Registered: Aug 2003
Location:
Posts: 1

Sprint rant-consider before buying Treo

Well I got a Treo 300 in August and a 600 a few days ago. I signed up for unlimited Vision for $15. for some reason, Sprint has decided to say I am using my phone as a modem for a laptop. I don't even own a laptop! And 90% of the time, Vision won't even work for web access. I've spent 2 hours now on Saturday morning on the phone with them, 2 times waiting 30 minutes to talk to a tech support person and getting cut off while waiting both times. Now I have $100 of overcharges and god knows how many hours this will take to get fixed. Having Sprint is becoming a full time job. Has anyone else had them claim they are using their treo as a modem when they aren't. They are driving me nuts! Please consider this in your decision to buy a Treo. You need to be a pretty hardcore treo lover to get it to work without getting huge extra fraudulent Sprint charges. With all these problems, the Treo/Sprint solution is not ready for primetime!

Registered: Jun 2003
Location:
Posts: 8

Since I've got my Treo 600, I've been using Vision like crazy (I'm sure the novelty will wear off after a while, but it's new and fun, so I'm always using it). Boy, I sure hope they don't accuse me of using a laptop. I don't own a laptop either!

Registered: Oct 2003
Location:
Posts: 1

Same

I am using vision a lot on Treo 600 as well since it is the first week plus web browsing is the reason I bought it in first place.

I have broadband connection at home and I DON'T own a laptop and I would never hook up Treo 600 to my desktop to surf the internet cause my broadband is wayyyyyyyyyy much faster than that !!

I hope that Sprint doesn't accuse me of over using "UNLIMITED" vision for blazer browsing on Treo 600 cause boy, I would be upset!!

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Here
Posts: 213

It probably in the past has been difficult to eat more than 20 meg in a month on handsets. Things might be different now with faster displays because of the CPU.

Registered: Oct 2003
Location:
Posts: 6

There's a cap on "unlimited"? WTF is that all about?

I have unlimited with TMobile and recently I was in a pinch I needed to data access for a project and the only way I could get my laptop online was via the cell phone. My laptop was online continuously for at least 16 hours a day for about 3 weeks.

I was downloading constantly, either work related stuff or music to keep from going insane. In all I downloaded at least 200MB of music alone and probably twice that in data.

To their credit I never heard a word from TMobile about it. While it�s not super speedy, unlimited means unlimited, at least it has for me so far. Anyone know different? Am I going to get some kind of rude awakening if I do this again?

Registered: Oct 2003
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 7

I'm curious if anyone knows if and how Sprint could determine if you were in fact using a laptop or second PDA?

Is it just usage, or does the software itself trigger a flag when it's being used as a modem?

I'm not really looking to cheat Sprint or anything, but it would nice to know I could do it on the very rare occassions that I would want to. I was also tossing around the idea of getting a larger PDA when the Bluetooth card comes out. That could be interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth being charged extra for it.

Registered: Oct 2003
Location:
Posts: 1

I had a problem with my sprint bill once where they were charging me for my Vision usage even though I have unlimited Vision. When I called I got someone that seemed like they knew what happend and said it would be fixed. He mentioned my account was not setup properly. So my next bill came and guess what... Vision charges (for each minute) were on there.. Called again. This time they had no idea what I was talking about. Hung up and called back. This time the lady accused my of using my phone as a modem for a laptop and that is why I was being charged. I told her I did not and don't even have the cable to do that. I also maintenance replied back to her and said that I had unlimited vision and that is included and that Sprint even sold cables to do that. She then agreed. My problem was eventually fixed due to someone screwed up my account by only putting the unlimited vision on only one of the 2 phones that share the plan. The point is I think when the rep told you that you were using a laptop, that is something she just either made up or are trained to say to get you off the phone. My 2 cents.

Registered: Jun 2002
Location:
Posts: 1

In general, horror stories with just about every mobile carrier are not a surprise. That said, Sprint is widely regarded as the absolute worst in terms of customer service and support. ATT next, then Verizon, then TMobile (which IMO is the best after experience with all 4).

Bear in mind I'm not talking about the network, reception, d/l speeds, etc., just customer service and support.

TM

Registered: Oct 2003
Location:
Posts: 11

quote:

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Originally posted by IanL
I'm curious if anyone knows if and how Sprint could determine if you were in fact using a laptop or second PDA?

Is it just usage, or does the software itself trigger a flag when it's being used as a modem?

I'm not really looking to cheat Sprint or anything, but it would nice to know I could do it on the very rare occassions that I would want to. I was also tossing around the idea of getting a larger PDA when the Bluetooth card comes out. That could be interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth being charged extra for it.

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Registered: Oct 2003
Location:
Posts: 6

quote:

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Originally posted by anthonymoody
In general, horror stories with just about every mobile carrier are not a surprise. That said, Sprint is widely regarded as the absolute worst in terms of customer service and support. ATT next, then Verizon, then TMobile (which IMO is the best after experience with all 4).

Bear in mind I'm not talking about the network, reception, d/l speeds, etc., just customer service and support.

TM

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