Special to Phone Watch

When the Sprint Nextel merger completed, Nextel customer Clark Howard figured he could save some money by switching to Sprint PCS. But the change didn’t exactly go according to plan.

Howard is chief executive officer of Rackmount Micro in Garner, N.C. He has used Nextel since November 2004, but Howard decided he preferred mobile-to-mobile communications to walkie-talkie communications.

Brian Rose, chief operating officer, said that wireless calls were “more reliable and less annoying” than Nextel’s Direct Connect feature.

So on September 13th, Howard took the plunge. Visiting the Sprint Store in Cary, N.C., he picked up his new Audiovox PPC6601, had his wireless number ported, and left happy. He had signed up for the Sprint Free Incoming plan with 800 anytime minutes for $79.99, along with unlimited mobile to mobile, no roaming charges, Sprint PCS Vision, nights and weekends beginning at 6 p.m., international calling, and other features bringing the total monthly charges to $124.99.

Three days later, trouble started. Howard’s new phone would not place or receive calls.

“Luckily, because it was a Friday evening, there wasn’t much to worry about in the way of customers trying to get a hold of him, thank God. He called up Sprint customer service and was told something no one we knew had ever heard of before: ‘You have exceeded your spending limit for the month,’” said Rose.

Sprint PCS, instead of requiring a deposit for service for those with less than perfect credit, institutes an account spending limit of $125 for such accounts. “That’s $0.01 more than the plan itself, not taking into account taxes or fees,” said Rose. Once the account balance exceeds $125, the service is suspended until the balance is brought below the limit.

Rose said that the Sprint representative asked Howard for his social security number twice while setting up the service. A credit check appears to have been performed.

It turns out that Sprint generated the first bill for the account, and the balance “was $127.10 that wasn’t due until October 10, 2005,” said Howard.

“The option to pay it down would have worked, but the point was the plan was $124.99 and the spending limit was $125.00, therefore, every month when they put the bill in, we would either have to watch our online balance daily, which I have no time to do, or pay it before we get the invoice, which I don’t do with anything,” he said.

Howard “was placed on hold by the service representative for a bit more than 30 minutes. When she returned, she had bad news: ‘There’s nothing we can for you, sir. You’ll have to wait a month or so,’” said Rose.

“Wait a month for a business line to be reactivated?”

When Howard initially migrated the number from Nextel to Sprint, the in-store representative informed him that if he placed the new phone in the name of the business, he would be charged an early termination fee from Nextel, but that if he put it in his own name, he would not be charged the fee.

Howard said the account spending limit was never mentioned at the point of sale.

“From there, Clark proceeded to jump through four additional representatives, two of which were supervisors. The last straw was when the fifth person suggested a way to rectify the situation: activate a second line to raise the spending limit. Now, granted, we were planning to activate additional lines for other employees sometime down the road, but we had no plans of doing so immediately and were quite miffed when she offered this solution,” said Rose.

Sprint PCS finally agreed to cancel the service and waive the termination fees, though initially they did not want to accept the return of the phone and give a refund.

“Once we were able to get to the store when they were open (apparently they close at 6pm on Saturdays), Clark got a hold of the store manager. After spending a fair amount of time arguing with her, she agreed to take the phone back. It was against corporate policy, apparently, but we were disgruntled enough to fight this through and I think she recognized that,” said Rose.

Rose recommended Cingular Wireless, and Howard switched his number immediately. “They’re by far the best cell company I’ve dealt with,” he said. “Clark seems to be of the same opinion. There was a small issue with a feature of his rate plan and they changed it as soon as he called and even made the change retroactive.”

Cingular Wireless, which is dealing with a reputation for poor customer service and complaints handling, appears to have made significant improvements to its level of service.