[out77880]

I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall...Right now we have an ETF of $200 and an upgrade discount starting at $150? I'm guessing (I never read the contracts) that the $200 termination fee is written in to our contracts, but not the $150 discount? If so, even that can be lowered, or even raised...if it makes cancelling less appealing. Plus they could change it so that you have to renew a contract after 2 years in order to qualify for even the Silver Premier Status Level. There seems to be a lot that marketing can offer, and then take away once you're a customer, because it's not apart of your "agreement"--it's just one of the reasons you agreed to the contract...hmmmm.

The truth is, and we all know it because we can follow trends, is that it was a bad idea to start the 12 month early subsidized upgrades in the first place, because the cell phone society is all about having the latest and greatest phone that's available on your network. Granted not everyone feels this way, but I'm guessing at atleast $150 a pop, it doesn't take too many to start eating into profits...that's assuming it's a real discount--I confess to not knowing much about the true cost of phones to carriers.

However, it was done, and now they want to take it back for the most part, and I've heard they're actually saying it's what their 10+ year customers wanted...really? I'm more inclined to believe that the 10 year olds wanted an additional perk, not for everyone else to lose their main perk, but it was an opportunity to reduce the amount of discounts they give every year...and thus we have April 1st (Sprint Day). I bet they've crunched many a number on how much they will earn with the newer phones coming out (attracting new customers) and weighed that against the "expected" or "estimated" loss in contracted customers...and it looks like the contracted customers lost.

I don't like it one bit, but I'm not going anywhere--I'm one of those contracted customers that lost. So yeah, I'm going to pay full price for the EVO 3D and sell my EVO 4G. Contracts mean very little to me out here, I simply go with what service works best...I live out in the middle of nowhere country, the first provider that brings unlimited 4G to my area, gets my business--If it's Sprint, great--if not, I couldn't care less about an ETF...I'm not holding my breath though.