Expert: DebiN - 12/3/2009

Question
Debi, my family has been with Sprint for approx 10 yrs. About a yr ago I added text messaging/picture mail to my daughter's phone. Every month there are several dollars added to the bill for internet use on her phone. We understand what constitutes internet use and there has been absolutely no internet use. It has to be a Sprint internal issue or phone compatibility problem, although the phone is a Sprint phone. They always credit the account, but will not even consider the problem is on their end. I don't wish to call every month for a credit. I suggested the problem could be resolved by just adding free internet to that 1 phone. They refused (supervisor), at the risk of losing a long time customer who never paid a late invoice. As contracts (4) expire, I plan on going to another provider, although it seems I should be able to also break my daughter's contract because they have not provided service at the given price. Anyhow, the contract is over on my phone. I probably don't use my phone more than 60 minutes per month. I'd like to keep my same phone number (but that is not an absolute)and change service providers. What do you recommend I do? I'm looking for value and practicality. Thanks for your time.

Answer
Hi Ed -

I'm concerned about the internet charges and I may be wrong, but I think that they are possibly related to the picture mail. Picture mail is actually a data feature and I believe that there may be an additional charge when she uses picture mail that perhaps they aren't telling you about. Just a thought on this one.

You can easily keep your phone number and port to another provider. No one, unfortunately, has a plan for anything less than 200 minutes and most start at 450. The lowest cost major carrier is T-Mobile and AT&T and Verizon are pretty close in price to each other, but more than Sprint and T-Mobile. If you go with a GSM carrier (like T-Mobile or AT&T), you will a much wider choice of phones, can swap your number easily between the phones because they use a SIM card which is a big plus. My recommendation would be to find out if T-Mobile works in your area and if it does, consider switching to them and then when your other lines are out of contract, you can get a family plan and then it will make more sense.

Unfortunately, having a billing problem with a carrier is not a reason to break a contract without termination penalty. They are providing services for the price they have stated and it sounds like they are crediting you back each time even though they can't figure it out, so even though it's definitely inconvenient, they are still doing the right thing. I'll bet you that if you removed picture messaging and eliminated it completely, you wouldn't have that internet charge at all. It is very likely only related to picture messaging.

Please let me know if you need any additional help or information. Thanks. DebiN