I think there are two big issues here... the first is one that any company that sells any type of service "package" is going to run into, which is making sure that their language accurately conveys their intended purpose. Anyone replying to this saying that PAM isn't mentioned in the plans is missing the point. Relying on the fact that it's not mentioned assumes that the user is walking into the situation assuming it's not. Without the statement that "Phone as modem is not included," the rest of the language is completely ambiguous. I've gone through all of the paperwork I have concerning terms and can not find any mention of phone as modem not being included. Now, it's online, but I'd be curious to find out when that went up. Personally, I think that fact that it's so plainly worded now and blatantly obvious on the site is a confirmation that Sprints realizes that there's been a *****-up. Now, this isn't a deal breaker, but the second issue is where I think Sprint could really get burned.
The second issue is that it seems apparently clear that there were a large group of customer support and sales staff that didn't know that this was the case either. And I think my situation is a perfect example of it. I wrote a post about the first part on my website, http://www.hornakapopolis.com/viewtopic.php?t=970, but here's a little more detail.
I go into Best Buy looking for a phone specifically to use as a modem while I'm out on the road. The clerk at the Best Buy tells me the BlackBerrys do that. At the time, I had a LG Rumor and the wife had a Motorola RAZR. We were on a 1500 minute shared plan and my line had unlimited internet access. I forget the exact numbers now, but the Best Buy clerk told me that, having a BlackBerry, I had the have the "BlackBerry plan." It was going to be an additional $20 per month, but since I was removing my $10 unlimited internet and got internet with the BlackBerry plan, it would only be a $10 difference. Other than that, after being specifically asked, there would be not functionality changes to my plan. After having the phone a few days, I call Sprint customer service to say that I've just switched plans and I want to make sure that none of my activity could possibly result in charges not being covered by my plan. I'm told that there is nothing out of the ordinary. (For the sake of the story, the wife, who wanted a BlackBerry, was told that since she wouldn't be browsing the internet as since we didn't want to pay for another BlackBerry plan, she'd lose most of the BlackBerry's functionality. So, she went with a Palm Centro.)
When I get my first bill showing the changes, I find out that the "$20" BlackBerry plan is actually a $40 BlackBerry plan. I'm a bit ******, but I'm happy with the phone and have been happy with the service for the past 10 years. I remember this taking me, though, to around $140 or $150 a month. The kicker though is that now my line isn't a part of our shared 1500 minutes, so every call that I had made in the past month was being charged as an overage and my long distance calls were being charged an additional fee. So bringing in the first point I made above, I called up Sprint to ask, "What was I supposed to ask to find out that this was going to happen? How am I supposed to know that a "BlackBerry plan" doesn't either automatically include voice or would automatically attach itself to a voice plan? Is there language in my terms that I should have picked up on?" It also made my call a week after getting the phone completely pointless. If I don't know what a "BlackBerry plan" includes and doesn't include and I can't depend on support from my provider to tell me that I'm paying something like $.30 for every single phone call I'm making, what am I supposed to do?
Now... here is where this "Everything Plan" comes in.
Now, every time I talk to a rep, I explain what I want to do. My attitude has always been to let people know what I want to do as opposed to calling up and telling them what plan or service I want. So, starting with the clerk at Best Buy, I've told everyone I talked to the same thing. I have forms on my computer that I want to be able to e-mail from the road. I want to be able to hook my computer up to my phone and use it as a modem.
So, here I am talking to a new rep about what I want to do and he recommends the Everything Data Share plan, which ends up being less monthly than the faulty plan the Best Buy clerk had hooked me up with. Not only does he recommend this plan, he directs me to the download link to Sprint SmartView. (I hadn't yet tried the PAM because I was not at a point in my startup business to need it.) He also got the okay from his manager to waive the additional fees from the plan *****-up from before. So, of course I'm happy and willing to overlook the issue because we can blame it all on the Best Buy personnel not understanding Sprint's plans. Little do I know, the guy I'm talking to doesn't seem to understand it, either. Again, less than a month into the plan, I make the call and explain what I'm doing in an effort to make sure I'm not going to get a huge bill. This time, though, I am using the phone as a modem. However, I think it's completely reasonable to assume that the rep I spoke to that time did not have access to the information Sprint used to make these determinations as to who was using their phones as modems. But, to me another point that clearly indicates that this issue has been caused by lack of proper training on Sprint's part is that, looking at the paperwork I got concerning my new plan from Best Buy, my plan had "Unltd BlackBerry Primary Plan; Phone as Modem Unlimited; & Sprint Plan MRC" So, that's what I went from to this unlimited plan.
