Lately, Sprint has been in the news quite a bit. With them becoming 100% owner of Clearwire and Softbank becoming majority owner later this week, the third largest wireless carrier in the US is about to undergo some big changes. And as Android Authoritypointed out, that means plenty of changes to their ToS or Terms of Service. So why do we care about changes to Sprint’s Terms of Service? Well usually any change to the ToS allows you to get our of your contract. Without paying the Early Termination Fee. Now who doesn’t love getting out of a contract early, for free?
Many of you probably know that any change to the ToS means that your contract has been changed, thus making it void between yourself and Sprint. In fact, even Sprint’s ToS tells you that you are able to to terminate your contract free of charge. Here’s the full text:
If a change we make to the Agreement is material and has a material adverse effect on Services under your Term Commitment, you may terminate each line of Service materially adversely affected without incurring an Early Termination Fee only if: (a) call us within 30 days after the effective date of the change; (b) you specifically advise us that you wish to cancel Services because of a material change to the Agreement that we have made; and (c) we fail to negate the change after you notify us of your objection to it.
There is some language under the “General Terms and Conditions” section of the ToS that changed which is primarily about 4G and WiMax customers. And as we’ve heard from some customers that have already tried to cancel their contract due to the changes, it looks like you can only cancel if you are currently using Sprint’s WiMax service. Which if you’ve bought a new phone in the past 18 months, you probably don’t have WiMax on your plan. Android Authority also pointed out that there is some language about LTE:
New Agreements on the Sprint 4G (WiMAX) Network: Your Service on a device activated on the Sprint 4G (WiMAX) Network may require a new one or two-year Agreement per line. Sprint expressly reserves the right to migrate your Service during this Agreement term from the Sprint 4G (WiMAX) Network to the Sprint 4G LTE network to complete your Agreement term. Reasonable advance notice of the Service change will be provided to impacted customers, who can then select one of the followingoptions: (a) Choose to complete the Agreement term using your existing device without 4G (WiMAX) capability (b) Elect to complete the Agreement term by contacting us after receiving notice from Sprint to transition to the Sprint 4G LTE networkwith no additional term commitment required (Transition Option)(c) Deactivate service. Deactivations because of this Service change will not result in an Early Termination Fee (ETF).
Now how do you get out of your contract? Well there are a few ways. You can call Sprint’s Customer Service at (888)211-4727, or dial *6 from your Sprint phone and speak with them about it. We’re hearing that some people are having difficulty getting out of their contracts. From what we are able to tell, it appears to only be possible if you currently have a WiMax enabled device on your line. Like the Galaxy S2, Evo 4G, Evo 3D, etc.
Update: Official statement from Sprint:
Sprint made some changes to its Terms and Conditions, effective July 2013, which clarified its practices related to collections and arbitration and removed provisions unique to its iDEN services. Sprint does not view the changes as material changes that would warrant early termination fee waivers. As always, customers are free to contact Sprint to discuss issues, including those related to their unique Service Agreement with Sprint, so we can work with them to resolve any service or account-related issues.