Sometimes trying to saving money is an extremely difficult job.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about this Red Pocket Mobile Deal. In short it was unlimited cell service on AT&T Network (5GB LTE) for a year at $240. That’s $20/mo. for those who are math challenged. I’m paying $35 a month for similar service at Cricket Wireless.
Who wouldn’t want to save $15/mo., right?
It looked to me that Red Pocket Mobile is one of those resellers who run on very thin margins, which is what leads to the low price. I’m used to going with the frugal option and giving up customer support. My view is that typically once you get service up and running on reliable network (AT&T) it’s smooth sailing.
One thing concerned me about the deal, the return/refund policy. I’d need something very solid if I’m committing to buying a year’s worth of service. Hidden away at the bottom of the Ebay store listing is a tab of “cancellation/refunds.” Clicking it gives you their policy, which is:
“We want you to be delighted with your purchase of this prepaid service. If you are not satisfied with your service and it is within 30 days of receiving your starter kit, we will refund your purchase in full. However, if you have consumed more than 30 minutes, 30 texts, or 30MB of data, it will be considered buyer’s remorse and a refund will not be available.
If you do not contact us to cancel the plan within this 30 day period, or if you consume more than 30 minutes, 30 texts or 30MB of data, your purchase will be considered buyer’s remorse and you will no longer qualify for a refund.”
Okay, if it’s within 30 days, they’ll refund… great. Oh wait, if I talked to someone for 30 minutes, received 30 texts, or used 30MB, they’ll consider it buyer’s remorse and not give a refund.
This scared the hell out of me. I took to Twitter.
Hey @RedPocketMobile, I wrote about your Ebay deal today (https://t.co/nhzkYZOb44). I want to buy, but the 30MB limit is 1/5th of one day of the data.
Can't you at least give 5 days no limits on a yearly purchase?
— LazyManAndMoney (@LazyManAndMoney) April 19, 2018
Just checking back, @RedPocketMobile. Any thoughts? Would love to give you my business. https://t.co/opjsJPdtd7
— LazyManAndMoney (@LazyManAndMoney) April 20, 2018
Happy day! I scooped the @cheapskateblog with my article yesterday: https://t.co/nhzkYZOb44
Too bad @RedPocketMobile won't respond to my Tweets about the extremely tough return policy. https://t.co/ZTMoDwg8af
— LazyManAndMoney (@LazyManAndMoney) April 20, 2018
Okay, I DM'd you, but I'm not sure why it has to be private.
Yesterday, I explained my concerns about the 30 minute, 30MB data limit on a year commitment as being very, very light. That's not much of a test of service.
— LazyManAndMoney (@LazyManAndMoney) April 20, 2018
That last request drew a wise response by @MLM_Police:
You know it’s shady when they want to talk via DM
— MLM Police (@mlm_police) April 21, 2018
I followed up on DM and asked the same questions that I did publicly. On April 20th, they said escalated the request. By April 23rd, I reached back out to them, as it had been 4 days and I feared the deal would be removed or sold out before I received my response. On the 24th, they got back to me and said that they hadn’t received a response yet.
I decided to take a chance and buy, mostly because I believed that paying $20 for AT&T service is better than paying $35 for AT&T service.
I ordered my sim and it sat a few days while I found the free time to focus on getting it installed and activated. I started the process on Friday, May 4th early in the day. I decided to port my phone number because some of my dog sitting client text me directly. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea.
Here’s the number portability section of the Red Pocket Mobile’s activation website. I highlighted two interesting sections.
Let me tackle the second highlight first. It’s very strange that a pre-paid phone company would ask for your Social Security Number. This Forbes article covers it a bit. In this case, Red Pocket Mobile doesn’t require it, which tells me they don’t need it. They’d like to have it. I remember thinking, “Hmmm, you escalated my question about the return/refund policy 2 weeks ago and I haven’t gotten a response yet. I’m not sure I’d like you to have my Social Security Number. Thanks!”
