Wireless phone service always comes with a whole string of gotchas. As we approach the month of April when I’ll be finally rid of Sprint, they are all of a sudden playing nice once again.

I just got a friendly email from them touting the various upgrades to a smartphone and other plans.

That’s not the tune they were singing a year ago when I asked them to reduce the payment I had to make for trying to get out of my contract.

I had to pay them $300 for the 2 phones. You see like many unsuspecting cellphone users, I didn’t know if I changed something as simple as increase the minutes, pay them more each month, it restarts the clock.

Thankfully now there’s a lot of competition out there.

Restarting the clock is their mantra. That I’m afraid isn’t just the chant of Sprint. Direct TV does that as well. They offer a free DVR and if that DVR dies before your contract expires, they’re so nice, they’ll replace the DVR for free but … you guessed it…. they restart the clock.

Who else do you know restarts the clock in their dealings with you?