Develop Bugs

Getting screwed by Sprint

I realize this isn't the Sprint forum, but trying to post in many places, so they get the hint:
I'm on my 3rd Epic 4g Touch phone. It's a great phone, but the first one I had wouldn't accept OTA updates. They replaced it with a phone with a broken camera.
Most recently, I can't get text messages from certain numbers. Yeah yeah, it's just texts, but in this day and age, I need to be able to receive text messages. I've missed work meetings, notices from the baby sitter, friends visiting from out of town, etc. Some of my friends have stopped inviting me to do things because it's too big of a pain to just send a text to everyone and then remember to call me.
Here's the real problem: Sprint won't do anything about it. I've had at least 3 escalated service tickets. I've spent at least 10 hours on the phone with customer service and tech support. Each time, they tell me they'll get back to me in 48-72 hours and they never do. When I call back, they tell me that they need to create a new ticket and it will be another 48-72 hours.
Today, the customer service rep told me that I needed to go into a Sprint store and have them look at the phone. I spent $5 in gas and 2 hours out of my work day to go down there and have a very sympathetic associate tell me that there's nothing wrong with my phone, it's a network problem. We spent the time testing my phone, and transferring my number to a different phone and trying it that way. (It didn't work.)
What can I do? Is there legal recourse? Can I take Sprint to small claims and get out of my contract? They've already told me that if I just end my contract and don't pay their outrageous fee that they'll just send my account to collections.
Thanks for any advice.

Know anyone who can take over your contract? I did that with USCC to avoid an ETF.

price1869 said:
I realize this isn't the Sprint forum, but trying to post in many places, so they get the hint:
I'm on my 3rd Epic 4g Touch phone. It's a great phone, but the first one I had wouldn't accept OTA updates. They replaced it with a phone with a broken camera.
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Click to collapse
I feel your pain. I've complained about missing calls/texts since I got the phone. I was promised it would be fixed with an update "any day now" for 2 months. I filed complaints against with with the BBB but nothing has worked to get me reliable service. I use my phone for work calls/txts and can't afford to miss things. I thought I would be in a better service area when I moved from WI to CA at the end of October, but I'm still experiencing the same very poor service. I'm living in a much more populated area but yet I'm roaming ALOT. My wife's phone (Nexus S) has the same issues as my ET4G. Constantly being in Roaming causes our batteries to get hammered, we're lucky to get 16 hours on a full charge.
Since we're constantly roaming, I've called Sprint and they still won't let us out of our contract without paying the ridiculously high ETF fee. They say we're in a "Good" coverage area. I've since started downloading movies to my phone and encouraged my wife to stream Netflix as much as possible. We hit 20gb of 3G Roaming Data last month... I hope it costs them a pretty penny for the data.
-Daryel

price1869 said:
I realize this isn't the Sprint forum, but trying to post in many places, so they get the hint:
I'm on my 3rd Epic 4g Touch phone. It's a great phone, but the first one I had wouldn't accept OTA updates. They replaced it with a phone with a broken camera.
Most recently, I can't get text messages from certain numbers. Yeah yeah, it's just texts, but in this day and age, I need to be able to receive text messages. I've missed work meetings, notices from the baby sitter, friends visiting from out of town, etc. Some of my friends have stopped inviting me to do things because it's too big of a pain to just send a text to everyone and then remember to call me.
Here's the real problem: Sprint won't do anything about it. I've had at least 3 escalated service tickets. I've spent at least 10 hours on the phone with customer service and tech support. Each time, they tell me they'll get back to me in 48-72 hours and they never do. When I call back, they tell me that they need to create a new ticket and it will be another 48-72 hours.
Today, the customer service rep told me that I needed to go into a Sprint store and have them look at the phone. I spent $5 in gas and 2 hours out of my work day to go down there and have a very sympathetic associate tell me that there's nothing wrong with my phone, it's a network problem. We spent the time testing my phone, and transferring my number to a different phone and trying it that way. (It didn't work.)
What can I do? Is there legal recourse? Can I take Sprint to small claims and get out of my contract? They've already told me that if I just end my contract and don't pay their outrageous fee that they'll just send my account to collections.
Thanks for any advice.
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Click to collapse
It states in the contract that service is not guaranteed 100% of the time and that network issues and device defects do not factor into that.
I've seen this issue before and it is indeed something in the network, if two different devices are exhibiting the same issue.
If you don't mind me asking, where are you located?

