Cell Phone Termination Fees Outrageous

Allen, TXWhen Ric Causey bought three Sprint Nextel phones almost a year ago he planned on using one cellular phone for business purposes and the other two for family use.

Unfortunately, problems with all the phones arose immediately, making any business use almost impossible. But when he tried to return one phone, the early termination fees Sprint Nextel charged were absolutely ridiculous.

"It's exasperating, being on a business call for 45 seconds and realizing that you have no service," Ric says. "And I was in my home. I wasn't roaming, I wasn't wandering around. It's really exasperating."

Ric phoned Sprint Nextel to complain about the lack of service for his phone. He tried calling the salesman who sold him the phone initially, only to learn that he had been terminated from his position. Ric then made four more phone calls to complain. "I probably spent about two hours on hold, being transferred from customer service to somewhere else, says Ric." After all this time,Sprint Nextel still didn't fix the problem.

On his fifth call, Ric was told that there was no record of him having ever made a complaint about his cell phones.

Eventually, Sprint Nextel agreed to give him a 15 per cent discount on charges that had accumulated. "There were some ridiculous charges in there. I was being charged on my bill for incoming calls during times that my cell phone was off. There were long periods of time where my cell phone was off and still there were charges on the bill," Ric says.

Finally Ric chose to cancel his service. Unfortunately, despite Sprint Nextel being unable to help him, they charged him cell phone termination fees of $200 per phone. Considering that Ric had three phones with Sprint Nextel, this was astronomical!

He recently received a bill for $803, his final bill from Sprint Nextel. Now the cell phone company has decided to start harassing him for the money. "I just received the bill in the mail. It's dated September the seventh. Already, I've received two phone calls from Sprint [Nextel] about this bill. It hasn't even been 30 days yet. The first call was an automatic message saying it was imperative that I call them within 24 hours. The second call was a live voice from Sprint [Nextel] collections."

"I paid over $1000 for phones that barely worked. I had to deal with service drop-outs or no service at all. I couldn't do business on my phone. And the bills were inconsistent. One month there was $300 in charges, the next it was $100. And they charged me when my phone was turned off. It's very unprofessional for them to treat me this way."

It seems that when Ric phoned to complain about his phone, Sprint Nextel kept very poor records. Now that they want cell phone termination fees paid, they're more than happy to follow up.

Ric plans on fighting the termination fees. "It isn't the money," he says. "It's the principle of the thing." Ric knows he's not the only one who has had problems with Sprint Nextel. "There must be a class action suit out there," he says. "I've talked to lots of other people who had the same problems as me."