Sprint Nextel unveils full-refund guarantee

With the first financial quarter just hours away from completion, Sprint Nextel Corp. unveiled a new money-back guarantee offer that could give the carrier some strong talking points should its Q1 results fail to impress the investment community.
The nation’s No. 3 carrier said the guarantee, aptly named the “Sprint Free Guarantee,” provides new customers with 30 days in which to try out the carrier’s service. If not satisfied, the customer will be reimbursed for all charges, including purchase price of the device, activation fee and any restocking fee, have their early termination fee waived, receive a full refund for their service plan’s monthly recurring charges and have all taxes and surcharges waived. In other words, a full refund.
Sprint Nextel noted in a well put-together chart that it’s the only of the nation’s four largest operators to provide a full refund for unsatisfied customers for up to 30 days. The biggest gap for its competitors appears to be in their not waving monthly service-plan related charges or waving of taxes and fees.
Sprint Nextel did note that customers will be responsible for any premium content downloaded, third-party billing, international charges and any associated taxes and surcharges. You have been warned.
As part of the guarantee campaign, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse will be featured in a stand-alone TV ad touting the new program.
Sprint Nextel has continued to struggle against its competitors over the past few years with Verizon Wireless staking claim to having greater network quality, AT&T Mobility basking in the glory of being the exclusive U.S. outlet for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, and T-Mobile USA Inc. regarded as having less expensive rate plans. The carrier is banking a lot of its future success on its WiMAX-based “4G” network rollout, which is set to hit 120 million potential customers by the end of the year and last week announced its first WiMAX-enabled smartphone, the HTC Evo 4G that is set to launch this summer.