Crazy Roaming plan

I added roaming for $5 to my account... Guess what I got charged for roaming
calls!!!! When I called the sprint rep he said "DID THEY TELL YOU HOW IT
WORKS"... He then proceeded to tell me that the "FREE" roaming only kicks in
AFTER you have used up 1/2 of your minutes!!!

I said so let me get this straight I have 2500 minutes in my plan so if I
use the same amount every day to use up my minutes I will still get charged
roaming for the first half of EACH month... he said YES...

I believe that this is very misleading advertising when it says to add free
roaming and it does not work for the first half of each month....

Gary

---

› See More: Crazy Roaming plan

"Gary Rall" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:UQ0xe.3774$Qo.1569@fed1read01...
> I added roaming for $5 to my account... Guess what I got charged for
roaming
> calls!!!! When I called the sprint rep he said "DID THEY TELL YOU HOW IT
> WORKS"... He then proceeded to tell me that the "FREE" roaming only kicks
in
> AFTER you have used up 1/2 of your minutes!!!
>
> I said so let me get this straight I have 2500 minutes in my plan so if I
> use the same amount every day to use up my minutes I will still get
charged
> roaming for the first half of EACH month... he said YES...
>
> I believe that this is very misleading advertising when it says to add
free
> roaming and it does not work for the first half of each month....
>
> Gary
>
>

No someone who explained it to you is sadly mistaken....
I have had the plan for quite a while and here is how it works for me.....
First some 'disclaimers'...
A) I am not sure it is pro-rateable, that is, I waited until the first of
the month.
B) I am in a SPRINT area, not a 'franchise' area.

I have 2500 minute plan split amongst 5 phones....
When you 'roam' out of the SPRINT area, but still with the US(not sure about
Alaska) all minutes go against your ANYTIME minutes, no matter the DAY nor
the HOUR when the call is placed!
Sprint do not want your to use more than 1/2 of your anytime minutes as
minutes under this plan.
Supposedly, if you abuse that, you get a warning. Repeated abuse and you can
lose the feature...

At least that is my understanding, and that is how it has panned out.

Joe Gill wrote:
>
> "Gary Rall" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:UQ0xe.3774$Qo.1569@fed1read01...
> > I added roaming for $5 to my account... Guess what I got charged for
> roaming
> > calls!!!! When I called the sprint rep he said "DID THEY TELL YOU HOW IT
> > WORKS"... He then proceeded to tell me that the "FREE" roaming only kicks
> in
> > AFTER you have used up 1/2 of your minutes!!!
> >
> > I said so let me get this straight I have 2500 minutes in my plan so if I
> > use the same amount every day to use up my minutes I will still get
> charged
> > roaming for the first half of EACH month... he said YES...
> >
> > I believe that this is very misleading advertising when it says to add
> free
> > roaming and it does not work for the first half of each month....
> >
> > Gary
> >
> >
>
> No someone who explained it to you is sadly mistaken....
> I have had the plan for quite a while and here is how it works for me.....
> First some 'disclaimers'...
> A) I am not sure it is pro-rateable, that is, I waited until the first of
> the month.
> B) I am in a SPRINT area, not a 'franchise' area.
>
> I have 2500 minute plan split amongst 5 phones....
> When you 'roam' out of the SPRINT area, but still with the US(not sure about
> Alaska) all minutes go against your ANYTIME minutes, no matter the DAY nor
> the HOUR when the call is placed!
> Sprint do not want your to use more than 1/2 of your anytime minutes as
> minutes under this plan.
> Supposedly, if you abuse that, you get a warning. Repeated abuse and you can
> lose the feature...
>
> At least that is my understanding, and that is how it has panned out.

Basically, your roaming minutes can't be more than 50% of your
total minutes used.

Notan

Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
coverage. What happens?