Do you have a discount on a family plan? You can get the etf fee waived if so.
I've had customers with this issue that have had similar problems getting it resolved, and a new phone fixed the problem. Since that clearly isn't given your description, I have a few suggestions.
1) try adding the numbers that can't text you to your blocked ptn list on sprint.com or through the phone. Once they are added, wait a few hours and remove them. Totally a shot in the dark, but worth a shot.
2) try enabling tight integration with Google voice. If they text you at your number once it's integrated with Google and the texts still don't work, the problem is on their carrier's end.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Fix for possible Sprint Google Voice integration issue?
I have had the same problem with sending & receiving texts since 11/2011. My Sprint # is integrated with Google Voice & somehow a few of my contacts ended up being marked as spam. Spam doesn't get routed to the native SMS, it is in the GV spam folder. Mark them as not spam & they will come to your inbox. Another issue may be in the contact's individual GV settings. Check to make sure they are not being blocked & that the boxes for sending their communications to your phone are selected in your GV settings for the contacts in general as well as individual contact settings on at www.google.com/voice

Use google voice for texting. It runs through the internet instead of sprint so it works. I don't have many problems with texting normally, but I use voice 50% of the time because its 100% reliable.

I have the same issue. With ALL my contacts from Verizon. The issue got assigned a "case number" by Sprint. That was 48 hours ago...still waiting. So frustrating.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

revamper said:
Use google voice for texting. It runs through the internet instead of sprint so it works. I don't have many problems with texting normally, but I use voice 50% of the time because its 100% reliable.
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Though a bit of an annoyance when you suddenly realize you've missed a text/call, this is what I do. Whenever my phone is being sloppy I always check everything through Google Voice.
I've said it before: Google Voice integration (being able to use my Sprint number as my Google Voice number; http://www.google.com/googlevoice/sprint/) is the only reason I'm still with Sprint and haven't jumped to a provider with more reliable/faster network.

Just to let everyone know you cant dial international unless you dial 0 and bill it to you sprint account if you have this setup.

Some things I would try personally:
don't try and install root until all this is over
go to the contact list and export it to your external sdcard, I think it's a vcf file
remove sdcard
full odin factory flash to eg30
through the phone, do a full wipe back to factory
after that I would let the phone update itself to el29
create, on a computer, a new test gmail account and when the phone asks for your gmail, use the new one for troubleshooting purposes
call sprint on normal phone and tell them to fully reset your account and walk you through reprovisioning the phone
TURN ROAMING OFF
have someone text you that previously you couldn't receive texts from before
try texting yourself
You've done other things with google voice already. With the new email account, you can test if texts get through with a fresh account. That's to check if maybe some unknown setting in your original google account might be interferring. There have been some texts with myself and other people that simply fell into the black hole and I never received them or the other person never got them. The same thing has happened to google voice texting too so that's not perfect either.

Same problem here. Missed important calls, missed text, only to find out later after I receive a voicemail notification from a missed call. Text, well, you never find out about them...I called and *****ed about it myself, and I got the same response to take the phone in to a store, because it's probably an "antenna" issue, which we all know it's not.
Please let us know if you find a way out of etf , or whatever the solution may be. (Good thing I have my work blackberry from T-Mobile on me that always works...)
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

H2O MMS or others Ulock codes

If you are having an issue getting the Lumia 900 unlocked or trying to set it up on an AT&T MVNO. Please post something here. I started to think about it, when I bought the phone I thought.. ah I will just get it ulocked and bring it to T-Mobile. Then I was told about H2O in the process, even then I hit an AT&T wall. I did not unlock the phone, I am using it on AT&T through a friend so to speak H2O. The network settings app is on the marketplace if you are outside the US, it's not inside the US. I got off the phone with Nokia 2nd tier and he hinted toward AT&T blocking it. Then I started to think about what I was purchasing and how really nothing else we purchase is like this. You buy a car it's yours, you buy a computer it's yours.. why are phones different? I called my class action attorney client and had a discussion with him about it. Nothing may come of it, but if it does I need a list of those in the same boat, you bought the device out right no contract and can't use it outside of AT&T and that includes features like MMS not functional and a simple config utility would fix. Please do not post about how it won't work becuase blah, blah, blah. I just need a list of people so if anything comes of it I can say here is a list of others with the same issue.

Jumping on the bandwagon...
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk 2

Right there with ya. I however went with Straight Talk which of course I cant use my MMS as well until the unlock comes available. I am curious if I can proxy my wifi to an international proxy so that I can access outside the USA market apps? Anyone have any ideas on this?

