Sprint PCS would not give me the security code of my Cell-phone - have two Sprint Samsung cell phones that are useless

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on September 8, 2002:

From:

RE: Sprint PCS would not give me the security code of my Cell-phone - have two Sprint Samsung cell phones that are useless

My name is Johannes C. Vanderhorn of Charlottesville, Virginia.

I purchased Two Sprint PCS Samsung cellular phone and service plan in July 2000.

Recently I moved to Aruba Dutch West Indies.

I tried to get the cell-phones to work in Aruba. The local only cellular phone service provider stated that they could only make the phones work in Aruba if I could provide them with the 6 digit security code of each of the Samsung cell-phones.

After several very expensive calls to Sprint PCS customer service I was informed that Sprint does not give out the security codes and that these phone should only be used with a Sprint PCS service plan.

My Complaint is that I now have two Sprint Samsung cell-phones that are useless to me.

When I purchased the phones, nor during the activation setup the customer service people at Sprint PCS never informed me that the cell-phone would not work on an other companies cellular service without the security code which is needed for setup and that Sprint does not give out the security codes.

Did I not purchase a complete product and not part of a product?

Should I not be provided all information and codes belonging to the products purchased?

Sprint PCS is doing everything possible to prevent freedom of choice and therefore to my opinion not complying with the free market regulations.

A suggestion goes out to all Sprint PCS users to investigate if they would be in the same situation as I am when trying to change cellular service to an other provider.

I hope that there is somebody out there that can give me a suggestion on how to force Sprint PCS to give out the security codes to the purchasers of their PCS phones.

Johannes C. Vanderhorn.

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