This is just to vent... and provide a cautionary tale for anyone trying to shuffle over to Cricket.
I'll cut to the end and say I won't be using Cricket. I don't want advice on what should be done to rectify this. They burned their chance with me.
So, I have been shopping plans and options. Everyone should. You can often get more for less $. That's just the mobile market in the US. My wife and I are on T-MoUS Simple Choice at about $120 for the pair of lines, unlimited everything. The store we go to is friendly and they help with any requests. No issues with customer care. However, the coverage in our apartment (brick building) is a bit spotty. The wife has a branded phone and gets WiFi calling. I'm on a Factory Unlocked 1520.3 which is not branded. I knew I was giving up WiFi calling when I got the phone last August and it is OK. I make due. When we go to the in-laws house though is the real problem. We only get EDGE there as guests on the only tower in the neighborhood which runs AT&T. So we could save money with Cricket, end our signal penetration issues at our apartment and enjoy H+ speed when we visit her folks. Win/Win/Win. We would each need SIMs and to have her Note 2 unlocked.
The in-laws are on Sprint. They have a grandfathered plan for two dumbphones that have them counting minutes each month. My mother-in-law frets about it constantly. I wanted to move them to Cricket and get them their very first smart phones; Lumia 635s. I could set the phones up, show them how to use them and provide IT assistance any time they need it. They would benefit from the advanced tech, and not have to count minutes. Win/Win/Win for them. AND they would have saved money.
The wife and I would have gotten the $50/month plan x2 with unlimited everything and the first 3GB each at high speed. The in-laws would have gotten the $40/month plan x2, unlimited everything and the first 1GB each at high speed. After rebate their Lumia 635s would have been free and I would have converted two more people to Windows Phone.
Cricket offers Group Discount.
Bored yet? Sorry. That's the background. Here's what happened:
We needed 2 SIM cards and 2 phones. Very little Cricket around here in physical stores. To get the phones I want and make them free, I need to get them online. You can't put more than 1 phone and one service payment in your cart at the Cricket website. WTH? OK, I'll just order one phone at a time. Get a 635 and a $40/month plan in the cart. Kind of annoying that I can't get the Group Discount bundled with the phone purchases, I'll have to call at activation time and get a credit applied for the overage on plans. *sigh, soldier on old boy* I then have to put in a lot of detail to get a Cricket profile. I submit that. The processing icon just spins and spins, never completes. I wait about 15 to 20 minutes. It's not going to happen so I back out. I try again. Same thing. I close the page, go back to Cricket and try to sign in. Not found as a member. I try to order a phone again. Still just spins and never completes. My profile never set up for Cricket either.
This is crazy, I'm working way too hard at it and it is obviously an internet issue with them since it is Cyber Monday. No sweat. I'll start with the SIM cards. I drive across town and go to a Game Stop where I get a nano and a micro. Smart bet is to wait, which I do and I try and activate them this morning since the Cyber Monday crunch must be over. I want to activate mine online to get the Cricket profile set up and have my billing put in the site. Then I can add lines with the other SIM and the two phones one at a time. I put in the info which consists of the SIM # and my IMEI. It just spins and spins and never completes. Now I'm afraid to back out because the SIM # is in there. This isn't my first time at the rodeo, people. 45 minutes later still nothing but that darn swirling green circle of dots which means processing. I go ahead and kill the page. Sure enough when I re-enter the info and submit it processes IMMEDIATELY and the SIM # is now NO GOOD due to the aborted activation.
Time to call. I call the number in the activation packet for the nano SIM. Get a live rep pretty quick. Hey that's good, right? NOPE. The rep at the number for activating a SIM is a hold-over rep from the CDMA system and can't do anything for a SIM activation. He transfers me. I wait on hold about 45 minutes. I speak to a woman and explain everything. She sounds like she wants to help. She gets all the numbers. She's working on something. Suddenly she says, "Hello?" When I tell her I'm still here, she disconnects. Grrrr... I call back, get the we don't SIM here pardner speech and get transferred. Wait 45 minutes. Explain again. This time I'm told the call center can not clear a SIM # and I need to go to a Cricket store. I explain that there is no Cricket store near me and I got the SIMs from a store that sells used video games and equipment, they aren't phone people there. She's not really apologetic, just stating dryly that she can't do anything for my situation. That's the straw that broke the camel's back right there...
I know how mvnos work, I've been on 'em a couple times. It's self service for the most part. But if I CAN'T use the self service avenues it is useless to me. I'm the one on the hook for making four lines work right and troubleshooting whatever goes wrong.
The hurdle to jump into Cricket Land is just too high. They made it way more difficult than it should be for me to hand them money.
Bye Cricket. Good Luck.
The wife and I will probably jump to AT&T compatible Straight Talk next month and the in-laws will probably be stuck on Sprint counting their minutes every month.