You can add me to the list of those that bought the phone at full price. I never called AT&T to ask for an unlock code. Do I need to do that first to prove that I'm at a disadvantage caused by AT&T?

awagner said:
I just need a list of people so if anything comes of it I can say here is a list of others with the same issue.
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Please count me in, I can send you my data in a private message, just let me know

21stNow said:
You can add me to the list of those that bought the phone at full price. I never called AT&T to ask for an unlock code. Do I need to do that first to prove that I'm at a disadvantage caused by AT&T?
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Let's see what he says.. I contacted H2O today, as soon as they realized it was WP7, nope can't get MMS. I saw the pics of the network setup out of US and it has all those settings we need. If we need to contact AT&T I will try that tomorrow, but I think this is a bigger issue.

count me in too.

In.

I know people have been saying to give up calling ATT. But I just called for the first time tonight, and thought I'd share some of the interesting bits I got. Well interesting to me because they weren't what I was expecting in comparison to everyone else's. Anyways~,
~I asked about dates and a supervisor told me that on 5/7/2012, this past Monday, that their notes for the Lumia 900 were updated by corporate.
~What it essentially says is that they can't say anything. lol
~When I pushed a bit more she told me that it was updated to say that they have no expected date as of now for the release of unlock codes. That they won't release any now because it's an exclusive and otherwise ineligible (Which everyone has already heard.). And that customer service reps are urged to not even submit requests because they all will instantly be denied on the spot.
~Also they told me I was the first one they've heard of trying to unlock this phone.
EDIT: Also, I know this was just adding to the pile of. "Reps Don't Know Squat"
EDIT: Meant to post this on the other thread. Oh well~ Anyways~ I'm in too I guess.

sushirom said:
I know people have been saying to give up calling ATT. But I just called for the first time tonight, and thought I'd share some of the interesting bits I got. Well interesting to me because they weren't what I was expecting in comparison to everyone else's. Anyways~,
~I asked about dates and a supervisor told me that on 5/7/2012, this past Monday, that their notes for the Lumia 900 were updated by corporate.
~What it essentially says is that they can't say anything. lol
~When I pushed a bit more she told me that it was updated to say that they have no expected date as of now for the release of unlock codes. That they won't release any now because it's an exclusive and otherwise ineligible (Which everyone has already heard.). And that customer service reps are urged to not even submit requests because they all will instantly be denied on the spot.
~Also they told me I was the first one they've heard of trying to unlock this phone.
EDIT: Meant to post this on the other thread. Oh well~ Anyways~ I'm in too I guess.
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Click to collapse
For this thread, I don't think it matters. The way I look at it, if they are gonna control where I can use a phone I paid full price for (Even if it was on CL) without a contract. Then they should support it to get my MMS working on their MVNO! Could you imagine if other things you buy where like this. You buy that nice new Nissan Fronteir, you can only drive on Nissan roads. Let's say you bought a GTE rotary phone 30 years ago and you could only use GTE as long distance company we would be like FU I am gonna do what I want!

awagner said:
For this thread, I don't think it matters. The way I look at it, if they are gonna control where I can use a phone I paid full price for (Even if it was on CL) without a contract. Then they should support it to get my MMS working on their MVNO! Could you imagine if other things you buy where like this. You buy that nice new Nissan Fronteir, you can only drive on Nissan roads. Let's say you bought a GTE rotary phone 30 years ago and you could only use GTE as long distance company we would be like FU I am gonna do what I want!
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HHAAAAA~! I SAID THE SAME THING OVER THE PHONE. (Except I used Toyota). They also brought up that I didn't buy the phone directly from them, like that it was a point for them. And I go, "Yeah...that kind of just furthers my point. How does AT&T hold exclusive rights to block me from using something the way I want when I didn't even purchase it from them?) And they just repeated "AT&T has exclusivity and the phone is currently ineligible after that.

Too funny!! I love it.. well great minds think alike or it's just the damn truth. ha ha

awagner said:
If you are having an issue getting the Lumia 900 unlocked or trying to set it up on an AT&T MVNO. Please post something here. I started to think about it, when I bought the phone I thought.. ah I will just get it ulocked and bring it to T-Mobile. Then I was told about H2O in the process, even then I hit an AT&T wall. I did not unlock the phone, I am using it on AT&T and though the network settings app is on the marketplace if you are outside the US, it's not inside the US. I got off the phone with Nokia 2nd tier and he hinted toward AT&T blocking it. Then I started to think about what I was purchasing and how really nothing else we purchase is like this. You buy a car it's yours, you buy a computer it's yours.. why are phones different? I called my class action attorney client and had a discussion with him about it. Nothing may come of it, but if it does I need a list of those in the same boat, you bought the device out right no contract and can't use it outside of AT&T and that includes features like MMS not functional and a simple config utility would fix. Please do not post about how it won't work becuase blah, blah, blah. I just need a list of people so if anything comes of it I can say here is a list of others with the same issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Count me in

im in

i'm in.
i've called AT&T 6 times since logging my customer care case and they tell me nokia hasn't released the codes. LOL

