SunCom Increases UnPlan Rate For A Friend Of Mine

does s/he have a contract with SC? if so I do'nt see how they can just raise the rate and expect the customer to pay the new rate without letting them know that the plan is being phased out ahead of time and giving an option to opt out of the contract or stay with the current plan at the current rate :headscrat

 

TNDan21,
I agree with you this is strange. I would think if a customer was under contract rates could not be changed without an agreement from the customer. Does your friend have other wireless options in h/her area? If so I would advise looking into those

 

I would assume that you can cancel your contract without paying ETF in this case. When T-Mobile introduced an 86 cent monthly regulatory program fee, everyone had either 15 or 30 days to cancel after receiving notification. Either way, that is a huge increase by SunCom. I've never seen a carrier so brash!

 

They have to let you out of your contract, they have broken it, not you.

 

GoomdMan,

I was thinking the same thing

 

This is unbelievable, really... I've never heard of ANY carrier doing something like this during the middle of a contract! It's almost certainly an opportunity to break out of the contract with no ETF and go somewhere else...this is a material change in terms if I've ever seen one.

(Most carriers have put in verbiage in recent contracts that does not allow ETF-free "outs" for imposition of/increases in regulatory cost recovery fees, and Nextel has been known to take away "free" features like text messages in the middle of a contract, but this is *nowhere* near the same thing.)

-SC

 

somehow, this reminds me of a girlfriend coming up to you and saying "starting next month, I'm going to be having sex with your brother.... Now, if you decide to continue seeing me and letting me have sex with your brother, I'll make sure and cook you dinner twice as often as I do now". So yeah, bail and find someone new. That's just plain sleazy. :lol:

 

They will not let you out of your contract. I have a suncom phone from before i started working for verizon. i went to them and asked and they would not let me out. i then called customer service 3 times and finally asked to talk to a manager and they still said they wouldn't let me out. Then i asked if i could get kicked off if i used under 9000 min. and they said yes. hence my POA is to get kicked off by using to many airtime minuetes.

 

But this isn't an issue of getting let out of the contract because you want to be let out, it's being let out of a contract because the terms of the contract changed without your permission.

 

In my opinion this is their way of trying to combat LNP, I'm already seeing a huge increase in customers interested in LNP...I believe May 24th is going to be a bigger day for the industry than Nov 24, 2003 was.

 

I'm pretty sure that in the contract with suncom it says that they can change the terms of the contract at any time without even telling you. I think this is them being "nice" for even letting you know that they changed it. Actually there is an option to keep paying $49/month for the unplan and the free zone becomes much larger. The new free zone covers the entire suncom network. BUT with the $49 plan you don't have ANY roaming minutes. I think they charge .02 cents per minute or something like that when you are roaming. So if you leave your free area you'd better just turn the phone off. I got that letter today and imediately changed to the $60 (usually $70) plan because SunCom totallly doesn't cover RTP which I travel to frequently. As for getting out of your contract because of the changing of the terms I think your bud is probably screwed. In reality all the plans they offer are $10 more than advertized because they add on a bunch of BS. Not sure if all providers do this or not, but I'm betting on NOT.

 

I find it hard to believe Suncom's contract would give them authority to raise your calling plan rate at any time. That's not much of a contract then. It's almost a contradiction in terms....Suncom would be contractually obligated to do whatever they want. Real nice. If there is such a clause in the contract then no one should be a Suncom customer. They could raise your rate to $100/mo tomorrow if that's the case. The fact of the matter is, when any wireless contract I have ever entered into (Sprint, VZW, and USCC) is signed, just like a rental contract, it includes the base monthly rate in the contract language. A change in the rate is therefore absolutely a change in contract terms.

 

Hey at least they are not doing their normal "if you change your rate it will cost you $30.00" thing on top of this.

 

Per Suncom's contract you have 20 days from the date they mailed the letter to get out of your contract without penalty.

I have been waiting for my letter. I am thinking of switching to a new service on May 24th when I can port.

 

Meanwhile they are also busy cutting high usage national customers off to cut down on roaming costs...

VZW behind Suncom in market share in the tri-cities??? Not for long.

 

Canceling sounds like it was the best thing to do :thumb:

 

This might sound like a stupid question, but how long has SunCom been around for?

 

It actually does say that they have the right to change your rate in the middle of the contract. I think that they should have been smarter ethically though. That is crap. you just don't change things without letting people know. No other carrier that i can think of has ever made that drastic of a change. One thing that i think is funny though is that we sold 5 phones last Saturday night to people that were still in contract with suncom and pissed that they were going to have to pay more money than they were used to spending. So Suncom keep pissing people off and make Verizon more sales. :lol:

 

That is for sure. I understand why people would want to buy this plan I mean heck i even had it for a while. However, since all of these new problems are occuring Suncom i think you will see a definite jump in the amount of sales we make at VZW. How about we call it the " Get better reception and we won't change your contract plan"

 

This is unbelievable... :speechles

AFAIK, SunCom is absolutely alone when it comes to having such a provision, at least one that applies to an actual rate plan and not to regulatory fees. At this point, as long as they continue to put such in their contracts I can't in good conscience recommend them to anyone.

-SC

 

Is there any chance someone could post a picture of the SunCom contract terms that specify such? That's unbelieveable!

 

Ah OK, well it isn't so different from any other contract then since they do give you 20 days to cancel without penalty.

 

Looking at the Terms and conditions of most major carriers they all have similar verbiage in their contracts. If they change your contract, they will let you out within a certain amount of time:

Tmobile: written notice within 14 days of letter
Nextel: written notice within 20 days of letter
Verizon: verbal notice within 30 days of bill cycle with new rate

They all have the option, but who else but suncom would implement it right before LNP...just plain silly....but i guess most people don't read their contracts and realize they can get out of them now.