Action 9: Customer upset by early cancellation fee

Marie Philippe has a 12-year-old special needs daughter named Shelli who uses an iPad when away from home.

 “To keep her calm and distracted -- she likes to surf YouTube to look at Sesame Street and Barney,” Philippe said.

 So Shelli could connect to the Internet, Philippe bought a mobile WiFi device called a hotspot and paid a monthly fee for service.

 But in December, when Shelli became homebound, Philippe said she cancelled her Sprint hotspot service, not knowing she was under contract.

“I felt betrayed,” she said.

 Sprint then charged her a $140 early cancellation fee.

 Philippe said the contract she thought she had signed was for her other daughter's cell phone, not for the hotspot.

 “Why would I purchase a two-year contract for a nonverbal, special needs child? It just didn't make any sense,” Philippe said.

Philippe said she went to the third-party Sprint store at Northlake that sold her the hotspot and complained to Sprint managers.

“And nobody would listen,” Philippe said.

Action 9 went to the Sprint store, operated by PCS Experts. A manager said they explained everything to Philippe when she bought the hotspot and said she should have known any monthly service requires a contract.

After Action 9 got involved, Sprint refunded the $140 fee it had charged Philippe.

She now tells others how to avoid her mistake.

“Read everything that you're signing before you sign it,” she said.