Sprint Premier “Silver” Customers: Get Your Last One-Year Upgrade From Sprint
I’ve seen this one making the rounds for a few weeks now, but decided not to write it up until I was ready to reclaim my own upgrade. Folks are contacting Sprint employees on their website to get put into a queue to receive their last yearly fully-subsidized upgrade credit that was promised to them before they made the switch to a tiered system. Before, all customers who qualified were able to upgrade to new devices after just a year at the full-subsidized price. Now, you’ll have to pay a bit more to qualify for “gold status” and retain those benefits.
When the switch first happened, Sprint noted that those who were on silver and didn’t want to step up to a plan that would eventually qualify them for gold would not be able to get another upgrade at the fully-subsidized price. Many felt this was wrong as it’s blatant false advertising. I was a victim of this, as well, having been told that I would be able to upgrade to a new phone at a subsidized price in just a year when I bought the HTC EVO 4G last year.
Fortunately, Sprint’s willing to make things right at least for one more year. As I said above, you can contact a Sprint rep at their community, but that’ll get you tossed into a lengthy queue of folks who are looking for the same. You’ll likely get your final upgrade back, but there’s no telling how long it’ll take.
Instead, why not call Sprint? I did just that a few minutes before writing this post and have had my problem taken care of in less than 15 minutes. The customer service rep you initially speak to will tell you that you’re only eligible for a $75 credit toward the MSRP after a two-year contract, but you need to tell them that this is wrong and that you should be able to get one last full upgrade.
If they can’t seem to make that happen for you, simply ask them to forward you on to their supervisor who should get things taken care of for you. And if that doesn’t work, using the words “cancel my contract” may help as their customer retention department is hell bent on doing exactly what their name implies. While I hate using that tactic, it’s necessary to get things done when you can’t seem to get anywhere. Now, in about two hours, I’ll be able to buy whatever new phone I want at a subsidized cost and there was no queue to deal with other than the short wait time on the phone.
I should note that this will only work for folks who would’ve been eligible for another upgrade by June 2011 or for those who didn’t take advantage of an existing upgrade before the change occurred. Also note that this is your last yearly upgrade until you’re forced to wait for 22 months. That’s unless you jump up to a more expensive and qualify for premier gold, of course. Sprint’s customer service number is 888-211-4727. Head to the source link for more details about how to do it the forum way. [Android Police]