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T-Mobile made a bold move when, as part of their new Uncarrier move, they began offering to pay early termination fees for customers looking to “break up” with their current carrier, and make the switch on over to magenta. It was an awesome promotion, and it’s one it appears Softbank-owned Sprint will begin offering starting tomorrow.
Posted onto the Sprint forum S4GRU, the leaked internal document provides employees with full details of the promo, scheduled to run from April 4th, through May 8th, 2014. Those looking to switch to Sprint will get up to $300 to trade-in their used smartphone, and a $350 for Visa giftcard for every line successfully transferred over to one of Sprint’s new “Framily” plans.
The tricky part comes in the fine print. According to the Sprint doc, prepaid cards will be sent out within 12 weeks after customers’ ETFs have been successfully validated by Sprint, and they must have their accounts in good standing for at least 45 days in order to receive the prepaid card.
Seems word of the upcoming promo has already gotten back to T-Mobile, with their CMO Mike Sievert tweeting today:
I think @sprint has a crush on us. First copying Magenta, now our ETF offer? Warning: offer requires you use Sprint. pic.twitter.com/266pMW60TM
— Mike Sievert (@SievertMike) April 4, 2014
He goes onto tweet how it’s “frucked up,” with T-Mobile CEO John Legere weighing in on the matter saying, “Clearly we’re going to be #frenemies.” Ha.
As much as I’m pissed at T-Mobile I hate sprint more. While T-Mobile has screwed me twice with rediculus false charges that they would rather loose a customer over than reverse. It still beats the rudeness of sprints reps and their horrible network. Well I’m just glad I found straight talk.
So basically, not saying its a bad thing, but you rather not deal with anybody….I have straight talk for work phone and there is 0 customer service. you have to use the automated troubleshoot system.
There is customer service on Straight Talk, but it’s no better than Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. I activated a used Straight Talk phone on their network and it took over an hour for me to get it into the head of the “customer service” rep that the phone was used. Used phones tend to show up as “not scanned during checkout” in the ST system.
For me its fine I buy my card a flat $45 no surprise charges and it works for the month. I really have no need to call customer service. So far all the tech issues I had while getting my phone ready I figured out myself with the help of online forums. The biggest issue I has was I thought lte wasn’t working because I have the at&t version sim. And at&t stated my area was covered in lte. Well I figured out their map was just wrong because when I went out of town it kicked on. Just last week has it come on where I live.
Up to twelve weeks until reimbursement for ETF’s?
Good luck with that, SPRINT ……
Lol @ Sprint. Honestly to tell you the truth to be honest with you.. I’d rather have no phone at all than be on their network.
I paid Sprint’s ETF to go running back to Verizon after being swayed by unlimited everything. Doesn’t mean a damn thing when the 2 places I spend the most time, work & home, turned out to be the 2 places I NEVER got 4G on my shiny new 4G phone. Nice try Sprint, but I’d rather have coverage.
I broke up with sprint yesterday when my new M8 arrived yesterday! I’m now with the death star who happens to be beautiful with the service, Internet speed and pricing. Oh yeah sprint did I mention I’ve got a more inferior network and a 24% discount with AT&T! I’m paying less for a network that works!
You can do without unlimited data there? Honest question, no snark.
Funny thing is, the Internet was so slow on sprint that I kinda adapted to not having to rely on the mobile network so the unlimited word pretty much does nothing for me. Besides, I’ve got wifi at work and home. I went for the speed and the better reception, not the data allotment.
Yeah that seems reasonable seeing how your usually not away from either home or work networks. Sweet.
seriously… I’m on big red holding on to my unlimited. I’d switch, but the unlimited is too darn convenient (especially with foxfi)
I’m fortunate enough to have generous Sprint LTE where I live so I’m with ya on the value of unlimited data. When I used to have it on AT&T with my two previous iPhones I really abused the living hell out of my data plan. I’ve calmed down a bit on Sprint but it’s reassuring to know it’s there to be abused. ;)
Biggest mistake you could make with providers. Pay to join the worst. What a joke.
