All Cars, All the Time

Cell Phone Carrier "Questionable Practice" Alert!

Since I was recently stung by this new fee myself, I thought I'd alert you to it as well. Yes, it is off topic but I find the practice so objectionable it deserves as much publicity as possible.

Many cell phone carriers are now charging an “upgrade fee” when you change out your handset. I’ll give you an example of how this works. We’ve been Sprint customers for years now and every two or so years I like to upgrade my phone to the latest and greatest. Sprint always provides incentives to keep you as a customer and will give you somewhere around $150 towards a new phone if you re-up your contract for another two years. I’ve done this several times with no issue. Last month I upgraded my phone at the Sprint store and paid what I thought was the total amount for the phone. Imagine my surprise when a month later my Sprint bill arrives and there is a $36 handset upgrade fee. Not an activation fee, an upgrade fee. It’s their way of saying “Thanks for sticking with us, now please allow us to stick it to you.” Here's the really twisted part: in order for me to get the $150 incentive I could not upgrade my phone online, but upgrading at a Sprint store doubles the fee from $18 to $36. Of course it would be far too late to return the phone and who would want that hassle? I complained and they credited the fee, but it was not something that I enjoyed.

What really “grinds my gears” (hat tip to Family Guy) is that they sneak this fee on after you buy the phone. Why isn’t this fee part of the purchase price? Not that they should be charging it anyway. What got me so fired up was this column and all the responses that it has generated.