And this, again, goes back to what I said first about the problem with packages and wording. I went through everything I've received from Sprint since my last plan change. Is "Phone as Modem" specifically included? No. Is it specifically excluded? No. Is there plenty of talk about data transfers and such? Yes. Now, if one were to go from one plan to another with the specific expectation of "no changes, but this will do what you've been doing," that person isn't going to regard an absence of mentions of PAM as an exclusion. As a matter of fact, I'd be shocked if they would even notice it at all. And, I'd be willing to argue that were they just getting on this plan, the phrase as used "Phone as Modem," might not even be in their lexicon. The first I had ever experienced it in regards to a specific functionality is going to Best Buy. And since then and the debacle with the plans, I had forgotten about its use as a specific title until I started searching for the issue with my connection.
Oh, and one final point, when mine got turned off early last week and I called, the rep had me re-register my phone. Since I was out on the road and no access to another phone, I told him I'd do that and call back. When it still didn't work after getting back that evening, I went online and found all of the reports of this issue. So here's a story where every single customer service rep encountered by one customer had no idea what they were talking about. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one.
To me, this is obviously a Sprint SNAFU and not a bunch of people trying to get something for free. This December 31st, I'll have been with Sprint for 10 years. I'm not trying to get something for free, but I do believe that Sprint needs to make this right. I don't believe that this is a matter of load on their equipment as I've heard absolutely nothing about that before getting here. Could it be a possibility in the future? Absolutely and I completely understand that. I don't want something that was given to me in error at the sake of a company I've been loyal to and relatively satisfied with for 10 years. But again, I doubt that I'm the only story out here like this and pretty much all of my claims can be backed up by Sprint's own records. Even if call recordings aren't saved, the pattern of usage and changes to my plan would greatly call into question whether or not the people I talked to were feeding me a line of ****. And I don't think they were. I think that, until this exploded, many reps at Sprint read this the same way many people read it. So Sprint really needs to make this right. Best case scenario to me would be to grandfather those of us that have been using it. However, I'd even be open to an additional $5 or so monthly fee. In all honesty, $10 would have me wavering, but in my case, I've built my business strategy around these capabilities, so I wouldn't have a whole lot of options.
But, I do know that I'll be curious to see how Sprint handles this. I've had other problems that have been resolved by them where I would describe myself as either completely happy or relatively happy. And while that's nice, they've all been over stupid, common sense issues. It's starting to seem a lot like the guy that borrows your car, breaks something, but always repairs it. It's nice that everything gets fixed, but after awhile, you're not going to let him borrow your car anymore anyway. Were someone to speak to an attorney about this, I'm completely open to letting my situation be known. I don't know if we can message privately on this board as I just signed up to make this post. But there's a link to where I can be reached above, which is just my username with a ".com" after it. From what I gather, this has been dragging on for over a year with more and more people being affected, it seems, it batches. Again, a sign to me that Sprint has realized that this is their *****-up. I'm always on the fence about a company making things right and even with my relatively positive experiences with Sprint doing so, I think that this is a pretty big *****-up and they're counting on a bunch of ****** off people not doing anything.
edit: Wow, some pretty strong word filters. Just so no one thinks I came on here to start cursing at people, the filtered words are one that refers to something you do with a screwdriver, and not a word describing an act of coupling. Also I said above that I was something that rhymes with "hissed". Those asterisks sort of makes it seem wrose than it really is.
Message was edited by: hornakapopolis