I'll cut to the end and say I won't be using Cricket. I don't want advice on what should be done to rectify this. They burned their chance with me.
So, I have been shopping plans and options. Everyone should. You can often get more for less $. That's just the mobile market in the US. My wife and I are on T-MoUS Simple Choice at about $120 for the pair of lines, unlimited everything. The store we go to is friendly and they help with any requests. No issues with customer care. However, the coverage in our apartment (brick building) is a bit spotty. The wife has a branded phone and gets WiFi calling. I'm on a Factory Unlocked 1520.3 which is not branded. I knew I was giving up WiFi calling when I got the phone last August and it is OK. I make due. When we go to the in-laws house though is the real problem. We only get EDGE there as guests on the only tower in the neighborhood which runs AT&T. So we could save money with Cricket, end our signal penetration issues at our apartment and enjoy H+ speed when we visit her folks. Win/Win/Win. We would each need SIMs and to have her Note 2 unlocked.
The in-laws are on Sprint. They have a grandfathered plan for two dumbphones that have them counting minutes each month. My mother-in-law frets about it constantly. I wanted to move them to Cricket and get them their very first smart phones; Lumia 635s. I could set the phones up, show them how to use them and provide IT assistance any time they need it. They would benefit from the advanced tech, and not have to count minutes. Win/Win/Win for them. AND they would have saved money.
The wife and I would have gotten the $50/month plan x2 with unlimited everything and the first 3GB each at high speed. The in-laws would have gotten the $40/month plan x2, unlimited everything and the first 1GB each at high speed. After rebate their Lumia 635s would have been free and I would have converted two more people to Windows Phone.
Cricket offers Group Discount.
- First Line $50
- Second line $50: -$10 discount for group
- Third Line $40: -$20 discount for group
- Fourth Line $40: -$30 discount for group.
Bored yet? Sorry. That's the background. Here's what happened:
We needed 2 SIM cards and 2 phones. Very little Cricket around here in physical stores. To get the phones I want and make them free, I need to get them online. You can't put more than 1 phone and one service payment in your cart at the Cricket website. WTH? OK, I'll just order one phone at a time. Get a 635 and a $40/month plan in the cart. Kind of annoying that I can't get the Group Discount bundled with the phone purchases, I'll have to call at activation time and get a credit applied for the overage on plans. *sigh, soldier on old boy* I then have to put in a lot of detail to get a Cricket profile. I submit that. The processing icon just spins and spins, never completes. I wait about 15 to 20 minutes. It's not going to happen so I back out. I try again. Same thing. I close the page, go back to Cricket and try to sign in. Not found as a member. I try to order a phone again. Still just spins and never completes. My profile never set up for Cricket either.
This is crazy, I'm working way too hard at it and it is obviously an internet issue with them since it is Cyber Monday. No sweat. I'll start with the SIM cards. I drive across town and go to a Game Stop where I get a nano and a micro. Smart bet is to wait, which I do and I try and activate them this morning since the Cyber Monday crunch must be over. I want to activate mine online to get the Cricket profile set up and have my billing put in the site. Then I can add lines with the other SIM and the two phones one at a time. I put in the info which consists of the SIM # and my IMEI. It just spins and spins and never completes. Now I'm afraid to back out because the SIM # is in there. This isn't my first time at the rodeo, people. 45 minutes later still nothing but that darn swirling green circle of dots which means processing. I go ahead and kill the page. Sure enough when I re-enter the info and submit it processes IMMEDIATELY and the SIM # is now NO GOOD due to the aborted activation.
Time to call. I call the number in the activation packet for the nano SIM. Get a live rep pretty quick. Hey that's good, right? NOPE. The rep at the number for activating a SIM is a hold-over rep from the CDMA system and can't do anything for a SIM activation. He transfers me. I wait on hold about 45 minutes. I speak to a woman and explain everything. She sounds like she wants to help. She gets all the numbers. She's working on something. Suddenly she says, "Hello?" When I tell her I'm still here, she disconnects. Grrrr... I call back, get the we don't SIM here pardner speech and get transferred. Wait 45 minutes. Explain again. This time I'm told the call center can not clear a SIM # and I need to go to a Cricket store. I explain that there is no Cricket store near me and I got the SIMs from a store that sells used video games and equipment, they aren't phone people there. She's not really apologetic, just stating dryly that she can't do anything for my situation. That's the straw that broke the camel's back right there...
I know how mvnos work, I've been on 'em a couple times. It's self service for the most part. But if I CAN'T use the self service avenues it is useless to me. I'm the one on the hook for making four lines work right and troubleshooting whatever goes wrong.
The hurdle to jump into Cricket Land is just too high. They made it way more difficult than it should be for me to hand them money.
Bye Cricket. Good Luck.
The wife and I will probably jump to AT&T compatible Straight Talk next month and the in-laws will probably be stuck on Sprint counting their minutes every month.
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