Pray you never have to replace a phone with Cricket

[Charmonium]

I made the mistake of getting an Alcatel Idol 4 to upgrade my phone. It was defective. The earpiece didn't work and the mic didn't work. So I figured they'd replace it. Well, sort of. For reasons I still don't understand they said I had to wait 8 days before I could send it back. I guess it's some sort of religious observance.

I send it back, get the new phone, same problem. I think the mic worked on the second phone but not the earpiece. So now I'm on the third phone. They told me that was going out on Monday via overnight air except they apparently forgot to send it. D'oh.

Now they're telling me it will go out tonight but they can't give me a tracking number until FedEx picks up the package. OK, we'll see.

Were it not for the fact that I'd already gotten several accessories for this phone that I can't use with anything else, I'd tell them to go f*** themselves. And if they manage to screw this return up as well then obviously I don't have any choice in the matter.

I picked Cricket because they're basically ATT and the last company I used, Sprint/Virgin suck ass. Not sure who I'll go with next.

 

[sandorski]

If there was a god, this would part of Its' plan, so Prayer would be pointless anyway.

 

[Crono]

BYOD. Using my Honor 8 from Best Buy on Cricket. No issues. If I did, it would have gone back to Best Buy or Huawei not Cricket. Similarly if I had bought an unlocked phone from Amazon.

Always buy your device outright from retail and not the carrier or MVNO, if you can.

 

[ponyo]

Why would you buy your phone through Cricket? I didn't even know they sold phones.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm liking Straight Talk on the AT&T network. It's faster than Cricket, and I seem to get more data from the same monthly fee.

Just get your phone and order a SIM card for it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Cricket seems like a funny name for a communication provider.

 

[Crono]

Cricket seems like a funny name for a communication provider.

Crickets are excellent communicators.

 

[Svnla]

I started using Cricket about 2 years ago. Purchased a free (after rebate) phone from a Cricket store and it was very good for two years. I just recently ordered a cheap Android phone from Cricket website because all of the local stores were out of stock and so far, the phone is not as good as the old one from the store because the sound and the touch screen are not working correctly.

I will try to update to the newest Android and see if everything will work or not.

 

[John Connor]

Your problem is the shity Alcatel Idol 4, not Cricket. I have been using Cricket since December and other than that outage during the summer, I've been a happy customer and they answer your tweets right away.

I did buy my phone from Cricket. And I researched it. Granted it's old as sin, but I haven't had an issue with it besides its slow ass CPU. It's a Samsung Galaxy S4.

Quite frankly I would only buy a smartphone from two companies: Samsung and /\/\otorola.

 

[Charmonium]

It's their warranty group that's incompetent. I haven't had to deal with customer support so I wouldn't know about that and as far as service, they seem adequate. At least they don't suck like Virgin/Sprint did.

So if you bring your own phone and all you ever need to do is activate it, maybe you'll be fine. Just don't ever buy a phone from them because if you get a bad one it will be a f***ing nightmare.

And by the way, I haven't included any of the details to the story like the 2 hours I had to spend on the phone to get the first replacement. These people are f***ing idiots. Even tonight when I called to get my tracking number the first moron gave me some meaningless string of characters. I had to call back to get the correct information.

 

[Crono]

It's their warranty group that's incompetent. I haven't had to deal with customer support so I wouldn't know about that and as far as service, they seem adequate. At least they don't suck like Virgin/Sprint did.

So if you bring your own phone and all you ever need to do is activate it, maybe you'll be fine. Just don't ever buy a phone from them because if you get a bad one it will be a f***ing nightmare.

And by the way, I haven't included any of the details to the story like the 2 hours I had to spend on the phone to get the first replacement. These people are f***ing idiots. Even tonight when I called to get my tracking number the first moron gave me some meaningless string of characters. I had to call back to get the correct information.

You just described every carrier and most MVNOs. Or support in general, actually. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T will all put you through customer support hell, unless you are lucky and get a competent AND empowered agent/rep on the first try (pro tip: always try chat first if it's available. It's easier and less frustrating to deal with than phone runaround, and you can get a lot done in the meantime while having a chat window open. Some issues do require phone support, though.).

Always the best thing to do is avoid potential problems so you don't need support to begin with.

 

[John Connor]

Crickets are excellent communicators.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'm liking Straight Talk on the AT&T network. It's faster than Cricket, and I seem to get more data from the same monthly fee.

Just get your phone and order a SIM card for it.

StraightTalk upgraded their data but is roughly in line with Cricket. You can get 10GB of data with StraighTalk for $55 now. I was getting that with Cricket but only because of having a 2nd line and autopay ($5 discount for each). But I haven't been using like any data so I dropped to a 2.5GB plan. And of course if you buy several months you can get some discount (like $5 per month; not sure if you do with online Autopay as well).

Not sure on speed, IIRC Cricket limits to like 8Gbps down/1up, not sure if StraightTalk does as well (on AT&T), so it could be decently better if not.

I haven't checked to see if StraightTalk can work with Verizon LTE (I know their SIM pack included T-Mobile and AT&T compatible SIMs, and you used to be able to use Verizon is you weren't LTE, but I know it depends on region and things like that as well). If you are on Verizon you can use Total, they're actually a bit cheaper if you don't use a ton of data and/or have multiple lines. You can get 5GB of data (on Verizon LTE, not sure what other limitations there are) for $35 a month (while the price is decent you kinda lose out with multiple lines though as you're getting less than 4GB per line if you do 4 as you only get 15GB of shared data, but it might be good if you have one or maybe two heavy data users and 2-3 light; you could just put the extra SIMs in tablets if they have them).

You just described every carrier and most MVNOs. Or support in general, actually. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T will all put you through customer support hell, unless you are lucky and get a competent AND empowered agent/rep on the first try (pro tip: always try chat first if it's available. It's easier and less frustrating to deal with than phone runaround, and you can get a lot done in the meantime while having a chat window open. Some issues do require phone support, though.).

Always the best thing to do is avoid potential problems so you don't need support to begin with.

This, it's not just a Cricket problem. They all pretty much suck. I know someone that worked in the electronics of a retailer (where they'd do phone sales, including MVNOs) and its not really any better for them. I really don't understand why its such a crapshoot, but yeah the best thing is to not have to deal with them. That's why having a SIM card in a known compatible phone and being able to just buy a card or pay a flat monthly amount is a godsend. Setup can be a bit of a hassle, but usually not too bad.

 

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, I don't think that Straight Talk throttles you to 8Mbps down like Cricket does. I'm pulling 12.5 Mbps down from my LTE mobile connection at work.

That said, I'm not convinced that I'm getting the same level of service that AT&T contract users are getting. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some QoS rules that prioritize their traffic when the network is busy.