Sprint Raises Fees, Changes Term Conditions

Hey everyone,

It’s official. Sprint has decided that the new year is coming, and with it, new fees, changes to the Terms and Conditions, and a new charge for a majority of their customer base.

Starting January 1 2010, Sprint is raising the Regulatory Charge from $0.20 to $0.40. You can check out the fee at, sprint.com/taxesandfees . It should be posted in the next few days. This fee applies to all lines of service, and not just a single account. So if you have only one phone, the charge is $0.40, two phones the charge is $0.80 and so on so forth. Now let’s be clear, that charge s $0.40 PER PHONE LINE. It does accumulate for a massive total (ie 40 cents + 80 cents)…

For those of you who want to not pay the additional $0.20 in Regulatory Charges per month you have only one option, and that is to terminate service with Sprint within 30 days of the date of your receipt of new fee. Terminating service MUST be stated for this reason in order to waive the Early Termination Fee, and solely for this reason alone, and it must be cited that it is a “materially adverse charge” to the contract you signed.

Also starting January 1st 2010, Sprint is making slight adjustments to their Terms and Conditions. To what respect, I’m not exactly sure, but some blogs are reporting that there isn’t anything new in the fine print, however you still should take a look at sprint.com/termsandconditions and see if you can spot the new information. At the time of this writing, the link for Sprint’s Terms and Conditions is down. Oh what a coincidence?

Sprint has one more fee up its sleeve for January 2010, and this one is specifically marketed for a majority of its customer base… Account Spending Limit customers will be charged a fee of $4.99 per month per account if they do not opt-in for Autopay. The fee will start January 10 2010, and unfortunately after talking to many different reps, and agents in Account Relations at Sprint, it has been determined that the fee can not be waived, and will apply for new customers, as well as existing customers, in contract or not. For those wishing to waive the fee, there is 3 remedies to do so, and they are not all pretty….

1. Sign up for Autopay, and avoid paying the $4.99 (poor people fee, as I call it), and have Sprint take out your monthly charges whenever they like, even before the bill is printed and sent, and even before the due date.

2. Ask to be removed from the Account Spending Limit Program. Sprint will review your credit automatically after 12 and 18 months, and will remove you if you have no late payments, or account suspensions for failure to pay on file in the last 12 consecutive months. For many people on Spending Limit, this isn’t going to work as many Spending Limit customers have had their service turned off at least once due to the confusing and often frustrating break-down of how the program actually works, and what charges are due and when.

3. Terminate service. Yes Sprint will allow you to terminate service without paying the Early Termination Fee as per your contract, and their own Terms and Conditions, if you cite that this is the reason you are canceling service. Also it is of note that this is a “materially adverse charge” to your account, and that you are terminating your agreement solely based on this alone.

It’s important to note that the official stance with Sprint is that once you terminate service, you lose your phone number, and are no longer offered service. However, it might be wise to contact Sprint on January 10 2010 and specifically ask if you are able to terminate service, but wish to port your number over to another provider, and would like notes placed on your account that signify the waiver of the Early Termination Fee.

While it has been reported that some subscribers of Sprint are citing this as a change to their contract, they also are specifically stating that they wish to retain their line of service, but cancel the contract to which these charges applies…essentially moving from contract plan to month-to-month retaining the plan they have. Again, this is not in Sprint’s official policy to do this, however, many blogs are reporting that this has been done for Sprint customers in the past via Account Relations. It CAN NOT be done prior to the date the change or charges take effect however. It also should not be expected.

At this point, I don’t see why Sprint WOULDNT want to cancel the contract, but retain you as a customer, even if month-to-month. Any subscriber is a good subscriber on any account, so long they are a subscriber and continue to pay happily for their service.

I have brought this up to Sprint today, and specifically asked if I could be removed from the Spending Limit Program (and I was after a brief period on hold), or if I could remain a customer but switch from contract to month-to-month if I was not able to be removed from Spending Limit Program. Sprint informed me that I would need to call back after the new fee takes affect to see how Sprint could accommodate me.

