Boost Mobile Nextel - Sprint Sprint Nextel I was sold the most expensive phone, turns out I can only use it with the most expensive plan... Irvine, California

On 2/2/09 I purchased a Motorola phone to use with Boost.  The $50/month plan they advertised turned out to include roaming charges if I went out of my "region" which I did for work.  It also included tax/fees making the total around $58/month.  In April, I was switched to a "new" plan with no roaming charges at the same rate,  $58/month. 

 I didn't question the "additional" fees until a month ago when my Mom (5th person I referred to Boost) was told that "no, the $50 plan is $50.  When I tried to switch (3 different people) told me, I couldn't switch because "I was on the old plan."  Emails to customer service went unanswered or the last email I received was "we can't reach you by phone, please call us."  My cell is my only phone number.

As I am now job hunting to conserve money, I decided to switch to "pay as you go" for now.  It turns out the $141.04 phone I bought only works with the $50 + tax/fees plan.  The specific conversation I had with the store rep + the customer service person within the "14 day return time period" was about all the plan types available on Boost.  Not once (I'm a project manager, tech savvy and very detailed about details) was I told, "this phone only works with this one plan."  If I had known as much I wouldn't have bought that phone to be locked into one "forever" plan. 

After spending 3 hours on the phone today, speaking with 4 different people, including one supervisor Ervin or Irwin, the only person who was able to explain a simple concept, simply,  is a Miss Kashandra in Monroe (LA?).  I plan to write a letter to Boost and Sprint/Nextel corporate, if only to say that Boost's one redeeming person is this lady.

My thought is that they make it more complicated than necessary to sell what otherwise is a good service, priced reasonably for unlimited text/talk/web.  The problem is that they are not disclosing that there are two $50 plans + pay as you go plan and only certain phones work with certain plans.  Luckily, Page Plus Cellular works with my $140 phone AND for $39.95/month (no fees) you get unlimited talk/text and 20MB data transfer for email/web.