Cell Phone Savings and ETF discount

I switched cell phone providers in July/August time frame to Ting.com.  I switched, while my wife stayed on Sprint because she got her phone in November of last year and the Early Termination Fee would have been horrendous (over $300).

Well, I'd say that switching was a success:

My bills the past three months:  $34.85, $32.70 and $26.13.
My wife's bills the past three months:  $69.70, $69.70 and $69.70.

This represents a drop of already $30 a month or $660 per year from $129.99 that we were previously paying in our joint phone account.  Now, Ting is offering a 25% discount on your ETF's.  So, I'll be switching my wife's phone over sooner that I originally expected.  This should save us an additional $30 per month.

The only issue may be that Ting does not allow roaming for data.  However, since most places we go nowadays either have coverage for Sprint or wifi access, I'm pretty confident this will not be a problem.

I'll update in couple months to let folks know if we are saving even more.  If you click the Ting.com link in the first paragraph, you'll get a $25 discount on your first month's service.

Sprint TOS update and saving on my cell phone bill

I was finally able to cancel my phone without causing incurring the ETF that Sprint wanted to charge.  However,  they would not allow me to cancel my wife's phone for the same reason because she just got her phone last November (I got my phone in October 2011).  This means that I was able to transfer to my phone to ting.com and changed my wife's plan from a family plan to one of their new individual plans until it makes sense to cancel her's altogether.

I am ok with this for one reason.  Switching over to ting seems like a risk and switching my phone first, allows  me to test the service before we switch over both of ours.  The main issue is Sprint didn't charge for roaming data (since their network sucks, this is probably a necessity) and ting basically does not allow it.  However, after a week of using ting.com, I'm happy to say I haven't noticed much of an issue.  Roaming calls still go through and are free still, so that was my main concern.   My bill is tracked by the amount of usage I actually use so the less I use data, talk or text for a month, the lower my bill and I can also set alerts to tell me I'm approaching certain limits.  I'm figuring my usage will end up costing me about $31 - $42 per month + charges, which is much cheaper than we're paying for my wife's plan.

I'll keep you updated.

Sprint lawyers need to retake contract law

I was on the phone with Sprint for about an hour on Saturday.  I called to have my service terminated while they waved the Early Termination Fee (ETF) based upon a change in their Terms of Service (TOS) that I wrote about previously.

They actually had someone from the escalations department contact me.  I think she was a bit exasperated and sounded like she had been fielding these calls for most of the day.  Nevertheless,  I noted two interesting things during our conversation.

1. She did not even realize that this change was in the contract.  She nearly called me a liar for saying it was different because the only thing the Sprint Lawyers had evidently prepared them for was the WiMax issue.
2. She insisted it was not a change that was material or adverse because the Sprint attorney's had told her it was not.  Evidently, they have no bias.

She outright refused to waive the fee and actually said that I should hire an attorney if I wanted to.  Based upon comments I've been reading online, it seems Sprint is in lock down mode and does not care how many customers they piss off.

BTW, it's not as if my wife and I are fly-by-night customers as we've been with Sprint for about 8 years.  If they don't respond to me soon, my next move will be to contact the Better Business Bureau (BBB).