Newbie here. I am looking for some info on the Sprint family plan and I happened upon Wireless Advisor. My son has a Sprint family plan with two phones. He has about 13 months to go on his contract. He needs to add a third phone to his plan for my grand-daughter. He has an almost new Sprint phone I gave him when I switched to Alltel. He has never used all of his anytime minutes. Sprint is giving him a hard time. On the phone they tell him he cannot add a phone to his current contract unless he renews for two years and pays for more minutes even though he has never used all his minutes on his plan. On the internet it says he is authorized to add one phone but only gives him the option of renewing for two years and buying a new phone. No way to activate the phone I gave him. I have been reading about the Sprint family plan and it seems to me he is allowed three phones, one more than the two he now has with the third phone costing an additional $9.99. Any help or ideas from you Sprint gurus would be greatly appreciated.
what Sprint is saying doesnt make much sense to me...............if you want to use the phone that you already have just pick out a free phon online then when you receive it call them and say you want to switch the phones.............they'll ask for the ESN of the phone you have and they'll switch it...............but that bs about the plan not being able to support another line is bull unless he has a really really old family plans cuz most recent family pans can have up to 5 lines total
If the plan is very old Sprint will not have the correct codes to add a line to the plan. An incorrect code can cause a lot of billing problems on an account.
Thanks for the feedback. Sorry for the slow response but I have been very busy. My son's family plan is 11 months old and is the Fair & Flexible plan. Sprint absolutely refuses to activate a third phone without buying a phone and extending the contract. I am in the process of helping him file complaints with the State Attorney General Consumer Protection Division, the FTC and the FCC. Sorry to say Sprint has not been anywhere close to Fair and Flexible but rather a pain in the a**. I have added my grand daughter to my Alltel plan with a phone from EBay and I am on month to month as my two years contract is up. I only have to renew if I want new phones. As an aside Sprint's big service coverage area is also a joke. My son lives in Lehigh Acres, FL and he can't even get a signal. I can get a full five bars on my Alltel service while sitting beside him when I visit. :loony:
If true, that is stupid. I don't think it to be their policy. I added a 4th line to my family plan last fall and it did not extend the contract for the other 3 lines. I suspect you are seeing the 1900 mhz versus 850 mhz effect.
Well not every carrier can dominate in every area as good or as quickly as the next carrier. That's just the way it is. However I did check the map for Lehigh Acres, FL and there is in fact a major improvement coming there in the next 120 days. Probably less than that as the maps haven't been updated in a while.
Thanks for all the input. I will tell my son. Maybe he should just start calling everyday and become a nuisance customer.
Well if he wants to get out of his contract he can certainly try. If he has coverage problems at his house suggest that he use the forced roam. Go into the menu, then settings, then roaming, and select roam only. This is the same for most Sprint phones. He should get much better reception. Instead of the phone trying to hold that weak Sprint signal, it will pick up the stronger Alltel signal, maybe Verizon or another carrier depending on who is preferred. Larry was right about the Sprint increasing coverage in that market. Sprint should be improving there very soon. Also I am sorry they gave your son a hard time about adding a phone. The cheapest family plan that I know of for 3 phones is $69.99. 3 phones and 550 anytime minutes, nights start at 9:00. Sprint is just shooting themselves in the foot by not being fair and flexible.
Thanks again for the replies! He has the Power Pack Family 700. After reading all the details I don't see how they can refuse to add the additional phone but that is what they are doing. It is almost like you can't fight city hall. Bottom line is that Sprint has a very unhappy customer and the resulting bad word of mouth advertising is the worst possible way of attracting/retaining customers. When I called Sprint to tell them i wanted to drop their service, they made NO EFFORT to try and keep me as a customer and I was not a problem customer. The CS rep did not even ask me why I wanted to drop Sprint, just processed th cancellation. (Alltel has been great and I am renewing for two more years to get new phones.) Oh well! P.S. I think I will print out the web page with the service agreement and with my son, take it to the local Sprint store along with the unused phone and see what they have to say in person. I will advise. Web
Yes but it sounds like the problem is they won't activate a phone the OP has & want to extend the contract as well as have him buy a new phone. My question to weberman, do you have a "Sprint" branded phone that is new for him to activate with them? If the phone is not a Sprint branded one, they will not activate it due to software & network settings not being to their network & if it's older it may not be in E911 compliance & the really can not activate it on their network due to FCC requiring the carriers to have been in full E911 compliance back in 2005. Sprint just recieved a $1.3 Million dollar fine from the FCC for not being in compliance by the date they required. It doesn't hurt to complain, but if either of these 2 items were part of the reason, you won't get anywhere with filing the complaints.
He actually has two SPRINT branded phones that I stated in my first post I had been using and gave them to him. They are in perfect condition, Sanyo PM8200 seems to stick in my memory as the model number.
These phones were discontinued & per phonescoop were approved back in 04 & it may have to do with E911 reasons they won't re-activate them. That's the only reason I can think of for them not doing it. Sanyo PM-8200 / SCP-8200 Specs & Features (Phone Scoop)
I thought you may have hit on something. However, some research reveals the Sanyo PM-8200 phone is fully e911 capable. Stumped again.
Wow I thought that would have been it to. I would try again to see if another rep will allow it, but since it's discontinued by Sprint that may be the excuse they use to not activate it on the account.