This is about Sprint, not T-Mobile.
Starting 6 months ago I pay 4 lines $160 after taxes for 4 lines with hot spot and 200 MB International Data, 10GB data, unlimited text and talk with TMobile + wifi calling. … So uh… I don’t give a damn for sprint =P
You should reevaluate your plan. I’m sure you can get unlimited data for that. At&t is offering that same plan. Right now with better coverage. The thing I’ve noticed from switching is lte doesn’t seem to as high as on T-Mobile. But At&it’s net work is much more constant. If I’m in an late area I stay on lte. If not it is on hspa+ and I’ve never seen edge. While with T-Mobile one block will be lte the next street edge the next h+ and so on.
Id lose Wifi Calling and (possibly) the hot spot feature and the free international DATA… so no thanks.
by then you will be reported to all credit report agency, hahaha.
I left Sprint and joined Verizon. The two things keeping me with Sprint was always the promise of solid 4G for the last 6 years but never materialized and after the WiMax debacle and mediocre 3G in a major city; forget about it. And customer service which use to be excellent but when Softbank took over that went out the window they became rude and unhelpful, then after enough I finally left Sprint. So yeah nice try Sprint…
News Flash: Verizon’s customer service is terrible too. I’ve dealt with all four of the carriers and none of them have good customer service.
Not much of a news flash really. I’ve had all carriers as well and inclined to agree but from my own experience I can deal with crappy customer service if the cell service is good which Sprint is a ways from. But lately Verizon’s customer service has been very helpful which is more than I can say about Sprint before I left. This is my experience and if you find you have something informative to say about it then by all means.
In my opinion Verizon has had the best customer service. But their rates have just been too much for me to stay. Sprint has had the worst. T-Mobile has some really great reps but have their share of lazy ones who don’t want to do anything. I’ve never had at&t directly I’m using their network via straight talk. Straight talk customer service is like they never leave the computer scripts.
If you can actually get to a Straight Rep. Navigating their voice response is like talking a steel boot to the nuts.
Of all the carriers Verizon’s phone customer service is by far the best (of the worst). Sprint takes at least three transfers to get anything done. Turd Mobile customer service people have no training or common sense. ATT Customer Service just doesn’t care.
I’ll just say this: All of the carriers, pre-paid and full contract service, have a monopoly on terrible customer service.
On Sprint, just say to the automated teller “Cancel my account”, they will get you to retentions and those are the people who can really help you out. I used to be able to do the same thing T-Mobile by saying “Custom Retentions”, but now that just takes me to tier 1 that got re-branded as Customer Care IIRC.
I’ve been on all 4 carriers, and with Sprint and T-Mobile, I found that if I knew what I wanted and how their systems worked, I could generally get what I wanted from customer service by playing the “frustrated loyal customer” card.
I’m curious about your claim of “the promise of solid 4G for the last 6 years” when their first 4G phone was less than 4 years ago?
Actually if you google this thing called WiMax it was Sprints first 4G network, not LTE and that service was provided by a company called Clearwire who leased spectrum and sold WiMax wholesale to any carrier who wanted it. Sprint was Clearwire majority shareholder before they bought them out completely last year after Sprint themselves were acquired by Softbank (its not a bank… hint…hint). Sprint decided to use WiMax for its initial 4G rollout and the first WiMax compatible phone was sold back in 2008 by Sprint before the initial rollout began. So yeah the promise comes from selling a 4G compatible phone before there was a useable 4G network which is something Sprint has done with WiMax, LTE and now Spark (WiMax isn’t compatible with LTE by the way.. hint…hint). And by my calculations or basic math whichever you prefer that’s where that magic number came from. I hope I was able to shed some light on your ignorance and give you a very brief history lesson. If you have Sprint and their service works for you then I hope you’re happy. In my own experience I couldn’t deal with Sprint any longer, particularly there service which didn’t work too well for me. Again if you find something constructive to say about my experience by all means you are welcome and if I could be of anymore assistance, fire away.