While I enjoy my Sprint service at this point in time… I have great features like Pick 5 Unlimited Calling (no longer offered, even to retention customers), and 6PM Nights and weekends, as well as Any Mobile Anytime, 60 Bonus Minutes and a 25% off discount… I feel that I may ask to cancel in the hopes I can move from contract to month-to-month plan (keeping the current plan I have), so Sprint can retain me as a customer. I’ll gladly pay the extra Regulatory fee if it means that I am not in a contract. I’m more likely to stay, then cite that as a reason to leave, and Sprint be less one customer.

Hope this blog has helped you out with the new changes.

It’s Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas…

…like a Black Christmas that is…

“What the hell is a Black Christmas?” – you are likely thinking..hahaha.

Well my friends Im here to tell you what a Black Christmas is. No, it’s not when we emerge from some recession and all the businesses that have sold us the crappy must-have gift of the year made a ton of money and no longer need worry about filing bankruptcy in January. No, it’s not when there isnt any snow on the ground… Believe it or not, a nice chunk of the United states, hell, most of the world for that matter celebrates Christmas, without snow. California, Texas, Florida, pretty much all of Mexico and Central America, almost all of South America, Oceania and Australia, South East Asia, India (do they celebrate) and of course Africa (if they celebrate)…Religious politics aside, point is, it’s not when we celebrate Christmas thats not “white”.

Black Christmas is actually a 1970’s horror movie from Canada, that takes place on Christmas Holiday Break in a sorority house. But without giving the whole story away (which is very different then the 2006 remake, which I think is far better than the original)… I have a slightly different idea of what Black Christmas means.

To me, it means listening to Christmas songs, holiday songs, and not just any songs, but the golden oldies. Im talking 1950s-1970s. Rarely will I listen to an 80s Christmas song, and when I do, it’s not Paul McCartney or The Waitresses. God I hate both of their holiday hits. They fucking suck balls!

It means also that these songs have a really sick twisted meaning to them, as many of the older songs are featured quite macabre and almost nonchalantly in the most gruesome slice and dice fest of a variety of horror movies that are situated around Christmas (my favorite holiday time, not favorite holiday itself).

Below is a list of some of the most terrifying movies I love to watch over Christmas… Why? Because Christmas is so innocent, family oriented, and a time for giving, and burying the hatchet…in someones head!

1. Black Christmas – While I like the remake more, I still love the original, and nothing beats the line “..just like getting a wart removed..”

2. Silent Night, Deadly Night – I only seen this once, but it was so twisted, I wondered if it wasnt something I actually have seen when I was a kid in the 80s and just forgot about because it was THAT twisted.

3. Santa’s Slay – Interesting pun on words, and this movie, while cheesy, is also so serious at the same time. It gives a different perspective on Santa and how he came to be, and his revenge on a Scandinavian family. Being Scandinavian myself, I have a special place in my heart for this movie.

4. Tales From The Crypt – The movie with Joan Collins where she kills her husband, and a crazy lunatic dressed as Santa comes and gives her a present a little earlier then expected. Oh, and the HBO series also opened with this episode, and its FANTASTIC as well…possibly better.

5. Dead End – While it’s not themed with Christmas trees, and holly, and mistletoe, it is themed that it takes place on the eve of Christmas, and the entire family is involved in a back road accident on the way to grandma’s house. Sick, twisted, and a mind screw deeper then you want.

6. Jack Frost – Okay, some people love this movie, and it’s not too bad, but it’s just about a psychopathic killer soul thats been shoved into a snowman, and Frosty comes out to play. Seriously… It’s not as bad as it sounds.

Thats just a simple list of the many movies I have come to enjoy. Each one has some weird take on a Christmas carol and or the suite from Nutcracker used to torment the audience. By the time you are done watching the film, you can never listen to Christmas songs the same way again.

But another reason I love these movies is pretty much they just have some candy cane, Christmas tree, fire poker, Santa costume, or some other holiday centerpiece (Im talking to you Jewish peeps out there that have menorah) that are involved in some gruesome and terrible “accident”, usually involving some evil doer (Tales From The Crypt), unexpected idiot investigating a noise in the snowstorm outside (umm..all of them), or a house full of helpless college girls (Black Christmas). Oh, man I love that shit. I totally get off on it.

