Complaint Review: Sprint - Overland Park Kansas

On October 22, I became interested in the “Hello 5G” promotion that Sprint/T-Mobile was offering. The promotion was to get up to $500 off of the new iPhone 12. The representatives I spoke with weren’t too knowledgeable on the promotion being offered and couldn’t fully give me accurate information about the promotion. So, I decided to go ahead and take part in the promotion anyway. The device I had bought and used with Sprint at the start of my service was an iPhone 8 Plus that I paid full price for directly from Apple.com.

This was the device that was eligible for trade-in for the new iPhone 12. The promotion was that I would send in the iPhone 8 Plus, pay $376.91 down, then monthly payments for the iPhone 12 device would be $4.95 per month for 24 months. I have screenshots of the promotion and the payment pages with confirmation. Once I received the iPhone 12 device, I wasn’t satisfied with it because the previous devices I always used had a fingerprint button, whereas the iPhone 12 did not. So, I spoke with a Sprint representative through text message and they processed me a return kit for the new iPhone 12 device.

A day or two later, before I ever received the return kit, I decided to give the new iPhone 12 a chance because I knew that from here on out newer iPhone models wouldn’t come with a fingerprint scanner.



So, I spoke with another Sprint representative through text message and I was informed to disregard the return kit for the iPhone 12, and to go ahead and send the iPhone 8 Plus in using the trade-in kit I received with the original iPhone 12 shipment. I did everything that trade-in instructions informed me to do before shipping the device to Sprint via UPS. The iPhone 8 Plus trade-in was shipped via UPS on October 25.

I later realized that my monthly bill with Sprint had changed and now I am being charged $635.10 on November 19, 2020. I spoke with one representative regarding this issue, they informed me that it was because my trade-in device hadn’t made it to the warehouse yet and that my bill would be audited before the payment date. Well, a couple of days later my bill was still the same, so I spoke with a second representative who informed me that the warehouse did receive the device but that I had sent the wrong device. I wrote down all my trade-in device’s information and provided the representative with the serial number of the device I traded in. She compared the serial number to the device the warehouse had received and stated that the serial numbers didn’t match.

Supposedly the reason my bill still hadn’t changed was because the device I sent it wasn't the correct device, so the representative stated that she would process a ticket request to have their backend team double check the device and that someone would get back in touch with me regarding the details (this representative transferred me to a supervisor stating she was having technical difficulties.) A couple of days had gone by and I had yet to hear anything, so I contacted Sprint for the third time (which was earlier today) and this time I was informed that my bill wasn’t changed because the device I sent in was broken and the wrong device. The device I sent to Sprint as trade-in was in excellent condition, there wasn’t a scratch on the device, and I know for a fact that I couldn’t have sent in the wrong device because that was the only other device I had before I received the iPhone 12.

This representative informed me that she would make sure the matter was resolved and that someone would contact me from 1-888-211-4727 later today. I did receive a call at 7:02 PM Eastern time today, from 1-800-639-6111. I was informed that because I had requested to send the new device back the contract was canceled and that was why I was seeing $540+ added to my bill (a contract cancellation fee). I informed her of what one of the previous representatives had told me, they told me to disregard the device return kit and go ahead and send in the trade-in device and things would resume as normal. She asked me to hold while she checked what she could do. She told me that I had two options, I could return the new device and have the contract cancellation fee removed from my bill, or she could reinstate the contract and I pay normal rates for the phone which are $22.25 per month for 24 months.

I asked if they could ship my trade-in device back before I return the iPhone 12, and she informed me that it was impossible to ship a device back from the Sprint warehouse. So, I explained to her that if I sent the iPhone 12 back to have the contract cancellation fee removed from my bill that I wouldn’t have any phone at all to use. Her response was that they would definitely have to check into that concern. I told her that I would much rather keep the iPhone 12 and have the promotion as that was the original reason that I decided to upgrade and go with the iPhone 12. She informed me that because the contract was cancelled, the promotion was as well and that the promotion could not be reinstated for me. She stated that she could give me a $100 credit for my trade-in device but that she couldn’t reinstate the promotion. So now I am without my old device and Sprint is trying to charge me an overall amount of $415.20 more by not providing me with the promotion that I was originally informed I would receive.

This is not right, I feel as if Sprint has scammed me of my old device and is trying to make me pay full price for the new device. They should send me my old device back and they can have their new device back.