Those who fail to enroll in autopay and have a bad payment history are subject to what amounts to a preemptive $4.99 late fee. But let's call it what it is - a penalty for being poor. Good job looking out for your customers in this economic downturn Sprint!
And lets not ignore the $0.40 "regulatory fee" increase Sprint hit *all* of it's customers with starting in January (including non-ASL accounts in good standing, even if you are enrolled in autopay. Please, go check your bills now). This isn't a regulatory fee levied by a government institution - I was told in an email that this internal Sprint increase was to "help defray costs". Let's do the math, shall we?
$0.40 x 12 months = $4.80/yr increase per customer.
$4.80 x 40 million customers (est.) = $192,000,000.00
So I'm supposed to believe that Sprint's regulatory costs have increased close to $200 million dollars over last year. This "regulatory fee" is fraudulent wording to increase Sprint's profit margin.
Had I been enrolled in autopay, Sprint would have simply debited my account and I would have been none the wiser to these two breach of contracts until they already had my money. Since Sprint doesn't honor contracts with it's customers I would have to be crazy to enroll in autopay - they could pop you with an increase at anytime, for any reason.
Sprint's customer service de facto answer to this is: "You can avoid the $4.99 fee by enrolling in autopay." Yeah right, I wouldn't do this when they can rewrite your contract at will. As Darth Vader famously said: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Their other favorite answer is "We can review your account and have the ASL fee removed if you make 13 on-time payments in a row." Fat chance there, I've been late several times within the past year. I've had an awful payment history since I've been with Sprint, so this is really nothing new.
The $0.40 "regulatory fee" increase will result in an even more inflexible response: "This charge is now effective for all customers."
I would have agreed to a contract with Sprint that would penalize me $4.99 for making a late payment. The problem is, I didn't, and now my bill is about 8% higher than when I upgraded my plan and signed the 2yr contract in 2009. Sprint's answer to my concerns after more than 8 years as a customer is that I am free to transfer to another carrier.