"Notan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Joe Gill wrote:
>>
>> "Gary Rall" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:UQ0xe.3774$Qo.1569@fed1read01...
>> > I added roaming for $5 to my account... Guess what I got charged for
>> roaming
>> > calls!!!! When I called the sprint rep he said "DID THEY TELL YOU HOW
>> > IT
>> > WORKS"... He then proceeded to tell me that the "FREE" roaming only
>> > kicks
>> in
>> > AFTER you have used up 1/2 of your minutes!!!
>> >
>> > I said so let me get this straight I have 2500 minutes in my plan so if
>> > I
>> > use the same amount every day to use up my minutes I will still get
>> charged
>> > roaming for the first half of EACH month... he said YES...
>> >
>> > I believe that this is very misleading advertising when it says to add
>> free
>> > roaming and it does not work for the first half of each month....
>> >
>> > Gary
>> >
>> >
>>
>> No someone who explained it to you is sadly mistaken....
>> I have had the plan for quite a while and here is how it works for
>> me.....
>> First some 'disclaimers'...
>> A) I am not sure it is pro-rateable, that is, I waited until the first of
>> the month.
>> B) I am in a SPRINT area, not a 'franchise' area.
>>
>> I have 2500 minute plan split amongst 5 phones....
>> When you 'roam' out of the SPRINT area, but still with the US(not sure
>> about
>> Alaska) all minutes go against your ANYTIME minutes, no matter the DAY
>> nor
>> the HOUR when the call is placed!
>> Sprint do not want your to use more than 1/2 of your anytime minutes as
>> minutes under this plan.
>> Supposedly, if you abuse that, you get a warning. Repeated abuse and you
>> can
>> lose the feature...
>>
>> At least that is my understanding, and that is how it has panned out.
>
> Basically, your roaming minutes can't be more than 50% of your
> total minutes used.
>
> Notan

Mij Adyaw wrote:
>
> Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
> month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
> roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
> coverage. What happens?

You're charged for 300 roaming minutes.

Notan

I was under the impression that I could use 1750 minutes roaming and 0
minutes on the Sprint network.

"Notan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Mij Adyaw wrote:
>>
>> Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
>> month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
>> roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
>> coverage. What happens?
>
> You're charged for 300 roaming minutes.
>
> Notan

"Mij Adyaw" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:B73xe.10285$8o.884@fed1read03...
> I was under the impression that I could use 1750 minutes roaming and 0
> minutes on the Sprint network.


Nope. If you have 3500 anytime minutes and you use 2500 anytime you are
allowed to have 1250 minutes that were roaming out of the 2500 you used.

Mij Adyaw wrote:
>
> I was under the impression that I could use 1750 minutes roaming and 0
> minutes on the Sprint network.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

"The Sprint PCS Free & Clear America plan allows you to enjoy no
additional charges for roaming in this expanded coverage area,
reaching more than 280 million people, as long as less than half
of your monthly call time is used while roaming."

Notan

Gary Rall wrote:
> I added roaming for $5 to my account... Guess what I got charged for roaming
> calls!!!! When I called the sprint rep he said "DID THEY TELL YOU HOW IT
> WORKS"... He then proceeded to tell me that the "FREE" roaming only kicks in
> AFTER you have used up 1/2 of your minutes!!!

Either you misunderstood, or the rep's a dumbass.

You can use the $5 flat-rate roaming as long as no more than 1/2 of your
usage in any given month is off Sprint's network.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

That is really interesting. I am paying Sprint for 3500 minutes. Assume that
I used 1750 Sprint in-network minutes and 1750 roaming minutes. According to
the plan, that would be fine. Sprint will have to pay the roaming partner
for my 1750 minutes. Assume that I use 1750 roaming minutes and no minutes
on the Sprint network. Sprint still has to pay the roaming partner for the
1750 minutes that I used, however since I did not use any minutes on the
Sprint network, I actually saved bandwidth for Sprint by not using the 1750
in-network minutes.

I guess that Sprint wants to ensure that I do not use 1750 roaming minutes
every month hence the reason for the caveat stated in the message below.

