Need help-Roaming charges!

[liveluvlaff]

I just got my cell phone turned off because I am late paying a $271 cell phone bill (I Have SERO so this is like what 10 months of service would cost me) I have had Sero for 2 years, and have always paid my bill on time, etc, etc. Never had any overages or anything like that.

Has anyone had luck getting some or even all of roaming charges waived? We were on a cruise ship DOCKED in Miami and my phone did not show that is was roaming and it should not have been. I have not called in yet to argue this but when I went in to the Sprint store, the guy there was proactive and called for me and he was shot down. He said I might have better luck when I call..yeah right, I doubt it.

Perhaps I could use the missing $100 rebate I never got when I bought the Q nearly a year ago as some leverage. Would it be best to call retentions? Email? What do you suggest?

Any feedback would be most appreciated as I HATE calling Sprint. Takes forever and they alway mess things up!

[jumonjii]

Roaming is included with SERO so I would challenge the charge.

[dyuyeno]

I'd try retentions. I've had the best luck with them. They gave me free roaming on all 5 of my phones...

good luck!

[PokerFace23]

unless it was international roaming then no, SERO doesn't cover it.

[HAmAnWho]

same situation with me. cruise ship was docked in san pedro and did not even leave the bay yet. Sister placed a call cause pretty much we were still in the san pedro bay. fast forward to invoice, got charged cause sprint said we were roaming on the cruise ship frequencies. Aruged with sprint for a little but sprint said they could not do anything cause the cruise ship charged and not sprint. i just gave up cause it was only $2.

thought this might shed some light:

http://www.nextel.com/en/services/worldwide/cruise_ship_roaming_sprint.shtml

[liveluvlaff]

Well yesterday was a bad luck day for me, or so I thought. I kept putting off the call to Sprint after reading how everyone has tried to get charges like this reversed and not having any luck, I thought my results would be the same. After I got yet another speeding ticket #%@$%^!!! I said the hell with it and called them immediately after. I called *2 and said I wanted to cancel so I would be turned over to retentions. I was on the phone with that guy for 20 min or so and he said he would have to call me back after he contacted a supervisor because the charges were too high and needed approval.

After 45 min and no call back (which I expected anyway) I called and spoke with a rep who was in Canada. She spent nearly an hour on the phone with me and during this call she said the previous rep had gone in and credited the entire amount! He made no notes regarding this but did what he said he would do (Shocking!) This was much more than I expected and I am so grateful not to pay all that money for a couple of unimportant phone calls and I will never use a phone near a ship again!

So moral of the story, don't give up, I was lucky and got it handled on my first call. They don't make much money on me but I always paid my bill on time and have been a Sprint Sero customer for 2 years. I am loving Sprint right now! Now if I can just get rid of this Q that is full of bugs!

[sugarnova]

Congrats on getting that taken care of!

[chilidogtampa]

I stumbled upon this thread researching sero to tell my dad about it, thats wild about the cruise ship thing, I would say once on the high seas $2.50/min verses nothing would be fine but while in (US) port you should expect to not roam, and if you have included roaming you would understandably leave your phone set to allow roaming. can someone clarify, SERO does include roaming? I cant find it mentioned on the sero page and I want to advise my dad. he has verizon and as an RV'er they need roaming for the times when they are on the road. he liked my Q9 and will be checking in on verizons version but a $30 sero account might work for him.

[LilbearWS]

Yes, the Sero plans include free roaming.

[Dragonman]

Cruise Ships intercept you calls and charge $2.50 or $3.00 per minute.

I rcommend setting the phone to Sprint only when on a ship this MAY stop the ships system from intercepting the call.

[INTERNET2000]

Do the built in systems aboard cruise ships not alert the end user that calls are roaming? I guess I'm confused how the phone interprets the signal ... Does it appear to be native signal or (international) roaming signal?

Not trying to change the direction of the thread, but I'm curious.

[Dragonman]

Do the built in systems aboard cruise ships not alert the end user that calls are roaming? I guess I'm confused how the phone interprets the signal ... Does it appear to be native signal or (international) roaming signal?

Not trying to change the direction of the thread, but I'm curious.

When I was on the ship my phone showed Roaming.

[gof]

I wonder what happens if you are in the area of the ship, but NOT a passenger? It would seem like a passer-by might get a call "captured" if close enough... That might be an interesting conversation with Sprint. :)

[INTERNET2000]

When I was on the ship my phone showed Roaming.

Thanks for the information.