Yeah, you’d think I’d cut Sprint some slack, but we must keep it “real” with the ones we love…
As you may know (unless you’re already confused by Sprint’s picture sending services) that anyone can send pictures for free. Just via email, and not phone-to-phone. For that, you need Picture Mail.
However, the MM-7400 has a nasty new feature. If you don’t have Picture Mail, and haven’t yet had a picture token set on your account (meaning, you haven’t ever sent a picture before, or have had a problem that requires the account to be reset), the phone will prompt you to add Picture Mail.
Now, I’ve been in the computer business for much longer than I’ve been in the phone business, and it really makes it sound like if you decline, you will be denied access. It doesn’t explain Picture Mail at all, it doesn’t explain that emailing pictures is free, it simply has an explanation that you don’t have picture mail, it’s $5, and when you press continue, you’re presented with an accept or decline message.
It would have taken a mere few more words to make it clear that it isn’t necessary… however they didn’t. Sprint needs to bolster simplicity and not grub for bonus bucks… Here is the message in its entirety:
“Service Fee
To gain access, add Sprint PCS Picture Mail to your Sprint PCS Service Plan. A $5.00/mo service charge (plus taxes and fees) will be added to your Sprint PCS Invoice.”
Now, here’s the problem that adds the injury to insult; the phone will not bypass the message and attempt to create a token on the account anyways (in the event you wish to decline). You have to add Picture Mail for it to go ahead and set up the token, regardless of if you just want to email pictures or not.
In the mean time, until Sprint takes advantage of FOTA and fixes this infinite loop that costs $5 to get out of, we’re recommending people add the Picture Mail, then if it shows up on the bill, call customer service and reference this article. We’re hopeful Sprint will just read this message and block the charges until they issue an update… but we doubt it.
