Sprint releasing contracts over $4.99 a month??

[mulhiny]

Forget your credit score, what matters here is your credit with Sprint. If you pay your bills late then I can't understand the complaint when they ask you to simply pay your bill on time (auto draft) of pay a nominal fee. Do this for a year and the ASL goes away. No biggie. Or go to Verizon and continue to pay bills late and pay another $20 a month..I don't get it.

[elephant007]

Originally Posted by sanjsrik

i'm guessing no one read the buzz about wireless forum nor the announcement by sprint about this about a month ago:

http://community.sprint.com/baw/message/140691

This ONLY impacts customers who had poor credit. I think this has to do with those they deem high risk of not paying their account on time so they're trying to force ONLY those customers to do auto bill pay. While this may be a bit predatory, it's a business practice to make sure Sprint gets paid. If you had to have a deposit when you opened your account or if you missed enough payments to warrant this type of action, then it's those users only they're targeting.

FWIW, I've never even heard of anyone at any cellphone company asking for a deposit when I got a phone, that's probably because I have a very high credit score and good credit rating.

isn't it funny how people with poor credit get jacked with more financial hardships? I mean I recovered from poor credit from a divorce... there's no quick way to repair your credit... I did it without "buying" a service to repair it either... I slow rebuilt it, took me almost 7 years and now my score is 720+!!

Yeah, I had to pay extra because of my poor credit too

[cohowap]

Sprint finally called back, and removed the ASL status on my account, thus not having to pay the 4.99.

After talking to them, the ASL status was put on my account when I first started service (9 years ago, just turned 18 no credit history). It has absolutly nothing to do with your current credit score or state or payment history (unless your account was closed for failed payments), it has to do with the state of your credit when you created your account.

If you are experiencing the same thing I am (and have good credit), request to be fowarded to the credit department to have the ASL status removed from your account.

GL.

[faxmonkey]

Just remember..... when everything else fails due to poor credit. Put it in ya mamas name.

[Rager02]

ive heard of tmobile doing the samething when you dont have an automatic withdrawal set.i got my spending limit after about a year and a half.

[themuffinman]

Originally Posted by cohowap

Sprint finally called back, and removed the ASL status on my account, thus not having to pay the 4.99.

After talking to them, the ASL status was put on my account when I first started service (9 years ago, just turned 18 no credit history). It has absolutly nothing to do with your current credit score or state or payment history (unless your account was closed for failed payments), it has to do with the state of your credit when you created your account.

If you are experiencing the same thing I am (and have good credit), request to be fowarded to the credit department to have the ASL status removed from your account.

GL.

Glad you got it squared away, but you should have done this years ago. I mean seriously after 9 years you still had a spending limit? Sheesh. But same here though after my first year with sprint my spending limit went away, I have been with them for 8 years.

Originally Posted by faxmonkey

Just remember..... when everything else fails due to poor credit. Put it in ya mamas name.

LOL, thats how you become hood rich.

[rallynavvie]

I had that stupid ASL on my account when I got my recent Sprint service 8 years ago. I had a phone with them even earlier which I could not afford and it hurt me when I came back to them. But I was stuck on an ASL and wasn't even allowed to pay my bills online, only in cash at a Sprint store kiosk. My credit score back then was decent (700-ish) but I got a new job that traveled 100% and it was a PITA to find a Sprint store in whatever little town I was in that week. Called and asked to have the limit removed and they said I had a recent late payment. Well yeah, I had a recent late payment because there wasn't a Sprint store anywhere near me that month (Galena, AK!!) and they wouldn't accept a payment over the phone!

So I was stuck with the damn thing until I realized Amex advertised bill pay with Sprint PCS. Sprint wouldn't accept my Amex for payment so I called Amex, whose customer service is the best in the world IMO. 3 days later Sprint called and said my account had been "upgraded" and that my Amex was set up for auto-pay and no more ASL!

Most bank offer overdraft protection (line of credit) so if you're worried about overdraft fees you are 1) not making enough to afford this service/phone (in the TP2 section no less!), 2) not fiscally-responsible enough for this service/phone, or 3) making excuses. If you do have good credit then get a damn Amex and use that for your auto-payments because it's eleventy-billion times easier to work with Amex customer service than it is to work with Sprint. Just make sure to pay your Amex bill on time or you're really in for some trouble

[cohowap]

Originally Posted by themuffinman

Glad you got it squared away, but you should have done this years ago. I mean seriously after 9 years you still had a spending limit? Sheesh. But same here though after my first year with sprint my spending limit went away, I have been with them for 8 years.

I didn't even know what ASL was until today. My accounts just been my account since day 1, never went over what the limit was so I thought it was just normal. Boy was I wrong.

[zigg]

I fall into the same category as many posting - Divorce screwed up my credit, signed up with sprint almost 8 years ago, got an ASL. I never paid attention to the thing till I saw this thread, but I never thought to have it removed... it hasnt interfered with my service so, meh. But I can feel were the OP is coming from I'd be pissed too. I have been over charged several times by Sprint and been part of one or two class actions because of it.

So if I was ever asked to do this or go, I probably would go too cause I am sure they would do it again - dont trust'em. I travel to Canada alot too, but not so frequent to add it to my plan, so the amount of my bill varies and I would not feel comfortable with some unknow amount comming out. I mean its not like I make anything close to $90,000.00... I am just a social worker

But this thread has been useful, I will probably call to have the asl removed now.... probably.

[Mojary]

Originally Posted by austin420

asl is the spending limit program for those with poor credit. you have to put a deposit down on your contract and you cant exeed that limit. i had one about 4 years ago in the first year of my contract. your out of the program in one year and you get your deposit back in the form of a service credit.

how do you get out of the program? because when i signed up with sprint a few years ago, i was put on the limit. but obviously they didn't take me off of it after the first year because im still on it. when i renewed my contract in october, i asked them about getting it taken off. the guy at the store i bought my phone from said that it can't be taken off and the only thing that happens is that my limit would go up when my paying record is good. i think what he told me was BS because sure there were a few times that i've paid my bills a few days late...but compared to all the times i've paid the same day or the next day when i see that my balance has posted on my account....my spending limit should already be through the roof. but nope....it's still at the same limit for the past 4 years my account has been active.

do i want to pay for the $4.99 each month?...no. will i pay it?...yes. do i want to go auto-pay to avoid it?...not so fast. some of the members do have a point where it's hard to do auto-pay when your bill either goes up or down in any given months. don't get me wrong...i have auto-pay on my credit cards, but i have it set up to pay a set amount each month (and yes...i do pay way more than the minimum...LOL). one scenario comes to mind when i upgraded. the first 2 months within my upgrade, they charged me as much as my monthly for int'l text messages on each month. im not denying that i send international text..but to charge me for all the messages i didn't send was ridiculous. sprint was able to resolve the issue with my account. i was billed about $120 that first month. then it happened again the 2nd month for about another $120!! got that resolved as well. they finally fixed something and now, im only getting charged for the messages i DID send.

but imagine if i was on auto-pay for those months. they would've already taken the money from my account while getting the issue resolved. and when it's resolved, all they'll do is credit my sprint account for said amounts i was over-charged for and not put it back in my bank (probably because they want it in their bank account so it'll earn interest for them). but that doesn't bode well for the other bills i have paid that is set to clear my bank account around the same time. i would get hit with NSF fee(s) even though i originally had enough funds to cover the bills i sent payments for. it's not like sprint will cover my NSF fees if it was their fault.

sorry for the long post...