Nextel ripping off old ladies in the hospital

All I can think is... those poor nurses.

Insurance will not cover you after the fact no matter what. It's like
buying auto insurance after an accident and then wanting them to fix
the existing damage to your car.

What I suspect happened is that the person on the phone told you that
to avoid this in the future you should take out replacement insurance
on your phones. That way if any of your phones were lost or stolen in
the future you would get a free replacement.

Of course you still have to pay for all four lines, it's what you
contracted for. They are not going to stop charging you for one just
because your daughter in law absconded with it. To them, you should
put the number on another unit rendering the phone she stole useless.

You certainly have the right to cancel your four lines of service but
be prepared for cancellation fees if your contract it not up. You,
however, do not have the right to threaten them with the loss of 20
other accounts. Not everyone is going to switch carriers on your say
so. Speaking of things not to do, don't use the word "SUCKED" in a
business letter. It's a sure way to get them to toss this letter and
you won't get a response in 48 days much less 48 hours.

In the future, do not make any monetary decision while hospitilized.
Many hospitals even say that in the little handouts they give you are
when admitted.

Since you cannot guarantee what 20 other people will do with their
phone service, ridiculous threats about 20 people leaving Nextel based
on your say so are useless. I certainly wouldn't leave my cell phone
company based on someone else's bad experience.

Oh my! It really sounds like you had a terrible few weeks there. I'm
glad to hear you are out of the hospital, and I hope you are in better
health. I also hope that your son's situation with his wife can be
resolved amicably. I can certainly see why you would be upset, since
it does sound like you got some misinformation. That said, you might
want to consider rewriting this after calming down a bit, and while
keeping a few things in mind.

I'm not by any means saying that the Nextel rep you initially spoke to
didn't promise you a new phone, but any cell phone insurance I've ever
dealt with could only be added within 14 days of purchasing the phone
in the first place, and could not under any circumstances be added
after a customer admitted damage, theft, or loss had taken place. If
I had to guess, I would say the initial rep felt bad for your
situation, and was trying to sneak you in under the radar, but perhaps
someone later put a stop to it. I would be surprised to find that
this was an actual "scam" on the part of Nextel; more likely it was an
error or a failed attempt to break policy for you.

Your letter describes a valid complaint. As I said, I understand why
you are angry. The language you choose, however, muddies the
complaint by being overly emotional and combative. A better bet would
be to stick to a civil and professional retelling of the facts as they
happened, steering clear of hot button confrontational words and the
use of all caps and excessive punctuation. Your letter will still get
your point across, and the facts alone should be enough to argue your
case.

You seem to have a mixed message here. If your complaint is about
your difficulties replacing your stolen phone, stick to that. If you
want to complain about poor service, I'd advice writing another,
separate letter to address that issue. Throwing the secondary
complaint in at the end makes your main point vague, again muddying
the message.

In spite of your understandable anger, your best bet is to try to keep
in mind that you are writing a business letter here. Your complaint
is valid enough without the extraneous details and emotional language.
Rewriting this letter without them may make it clearer and more easily
acted upon by Nextel. Good luck!