Anyway, I personally have put the SIX Santa hats I have on my fireplace mantle, covering my lamp, globe, and candles. I put out the Christmas lights in my window. I even hung a stocking from my fireplace mantle…Even though I wont be home in a week, I still wanna get into the feeling of the holidays, and I love lights and trees, stockings, and hats. I will be celebrating at my parents again this year, and I did the same thing to their house before I came home after Thanksgiving. Ohh..that reminds me, a new movie Im working on Netflix is called Thankskilling. Yes, cheesy as hell, it’s about a turkey that goes rogue and starts killing people. Yes, it talks too… Craziness.

Hope your Christmases are just as Black as mine will be… With movies, not with killing…I think… I hope not.

Sprint Makes MAJOR Voicemail/Call Forwarding Changes

Hey everyone,

Some big news out of Sprint in terms of voice mail and call forwarding options.

As many of you know, Sprint is one of the only carriers to charge call forwarding rates for all calls, except those to its own voice mail service. That current rate is $0.20 per minute. That means that any calls that are forwarded to another mobile, office, home, or virtual phone for any reason… even if the line was busy, or no answer there was a cost for that.

Sprint recently announced that it would be doing away with that charge, and offering the “Busy” or “No Answer” Call Forwarding options to its customers without charge starting on November 8th. That means that now you can forward your calls to a 3rd party voice mail service provider of your choice, like Google Voice, or Call Wave, or one of the many others out there. It also means that if you want unanswered calls to your mobile to ring you at home or the office, you can do that too. This is particularly valuable for those people who live in fringe coverage areas, or simply dont have many minutes to spare for calls while near the convenience of a land line.

So its nice to see that Sprint is catching up with the “Call Forwarding” issue that T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T have all thought about. But even more so, is that Sprint is doing all this for a very different reason of convenience, which is stated below.

Sprint also announced its intent to partner with Google, with Google Voicemail. Sprint is working with Google to add more features to the newly announced “Google Voicemail” to give its customers a more rich experience not only with its already existing Google Android products, but for those customers who enjoy Google products outside of Android.

By working with Google, Sprint has opened the door to its customers the “one number for life” possibility, in addition to giving not only the choice of the standard Sprint Voicemail, Visual Voicemail (offered on Android and Instinct products), but also Google Voicemail for visual voicemail and permanent storage for those without products that are in the otherwise standard Visual Voicemail products above.

Kudos to Sprint for giving its customers more options and choices in wireless.

From the Everything Data and Simply Everything unlimited plans at an affordable price, to Any Mobile Anytime, from Sprint to Office/Home aka Pick 3 and Pick 5 Calling plans, to the new Call Forwarding and Voicemail choices, the real value stares you in the face at Sprint.

 

***UPDATE***

 

Sprint is still in the process of rolling out Conditional Call Forwarding across its 48 Million accounts. So if you are attempting to use it, and are getting error messages, it simply means that it’s not been activated on your account just yet. But be patient, it will soon. It’s not quite Mid-November.

If however, you found that it worked BEFORE November 8th, I hate to say, you likely were charged for those minutes. If you attempted the morning of November 8th, and find that you have not been charged, then KUDOS for you, the new service works.

 

To use Google Voicemail, first you must have a Google Voice, or Google Voicemail account. The difference between these is simply features, and the ability to have a GOOGLE OWNED number, or use your mobile phone number thats transferred to a “pseudo-Google Owned Number”.

 

If you want to set up Call Forwarding for No Answer/ Busy/ Out of Coverage, then you must first log into Google Voice account, and select your mobile phone, and click “ACTIVATE GOOGLE VOICEMAIL” next to it. It will ask you for your mobile number, as well as carrier. Enter the numbers exactly as it states and press send on your wireless phone. From there, it should tell you by “tones” that its active.

 

For those of you on Sprint, wanting to test, your code is *28xxx-xxx-xxxx (xxx-xxx-xxxx being your Google Voice number) hit SEND. If you hear 2 short tones, you are good to go. Have a friend call and dont answer and see what happens.

Dont forget to also set up your Google Voicemail to send you voicemail to text transcriptions, and UNCHECK the mobile phone from re-routing Google Voice back to your mobile. If that happens, and you answer the second call, from your Google Voice number (it will show your GV number), then the call is directly connected, and there is no Call Presentation or Listen In, it would be as if you answered the call. No bueno. So remember to uncheck that.

