Sprint Gets Ballsy, Promises to Cut Your AT&T or Verizon Wireless Bill in Half if You Switch
The pricing war between wireless carriers continues to heat up. AT&T initiated a limited time promotion back in September that doubled the data available for Mobile Share Value customers on existing 15GB and higher plans. Verizon Wireless and Sprint then followed up with competing plans of their own.
Now, Sprint is looking to kick some dirt in AT&T and Verizon Wireless’ eyes with a new promotion. The company is introducing a new “Cut Your Bill in Half” promotion that will dramatically reduce the price of your wireless plan if you leave AT&T or Verizon Wireless.
Starting on Friday, AT&T or Verizon Wireless customers can upload a copy of their current bill to Sprint.com or visit a Sprint store for verification. You can then select the new smartphone that you want to use with Sprint (you have to either select Sprint Lease or Sprint Easy Pay in order to take advantage of the promotion) and then turn in your old phone to Sprint, either at the store or with a prepaid shipping kit. If you don’t trade in your phone within 30 days, you will be hit with a $200 charge per line.
You don’t get any money for the phones that you send back to Sprint; no gift cards, no cash, no accounts credits… nothing. After all, Sprint has to find some way to fund this half price promotion.
Sprint says that it will match the data plan of your existing carrier and also give you unlimited talk/texting. As an example, Sprint says that a Verizon Wireless customer that pays $140 per month for four lines of service and 10GB of data will get the exact same service for just $70 per month.
In addition, Sprint will also waive the $36 activation fee per line and buy out your contract (up to $350 per line).
And if the caveats listed above aren’t enough to give you pause about the new promotion, here’s another that could stop customers from switching. If you want to change your data plan in the future (say, to move from 10GB to 20GB of data per month), you’ll lose your special pricing. The FAQ for the promotion reads:
Because the Half Price plans are uniquely calculated based upon your current Verizon/AT&T talk, text and data plan MRCs, customers wanting to make plan changes will be subject to national rate plan pricing that is available in market at that time.
So is Sprint’s offer enough to make you leave AT&T or Verizon Wireless?
