Along with banning Instinct, and retroactively kicking customers off of Instinct phones… Sprint has hindered SERO plan holders in an entirely new way.
The Sprint Employee Referral Offer (SERO) is a significantly less expensive plan pricing that has been attractive to savvy customers. While labeled as an “employee referral” promotion, Sprint has routinely opened the program up to the general public through special promotions. At $30/month for 500 minutes and unlimited data, the plan tier is cheaper than Verizon and AT&T’s data-only plans.
However, as of now, you cannot activate a PDA or Smartphone on a SERO plan (except for the $99 SERO Unlimited plan). It is not clear if existing PDAs owned by SERO customers can continue to be re-activated, but new PDA sales are clearly prohibited to SERO customers.
This comes as Sprint begins to address the Instinct debacle that we previously reported on. Today, Sprint issued an internal memo to employees, stating that customers can switch back to a SERO plan should they chose to return Instinct, or switch to another phone at a later date. However, Sprint also made clear that they will continue to force customers with Instinct and a SERO plan off of their current plan (or, to return the Instinct).
Sprint clearly is taking actions to force savvy and informed customers to abandon the SERO plan pricing. It also is clear that this is a material change of service, and that SERO customers may cancel their contracts without paying an early termination fee.
Update: Sprint may have reversed their decision yesterday. We have just attempted to purchase a PDA from SERO and were offered all three SERO plans.
When we did the same thing yesterday, we were forced to select the SERO Unlimited plan. In addition, Sprint employees on the forums confirmed the change, which prompted us to test the SERO store yesterday initially, where we gained the independent confirmation.
We would not have reported on this had we not had both seen the ban ourselves on the SERO store, as well as confirmed it with Sprint employees. It is not clear if Sprint used this as a trial balloon or not, however, we will follow-up when the situation stabilizes.
Update 2: Sprint has responded to our coverage, which we have outlined in this article.
what the hell is sprint doing.
They are gonna die over this one. This is bull!!!!!
R.I.P… Sprint…
Why are they doing this.
is george bush making the decisions. I have never seen a company that sets itself up for defeat
when they have things in place to be number 1.
Damn!!!
Looks like verizon is gonna be in my future.
Cool thing is its a material change meaning we could cancel without and etf, anytime we want.
tommorrow. next month, month after.
I’m glad to see Sprint working to keep only the “best” customers. More customers doesn’t equal a better business.
The free ride is over at Sprint. Get used to it
Hey Christopher,
I have been a long time reader, since the days of pcsintel.com, back then it was informative and provided excellent insight and although you didn’t always agree with Sprint your posts reflected a news reporter attitude. Those days are gone, every time you mention Sprint nowadays it is loaded with some kind of resentment, did they hurt you that bad?
Regarding the “article” SERO was created as an employee benefit, if you were not really referred to it by an employee you have no business having one. Employee benefits change all the time and this one is changing. SERO is not attractive to savvy customers (savvy customers are willing to pay for what they want/need), it is attractive to freeloaders and those days are over.
don’t believe everything you read in a blog. check the facts. I see nothing in the SERO plan and store preventing PDA purchases or use. i do hear the Instinct is hard to keep in stock because it is so popular to the iPhone.
How is this a material change? I dont see how this counts as an ETF waiver. I am going to clarify the policy at work regarding SERO PDAs and Blackberries on the everything plans.
I am a Sprint employee and have been for many years. I have yet to find any info on this nor as anything been provided to us in advance as you stated had been. I hope you did some fact checking.
Christopher is officially the Paul Thurrot of Sprint. I am sure many mac users will understand.
Seriously what do you have against Sprint?! This is a joke, I used to browse this site daily, now it’s just lame and bais. What are you saying that sero customers are the onnly savvy customers?
Lame….
I am on the SERO site right now and am able to get a new line of service with a Centro, BlackBerry Perl, 8830, 8703e, 8330, 7100i, Samsung ACE, Tero 700wx, 755p, Moto i920, HTC Touch, and the Mogul all on the $30 plan.
I can also purchase an Instinct through SERO, but just like for non-SERO customers the Instinct is only available on cretin plans.
I think that anyone that goes to http://www.sprint.com/SERO will see that this article is questionable since 2/3 of the phones on the main page are PDA/Smart Phones.
Again… I see the non sero sprint customers upset that they pay more… lol
yea chris if you are stirring up trouble and this is a lie. its not right. you have seen sprint employees tell you its not true. what the hell
Folks, we’re only relaying Sprint policy. We really like Sprint, but we simply don’t bias the news in any direction. We report on things that need improvement just as much as things that we like to see in the industry.
I don’t know why people instantly doubt us because it’s bad news. If you don’t want to read the good news and the bad news… read somewhere else. We report where Sprint is the industry leader, and we report where they’re doing things that are shooting themselves in the foot.
If you want a site that only does half that… again, read elsewhere.
Again, our only bias is to the consumer. When a carrier does something that is negative to the consumer, you bet we’re going to point it out.
As a second comment, I really encourage readers to read the update we just posted. This is a fluid situation, but we can only report each development as the situation changes.
Please don’t shoot the messenger. It just means we have to spend more time explaining why we’re right.
So let me get this straight:
1) Sprint stopped letting PDAs on SERO Yesterday
2) You guys found out and covered it
3) And now today SERO is letting PDAs on again
Wow, must be fun to cover all this. Want some free migraine pills?