OP - you're wasting everyone's time. When you buy a branded phone you know full well that it will be locked to a carrier. Buying the device at full retail does not entitle you to take your device elsewhere. AT&T (and all other carriers) spend months and millions in R&D to develop and test the phone before bringing it to the market, so it is completely logical that they wish to get a return on investment in form of service revenue. In case you're wondering, carriers do not make money off hardware, that's not the business they're in.
There is no rule or law that requires carriers to remove SIM lock. They do it as a courtesy when they see fit, but they are not required to do that by any means. How do you think AT&T was able to deny iPhone unlocks for so many years if it was illegal?
Anyone who bought the phone before checking with AT&T about their unlock policy have no one but themselves to blame, simple as that.

AnyMal said:
OP - you're wasting everyone's time. When you buy a branded phone you know full well that it will be locked to a carrier. Buying the device at full retail does not entitle you to take your device elsewhere. AT&T (and all other carriers) spend months and millions in R&D to develop and test the phone before bringing it to the market, so it is completely logical that they wish to get a return on investment in form of service revenue. In case you're wondering, carriers do not make money off hardware, that's not the business they're in.
There is no rule or law that requires carriers to remove SIM lock. They do it as a courtesy when they see fit, but they are not required to do that by any means. How do you think AT&T was able to deny iPhone unlocks for so many years if it was illegal?
Anyone who bought the phone before checking with AT&T about their unlock policy have no one but themselves to blame, simple as that.
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Click to collapse
"Please do not post about how it won't work becuase blah, blah, blah" Hmm guess you didn't read that part. This is not just about unlock codes. "
H2O MMS or others Ulock codes" I don't even need an unlock code for H2O. Besides I already made my case to someone who does this stuff for a living, maybe nothing, maybe something... didn't I already say that somewhere?

awagner said:
"Please do not post about how it won't work becuase blah, blah, blah" Hmm guess you didn't read that part. This is not just about unlock codes. "
H2O MMS or others Ulock codes" I don't even need an unlock code for H2O. Besides I already made my case to someone who does this stuff for a living, maybe nothing, maybe something... didn't I already say that somewhere?
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A laywer willing to sue for money? Color me surprised

AnyMal said:
A laywer willing to sue for money? Color me surprised
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I know, I know , we will see what he says.. never know might see something we don't. After all, I am a techy, not a lawyer. May be interesting.. maybe not. He did bring up what it says on the box. T-Mobile has a seal that says by opening this product you accept terms yadda yadda. AT&T does not. No terms and conditions on the box at all that I saw.

awagner said:
I know, I know , we will see what he says.. never know might see something we don't. After all, I am a techy, not a lawyer. May be interesting.. maybe not. He did bring up what it says on the box. T-Mobile has a seal that says by opening this product you accept terms yadda yadda. AT&T does not. No terms and conditions on the box at all that I saw.
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Click to collapse
They don't have to post terms on the box, they are usually on the back of the sales receipt. As long as the phone is fully functional in the environment it was designed for, there is just no basis for complaint. I wouldn't spend a dime on the lawyer if I were you. Just thinking logically here, not trying to start a war

Verizon Wireless Google Voice Number Porting

Hello All
I would like to port my Verizon wireless number to Google Voice but keep my existing plan, service and contract. I don't want to lose my Verizon unlimited data, corporate discount and open a new account. Every customer service rep I spoke with is confused and I can't get a straight answer. Is this possible? Has anyone done this? If a Verizon wireless employee could give me an answer on here that would be awesome.

dsmero said:
Hello All
I would like to port my Verizon wireless number to Google Voice but keep my existing plan, service and contract. I don't want to lose my Verizon unlimited data, corporate discount and open a new account. Every customer service rep I spoke with is confused and I can't get a straight answer. Is this possible? Has anyone done this? If a Verizon wireless employee could give me an answer on here that would be awesome.
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Click to collapse
im pretty sure you cant do it. i was trying to do the same thing, but the 5 reps i talked to, all said the same thing.

