Sprint/Nextel Will SELL me my phone number for $50 to port to my new carrier!! 1-800 Customer Service Internet, Nationwide

I cut my contract short with Nextel. My original contract was due to end in March 2008. I called Nextel in March 2007 to change my plan. I was told that by changing my plan I agreed to the plan change for 12 months. That made no difference to me because still my contract was to be finished in March 2008.

I was a returning Nextel customer having had their service in past years and knew that I had to give a 30 day notice to discontinue service (even at the end of the contract) so I called them Sunday, Feb. 17 to tell them that I was indeed going to stop their service in March 08. I was informed that when I changed my calling plan in March 2007 I added an extra two years to my contract. I know, and I clarified back in March 2007, that my contract would be up in March 2008. I was in no way going to continue service with Nextel. My bill for the calling plan that I had ran about $138/monthly, and there are such better priced calling plans nows.

Anyhow, I cancelled my contract on Sunday, Feb 17th and I will be billed for the early termination. During that cancellation phone call on Sunday, I was asked if I would like to take my phone number with me to my new carrier...I answered yes. Two days later, I go get a new phone with a new carrier - Cricket. The rep at Cricket told me that it would be no problem to port my Nextel number to Cricket...just call the porting number and they would take care of it for me. So I called and made my port request. When I called back a few hours later (as I was told to do), I was told by a Cricket CSR that Nextel was not releasing my phone number. The CSR told me to call Nextel and ask that they release it so that they could assign it to my Cricket phone. I then called Nextel.

The Nextel CSR acted like I didn't know what I was talking about and told me to call Cricket back and tell them to 'pull' the number.

So I called Cricket back and told him that Nextel said to 'pull' the number. After being transferred to a manager, the manager sent a request to Nextel to get my phone number and Nextel denied the request. He said that as long as Nextel doesn't let that phone number out, I cannot get it.

So, I called Nextel again. This time I talked with a nuch friendlier CSR at Nextel and he transferred me to the porting department. The porting department said that they had cancelled my phone number and I would have to get it active again before I could get my number ported to Cricket. So, that Nextel CSR transferred me to a Nextel Account Specialist. The Nextel Account Specialist told me that my phone number had been cancelled and that it would have to be reactivated in order for me to port it to my new carrier. I said, "ok then, activate it, I want my phone number." Then she told me "It's going to be $50.00". What!!!! She wants to charge me $50.00 to activate my number so that I can port it to Cricket! Anotherwords, Nextel wants to sell me my phone number for $50.00!

I told her that I would contact the FCC and the BBB and she said 'ok' and hung up on me. I have owned Nextel both personally and in my business since way back when they were just 2-way radios...in the mid 90's.

I will NEVER do business with Nextel/Sprint again in my lifetime and I will continue this with the FCC and BBB. They want to charge me for my phone number and there is a law against this.

Anonymous
platte city, Missouri
U.S.A.