-mij



"Notan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Mij Adyaw wrote:
>>
>> I was under the impression that I could use 1750 minutes roaming and 0
>> minutes on the Sprint network.
>
> Straight from the horse's mouth:
>
> "The Sprint PCS Free & Clear America plan allows you to enjoy no
> additional charges for roaming in this expanded coverage area,
> reaching more than 280 million people, as long as less than half
> of your monthly call time is used while roaming."
>
> Notan

Mij Adyaw wrote:
> Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
> month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
> roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
> coverage. What happens?

well, that means 100% of that month's usage is off-network -- way over the
50% threshhold.

The way it's been explained to me is that they will warn you the first
couple times it happens, and then the third time they remove the free
roaming option and you pay for all of your off-network airtime.

--
JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the
temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe"

In article <[email protected]>, Notan <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Mij Adyaw wrote:
> >
> > I was under the impression that I could use 1750 minutes roaming and 0
> > minutes on the Sprint network.
>
> Straight from the horse's mouth:
>
> "The Sprint PCS Free & Clear America plan allows you to enjoy no
> additional charges for roaming in this expanded coverage area,
> reaching more than 280 million people, as long as less than half
> of your monthly call time is used while roaming."

They didn't write that very well, did they? Based *just* on reading
that, I can see two ways a person could reasonably interpret that.
Let's say you have a 1000 minute plan, and you happen to use 600 minutes
in a particular month.

First interpretation, which is what I gather from this thread is the one
Sprint meant, would be that your monthly call time was 600 minutes that
month, and so as long roaming was less than 300, you are fine.

Second interpretation, which I think a lot of people would make, is that
their monthly call time is 1000 minutes (of which they only used 600
minutes that month), and so as long as less than 500 minutes was
roaming, they are OK.

Basically, it comes down to what people think when they think about
their "call time". If the person thinks of it as they have bought 1000
minutes, and only actually consumed 600, they are likely to go for the
second interpretation.

--
--Tim Smith

"Steve Sobol" wrote in message
> > Either you misunderstood, or the rep's a dumbass.
>

You are right and the "rep's a dumbass"

I did not misunderstand what he said to me and I even gave him examples and
he maintained that he was correct... however, after reading all of your
posts I called back and asked to speak to a supervisor...

The supervisor said that the rep was mistaken and that as long as 1/2 of the
total minutes were in network I would not be charged. He said that he was
going to do a "FET" to the orignial rep.... (I guess that is some kind of
repremand report).

He did try to cover up just a little bit for the rep because I WAS
originally charged on my bill for some roaming calls. He said that billing
ERROR could have caused the rep to think that I should have been charged.
In any event the supervisor took off the incorrectly billed roaming charges
and said that I should not see any roaming charges next month as long as 1/2
of the TOTAL plan minutes (calculated at the end of the billing cycle) were
on the Sprint network.

Gary

"Notan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Mij Adyaw wrote:
> >
> > Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
> > month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
> > roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
> > coverage. What happens?
>
> You're charged for 300 roaming minutes.
>
> Notan

No, you aren't charged. The user may get a warning from SPCS, but they won't
get charged.

Bob

Bob Smith wrote:
>
> "Notan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Mij Adyaw wrote:
> > >
> > > Assume that you have a 3500 minute plan and you are on vacation for the
> > > month in a non-Sprint area and therefore you are roaming. You use 300
> > > roaming minutes for the month and use zero minutes in native Sprint
> > > coverage. What happens?
> >
> > You're charged for 300 roaming minutes.
> >
> > Notan
>
> No, you aren't charged. The user may get a warning from SPCS, but they won't
> get charged.

As with Sprints how-much-data-can-be-used-when-your-phone's-used-as-a-modem
policy, I'd imagine that roaming minutes follow the same type of thinking.

If they want to stick to the letter of the law, you're screwed!

Notan