If you wanna end using Google Voice, you retain your Sprint PCS voicemail box of course, and Sprint will reroute your calls to that whenever you dont answer by simply pressing *38 SEND.

 

Pretty simple.

 

Remember, you can always call me at 312-RALFORD if you have questions or comments.

Google Voice Contest and Experiment

Hey everyone,

 First off, if you are wanting a Google Voice invite, I have 4 of them. And if you read the blog, you will find out how you can WIN one of the 4 invites I have. Get your very own Google Voice number to try.

So some of you know Luke Johnson (below) , and his phone experiment. If you dont, then you clearly have been avoiding YouTube, and living under a rock for the last 3 years.

In the spring of 2007, Luke Johnson did something that not many other people have done before, but everyone copied there-after. Luke was bold enough to post his personal phone number in a video he made for YouTube. He encouraged people to call from all over the world and talk to him. He would talk to anyone till the next call came in, or until the person hung up. He was able to do this all day long, although I think while he was at work, he turned his phone off. I attempted to contact Luke to discuss his experiment over 2 years ago, but didnt get through. I only got a message his voicemail box was full.

I did an experiment of my own, using an unlimited prepaid phone plan, similar to Luke’s, however I received very few calls, and mostly texts from people who thought it was funny to stalk me, and not tell me who they are. I ended up canceling my own experiment earlier then planned, and dismantled my mobile phone account.

Recent times have brought us not only unlimited phone plans, but also GoogleVoice, which I use pretty often to make and receive calls from people I dont know, from Craigslist, as an “unlimited” call, or just to call someone from another number they otherwise may not know.

Tonight, I start my own experiment and contest, and hope to get some of the most interesting calls from people. The calls may or may not be recorded if you talk to me live (if Im able to answer), and they definitely will be recorded if you leave a message. My goal is to have some fun, interesting, and honest people talk about anything. It could be anything from tech talk, to ranting, raving, questions you might want answered, or even, just to say hello. In return, you will be one of the selected people to get ONE of my FOUR Google Voice invites… Yes! WIN AN INVITE

 

So, give me a shout, give out my number to anyone you like, and lets see how this experiment works out.

 

The number is 312-RALFORD or 312-725-3673 – There is no time limit for the call, and there is no time that you can not call. You can call me at 2AM, 4AM, or 8PM if you wanted. If Im able to answer, I will. If not, then you get to leave me a fun message. If you want me to select you to win one of my Google Voice invites , please let me know how to reach you back so if you win I can do so.

 

REMEMBER… 312-RALFORD

O2 Wireless Universal SIM Card

Hey everyone,

Well today was a kind of interesting day for me. I decided that since Sprint was not going to activate the card that came included in my BlackBerry Tour, because Im a “Spending Limit Customer”…and the old T-Mobile and AT&T SIM Cards I have are out dated and out of service, that I should get something to test on.

In walked O2 Wireless Universal SIM Card. The basics of the card is the $9.99 SIM can be used in any unlocked GSM phone, thats any Sprint GSM, any unlocked T-Mobile, or any unlocked or locked AT&T phone (the cards are programmed for AT&T phones). The price includes not only the SIM card, but also $7.00 in credit to get you started.

You have the plan options of $0.14 per minute all the time with free roaming, domestic and international long distance, with $0.05 per text message, and voicemail/3Way Calling/Call Forwarding in that price… or…

$1.00 per day for unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited texts, $0.14 per minute all other times, but no international calls can be made on this plan…or…

$29.99 for up to 500 Anytime minutes and $0.05 per text message. There is no unlimited nights or weekends on this plan, but there is the international calls included in that price.

I went with the low-end basic plan at $0.14 per minute. Simply because I am not going to use the text on it, or the voice enough to matter. I want the card not for email (since data is not included, nor an option), but basically so I can use when Sprint service is out, or Im in an area that AT&T might have better coverage at that time. The minutes roll-over, and they also last for 4 months before they start to deplete if they are unused.

I do talk a lot of crap about AT&T and their coverage, but, Im running on EDGE network instead of their 3G, so I should be fine at finding service, and connecting when I need to.

Ill be updating this more as I test out the SIM. So stay tuned.