So here’s the thing about making smug arrogant superior posts – to pull it off you have to actually be RIGHT.
The Evo 4G was released in June of 2010. For those of us that can count, that’s not yet 4 years.
So here’s my constructive comment about your experience: if you want to make your opinion and your do called “experience” tenable or even believable, don’t make stuff up. Especially the stuff that can be fact checked by a second grader.
And it starts…Smug…hmmm…Superior… Second Grade comments… I’ve stated numerous times in my post that this was “my experience” which simply means that this was my perspective of Sprint’s service while I was a customer and the first 4G WiMax phone from Sprint was the Max 4G not the EVO 4G. But before I beat a dead horse which is what this is becoming, that research that a second grader can find. Well I pulled this from Sprints own newsroom:
“Sprint has a history of innovation, as it was the first national wireless carrier to offer 4G service with the launch of the Sprint 4G (WiMAX) network in 2008.”
Link for verification: http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-4g-lte-launch-extends-to-15-cities-throughout-portions-of-georgia-kansas-missouri-and-texas.htm
If I count correctly thats 1,2…hmmm…6 years or for the sake of argument let’s say 5 and a half and maybe I rounded up. (Mathematical term).
If you want to take what I say with more than a grain of salt as it is my opinion and that of someone you don’t know, well I am flattered that I’m held in such regard. But I do fact check what I say as I don’t like erroneous or misleading information and I especially don’t expect anyone to jump on my bandwagon, so in essence if you wish to discredit me you have to try much harder than a “second grader” (your words) mind you.
Honestly I just expected you to respond to my initial post with something like “oh right, 4 years but my experience with Sprint still sucked.” But you didn’t.
The Max 4G was *never* a Sprint phone. It was offered on the Yota network….. in Russia.
Sprint did *begin* to deploy some WiMax in 2008. But it was only for hotspots, not phones.
If your experience with Sprint was so bad, then let that be enough without trying to support your point with fabrications.
Right… Well if you read my initial post… You know what, it’s not worth the effort. Support my point with…hmmm…fabrications.
So you ummm have a soft spot for Sprint; I get it and I didn’t realize I held enough verbal prowess to sway the minds of the masses against Sprint, not my intent, perhaps I struck a nerve. It’s worth noting however I supported my opinion with fact and stand on my position I was with Sprint and left once the customer service and cell service as a whole sank slowly over the years I’ve been with them. I can point to this article and that site but as time consuming as that would be, I would rather end it here.
As I’ve said earlier, if you are happy with your service and it works for you, so be it and I appreciate that you hearkened to my words as much as you did, but they are just that, my opinion of my experience and I doubt anyone really cares about the back and forth but I guess it gives whoever reads something entertaining.
My last post and I leave with this: enjoy your day/service and I stand by my words.
Cool. So I’m going to summarize:
You: “Sprint decided to use WiMax for its initial 4G rollout and the first WiMax compatible phone was sold back in 2008 by Sprint before the initial rollout began. So yeah the promise comes from selling a 4G compatible phone before there was a useable 4G network”
Me: “The Evo 4G was released in June of 2010.”
You: “the first 4G WiMax phone from Sprint was the Max 4G not the EVO 4G.”
Me: “The Max 4G was *never* a Sprint phone. It was offered on the Yota network….. in Russia.”
You – A smug jerk who is wrong.
Me – A smug jerk who is right.
Bad Sprint experience? Sure fine, but it wasn’t because they promised you a 4G phone and service 6 years ago. They didn’t.
SPAM…..
I bet they can pay ETFs from other companies when they refuse to waive their own ETFs from new customers that are unsatisfied with their “No G” data coverage. So glad I made the switch to VZ not too long ago. Sure it sucks not having a wide selection of phones and not having timely updates, but I rather that than a premier phone that cant access internet.
This is a great deal…except then you have to use Sprint…