Zepius said:
im pretty sure you cant do it. i was trying to do the same thing, but the 5 reps i talked to, all said the same thing.
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Click to collapse
yeah that seems to be the general answer. most have no idea what google voice is. i posted on vzw community forum and tweeted them so hopefully i'll get an answer from someone else that knows more than what their knowledge base tells them.

dsmero said:
yeah that seems to be the general answer. most have no idea what google voice is. i posted on vzw community forum and tweeted them so hopefully i'll get an answer from someone else that knows more than what their knowledge base tells them.
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Click to collapse
ive heard if you port your number and then instantly request a new number, people have had success... there have also been failures where the port gets lost and you lose your number.

Zepius said:
ive heard if you port your number and then instantly request a new number, people have had success... there have also been failures where the port gets lost and you lose your number.
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Click to collapse
still waiting an answer but i've read that a few times. might be worth a shot but risky. you'd figure a straight answer should be this hard to get, i'm not the first to do this. i just don't want to lose that unlimited data

tmobile question

so, i put 150 on my prepaid account today so that i dont have to worry about my bill till September. so about an hour later, i get a call from tmobile asking me a bunch of questions to make sure im the one who made the payment. They seemed legit, since they had all my account info for tmobile and whatnot. They asked my billing address and the last four of my social. at the end of the call they said my payment should show up on my.tmobile in about 30 secs. its now been 30 minutes and it still hasnt shown up.
so my question is, was that a legit call or did i just totally give some strangers enough info to rip off my bank account

nevermind, i just hit #bal# and it shows my account has been given the money, the website is just slow

I still would NEVER give out any information over a call I received! That's just not safe. If you placed the call to the tmobile 800 number, yea sure, but I've never heard of them calling you to verify payments! If I were you I would contact T-Mobile to ask them if it was really them, if that's something they actually do (and why??? thats terrible business practice), and if not change all your information.

TeknoGodz said:
I still would NEVER give out any information over a call I received! That's just not safe. If you placed the call to the tmobile 800 number, yea sure, but I've never heard of them calling you to verify payments! If I were you I would contact T-Mobile to ask them if it was really them, if that's something they actually do (and why??? thats terrible business practice), and if not change all your information.
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Click to collapse
i agree with Tekno, that was a bad move to give them info like that, or if they were tmo then it was a bad move by tmo. that is indeed a very strange situation

Sprint GFE Charge

I just received a notice that all of a sudden Sprint is going to start charging me to use Good For Enterprise on my Note 4. Has anyone else gotten this? Or does anyone else know how much the charge is?
Frankly GFE should be paying me to use this crappy app...LOL

I got the same notification from Sprint
I got a letter recently saying Sprint had a mistake and needs to charge me to use Good For Enterprise. I am really irritated and I'm trying to figure out if this is just some new way to make money or a legit charge. The phone carriers used to have infrastructure for blackberry enterprise, but I'm not sure sure about GFE.

That's what I didn't understand also. How or why would I be charged for data through GFE if I already have unlimited data?
They aren't providing a service since I downloaded the app through the play store.

I received the same notice & I'm on an iPhone6 now. I was thinking it was "caught" when I changed devices this month. Look closely at your letter, does it say 12/31/2015 also? If so, then we should still receive another year of "free access". Otherwise they can piss off as far as i'm concerned. I'm not going to "pay to work".

Yes...I have until 12/31/2015 also

Just curious... What is gfe?

Good For Enterprise.
Its an alternative to the Blackberry secure corporate email that companies are switching too.
Frustrating part is that it doesn't require any Sprint configuration but it seems since it is "corporate" email, Sprint wants to jump in on charges.

See the thread here: https://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/180119
This is absolutely ridiculous. When I first got good, I specifically asked Sprint if there was any charge on my SERO line for it. They told me as long as I was paying for data, and in my SERO plan I was, there was no additional charge to me. The only charge was between my company and Good. This is complete bull****.

Thanks for pointing out the other thread. It appears that I'm going to have to work with Sprint directly because I'm not using any of the "add-on" services that they reference and I'm not on a business account.

emeraldayotte said:
Thanks for pointing out the other thread. It appears that I'm going to have to work with Sprint directly because I'm not using any of the "add-on" services that they reference and I'm not on a business account.
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Days later and I still don't have a straight answer from Sprint as to the date this is supposed to happen or if there is any way to "opt out" or just use the application on wifi. I don't see how Sprint can tell me I can't use an app on MY phone over MY wireless connection when it has nothing to do with them. If they want to block all connections from my Sprint data to Good ips be my guest. I will either use a VPN or wifi.

Marcelo Claure responded to this issue on Twitter this morning: "Good is being fixed as we speak."