Please forgive me for being a bit on the direct side.  The following is a personal opinion, and doesn’t (necessarily) reflect on any other member of this site.  However, I started following this story last week, and it annoyed me.  I followed up with a story of my own in my column on CompuServe’s Computing Pro Forum, “The Weekly Byte.”  I originally saw coverage of this issue on BetaNews.  My good friend, Nate Mook has developed one of the best sites on the Internet.  BetaNews is a site I visit frequently.

Anyway, late last week, it was reported that Sprint was terminating a number of accounts that they had labeled as problematic simply because they called customer service a lot.  In many cases, the owners of these accounts complained that errors on Sprint’s part was the reason for their numerous calls.  Their CSR’s simply couldn’t get it right, and a number of different, long and involved calls were required to correct, what were often to be discovered as, billing issues.  Great… Sprint makes the mistakes and penalizes their customers AGAIN… I’m sorry…my bad; but you lose. Nice.

So, I’m trolling BetaNews again tonight and I noticed that Sprint is AGAIN under fire because they are sending out more account termination letters; but this time for active members of our military.

Say WHAT?!?

Sprint is purposefully killing accounts of customers who do too much roaming, like members of our military, simply because the network they are roaming on doesn’t charge as much as Sprint does (so Sprint isn’t making as much money on the account if the user were in the States on the Sprint network.  Sprint is the one who negotiated the roaming agreement. Is it the customer’s fault that they are able to take advantage of it?

Some service members are contacting Congress about this, as these Sprint cell phones are often the only way active duty members can keep in touch with their family members and loved ones.

This absolutely stinks.  These service members are actively in harm’s way, protecting our country and Sprint’s worried about making a buck off of them.  Its sickening, unpatriotic, and in my reasoning, criminal. If I were a Sprint customer today, I wouldn’t be tomorrow. If I were a Sprint stock holder, I’d be DEMANDING for Sprint chairman and CEO Gary Forsee’s job.  The fact that this is happening during his watch, with apparently, his sanction and approval, is simply unforgivable.

Sprint… this is some of the most despicable behavior I have ever seen. I’d call for a boycott, but they never work.  However, I will say this: not only will I never be a customer, I likely won’t review one of your devices again, either. I don’t want anything to do with you, your company or your service.

Active members of our military give their time and their lives to serve this country, giving you the ability to be one of the biggest groups of jerks around. To pay them back with this level of service is insulting…