This is a pretty serious matter for thousands of customers for a someone to be making statements like this without any backup or supporting evidence. I called Sprint customer service, spoke to a level 2 rep, retentions supervisor, and basically yelled for no reason because they all assured me that no such action will be taking place. I’m not saying I don’t believe you man because you very well may have a great source, but thus far it doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen. AND, for those of you out there saying that people with SERO plans are cheating the system by getting an employee plan when they’re not employees…Sprint themselves made this plan available to the public to boost their sales..all you had to do was type in “savings@sprintemi.com” and viola you now have an employee plan.
Ryan, I don’t know how we could have gotten any more supporting evidence before going to press.
• We confirmed the M&Ps said what we reported.
• We went onto the SERO Store and were forced to chose a SERO Unlimited plan when buying a PDA.
About the only thing we could have done more was posted a screen shot. We had no idea Sprint was going to backpedal eight hours later.
This is a fluid situation, but what we reported was 100% correct at the time we reported it.
don’t worry chris…not everyone thinks you ar crazy. i understand exactly what you covered, why you covered it, and why it was updated….i also know that you will have another report on it when you have more solid and sustainable information to report.
its just a shame that there are people out there taking out their own missunderstandings on you. shame.
ya know, it may have simply been a glitch…or as you said, a trial of some sort.
Again, we had confirmation that Sprint had informed employees about the change in SERO policy. We would not have reported had we not had both confirmation from the web site, as well as from the policy itself.
If this is a reversal, it would have to be a trial balloon, not an error. You can’t error both online and in policy guidelines, at the same time.
Sprint has had a history of erratic decision making. I do believe that they will flip back and forth on the Instinct/PDA situation. On the main sprint site yesterdat 7/1, if you tried to order a Centro(Yes I tried), it only allowed you to select from the 3 SE plans.
All you people that have only negative things to say just shut it. Christopher Price is just the messenger. This site is called Phonenews.com and he is relaying the News about phones. In this case about sprint. If you don’t like what your reading then go somewhere else. If something is said and then it turns out it was incorrect then you correct it. That is why there are updates. The cell phone industry is changing on an hourly basis. Unless you have your own news site to post your own research on then don’t talk all this crap. All you haters just go somewhere else if you don’t like what your reading. All the news is not always going to be what you like it to be.
Those people that say that people with Sero plan aren’t savvy you must be living in your little world. The unsavvy people are those who are willing to pay an arm and leg for services that sprint is clearly offering at a different better price. You just have to work differently to get. So for those who want to pay sprint hundreds of dollars for a service they can get cheaper than go ahead. I’ll be more than happy to get the Sero plan myself and use the savings for Gas.
[…] to the PDA/Smartphone debacle, Sprint says that communications and web sites that indicated PDAs would be banned from the plans […]
Don the 2nd is almost echoing my feelings, I think it would be dumb to disallow smartphones with SERO but I do think those plans were too good to be that cheap, an equivalent plan on Sprint or any other carrier would be up to 2 1/2 times more. The few that have it will still be getting over
[…] plan. Well, earlier in the week the supposedly pulled PDAs and smartphones from SERO eligibility. Phone News was on the prowl, lambasting Sprint for the decision. The company has responded, saying that the […]
The SERO get the most for the least and seem to always have something to complain about. Get over yourselves
I will switch to verizon right away if sprint cancell my SERO plan. The only reason I stay with this carrier is because of this cheap ZERO data plan. BTW, Verizon has better reception too!
[…] this was significantly cheaper than other carrier’s data-only offerings. Sprint was criticized recently for attempting to dissuade such users from using these plans, and instead force them […]
I just had to stop and take the time to defend everything you are saying. I am a long term sprint customer who has been abused over the years by this company. I wish I had back the HOURS of my life I spent dealing with sprint customer service reps who always assure me whatever problem I have is taken care of, only to call back the next day to find out I need to fix it all over again. I have the sprint sero plan and I say I deserve it for the poor service I get all the time. I was told first hand by a sprint customer service rep when my phone broke and I was going to purchase a new one, that I would have to switch my service to a minimum of 69.99 a month to get any pda style phone. Of course I didn’t because I refuse to pay that much. For all the people saying we are ripping off Sprint I say phooey! The prices of these plans are absolutely ridiculous. This is the only plan that we are getting what we pay for. Oh, and trust me Sprint makes back it’s money. How about the scam of an insurance program they have. You can only put insurance on the phone when you first activate it. You continue to pay each month and then are still forced to pay $50 for a new phone anyway. (BTW, heads up for the guys…don’t put your phone in your pocket on hot days…if you sweat a little it sets off a litmus strip to say your phone has water damage and then they won’t even give you a new phone for $50) Summing up…I would switch in a heartbeat to any other company but that sero plan keeps around. I take advantage of it and are proud of it!!!!!!
NOT TRUE…I just called Sprint Sero employee customer service…You CAN keep SERO and get a blackberry, treo, etc
You just cannot get the instict, Android, Pre, or pixie.
Of course you have to add the blackberry plan to SERO if you want a blackberry…which is 10.00
I have the SERO plan as well and have been stuck with the MotoQ for years. I was wondering if you could buy a pda off ebay or something and activate it on Sprint’s website w/out upgrading your plan?