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Sprint sued for duping customers into extending contracts

By Justin Mann

On September 27, 2007, 8:21 PM

Shortly after Sprint Nextel took a nice $69.5 million victory home (well not quite home yet) after defeating Vonage in the courts, they themselves have been sued. This time, they are facing the wrath of the Attorney General of Minnesota, who is claiming that the company abused their customers by extending customer contracts without informed consent.

Given the rather steep fees that most phone companies place on you if you should choose to exit a contract early, getting signed into an even longer contract without knowing about it might upset you. That's what Lori Swanson is fighting them for, claiming that the minute changes made to plans which extended contracts were done in a deceitful fashion:

Some Sprint customers who accepted a "courtesy discount" were unwittingly agreeing to stay with the company longer, according to court papers. Others had contracts extended when they added more minutes to their plans, even though they received assurances the change wouldn't affect their contracts' length.
She is asking that the company shell out up to $25,000 per “duped” user. If the allegations are true – with even mere inquiries into a plan causing its contract to extend – Sprint might have a tough battle in front of them. This will be an interesting one to watch.

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3 comments

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  1. September 28, 2007 9:34 AM
    nirkon said:
    behind every company is something suspicious these days.
    Reply
  2. September 29, 2007 4:28 PM
    Julio said:
    I can tell you from my own experience, Sprint is indeed guilty for this kind of practice, it was a long time coming.
    Reply
  3. October 17, 2007 10:51 AM
    melissabmoss said:
    I spent over an hour on the telephone and 1 1/2 hrs in the local sprint store trying to correct their error. We added a telephone after having service for one year & added a line, the store rep (when asked by us) said it would not extend the contract that it would end with the other phones. The contract ended in 5/07 we called Sprint to make sure we could cancel service in 9/07 to go to Verizon everything was okay, I called back to make sure there would be no other charges and they said it was a zero balance. We switched companies and now have received a $364 bill for early cancelation! What a load of BS!
    Reply

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