple of weeks later, the coverage map showed my house as being out of coverage. I'm checking the coverage once in a while, and they're always moving that limit around a bit...