The other highlight is the “Account Password” of my (then current) carrier, Cricket Wireless. I used the password for the Cricket Wireless website. Big mistake.
This is the first time I’ve ported a phone number in years. I had read it takes a couple of hours. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about porting your phone number. You never get notice (such as an email) about the completion of the port. And you have to reboot your phone for the new activation to take effect. So you fill out this form try back in 3-4 hours and hope for the best.
When my service wasn’t activated in 4 hours I called Red Pocket Mobile. They said that the PIN didn’t match. I said, “Of course it isn’t going to match my PIN… your website asked for the password. If you wanted the PIN you should have asked for it.”
I gave them my PIN and they submitted the new request to port my number. Four hours later, I still didn’t have service. Time for the second call to Red Pocket Mobile.
After one person disconnected me when they went to investigate, I got one who would work with me. She said that the PIN was denied. I asked what she had for the PIN information. She read the same information I submitted from the website hours ago, not the information I gave in my last call. It seems as though the call that I had four hours ago never happened.
Four hours later, I still didn’t have service. At this time, it’s getting late, so I decide to resubmit the activation and port request with the correct PIN from the website. My theory is that it can’t hurt. Maybe they are only allowed to go off of what is submitted through the website?
The next morning I call back and the customer service representatives tell me the PIN was denied again. Once again, she reads me the same password that I originally submitted and not the PIN that I’ve now corrected twice over the phone and once online. After I explain to her that I seem to be caught in a low-budget, direct-to-video version of Groundhog Day 2, she puts me on hold to investigate some more.
She comes back and says that it should work now! And amazingly it does! I can make a phone call! She painstakingly reads me through at least 10 APN settings to get the mobile network configured. Near the last one, my phone inexplicably erases the previous 9. I thank her and tell her that I’ll just do it through the Red Pocket Mobile app as the company intended.
It works without a hitch. I decide to take my dog on a short walk around the block while I check up on some news, Twitter, and email. (We were off the “beaten path”, so not this “phoning and walking” wasn’t really a danger.) Everything seemed normal and great with the LTE coverage.
I got back and it was time for the kids soccer practice. My wife drove the mile (maybe 1.5 miles) down the street. I don’t know why I had my phone out for such a short trip, but I noticed that I didn’t have LTE coverage. I only had “H” coverage and pages were slowed to a crawl. Uh oh. It’s panic time!
I looked at how much data I used. It was at 28MB. I had 2MB of data to spare before I had wasted $240 on cell phone service that I wouldn’t be able to use. In a panic, I quickly put my phone into airplane mode.
When I got back home, it was time to call Red Pocket Mobile again. I asked if they’d waive the 30MB requirement like I did in all the Tweets. Instead of promising they would, the phone person jumped to “Let’s see what we can do about this coverage. Turn your phone off airplane mode and we’ll get started.”
It seemed that he couldn’t understand the position I was in. If I turn the phone back on, it could get email updates and get over the 30MB limit. In order for Red Pocket Mobile to attempt to troubleshoot my problem, they’d effectively be demanding that I waive any right to a refund.
We went back and forth like this for what seemed to be forever. It was unfortunate, but I feel that Red Pocket Mobile put me into a corner where I couldn’t be their customer.
Finally after number calls over the 24+ hours, I decided to give up on Red Pocket Mobile. My wife was quite relieved.
I called up Cricket Wireless and said, “Please let me come back!” Their customer service representative said, “Sure, no problem. We’d love to have you back.”
Oh there were problems! We’ll continue that story in Cell Nightmare 2…
Red Pocket Mobile Conclusion
Like everything in this article, this is just my opinion based on my experience. It’s quite possible that the service is good and that I freaked out due to the refund policy before I had the chance to get a good feel for it. However, their lack of customer support and that policy really made it difficult for me to fairly review the actual phone service itself.
If you are thinking of giving Red Pocket Mobile a try, I’d recommend porting your number to something like Google Voice and then using that to route a new Red Pocket Mobile number to that Google Voice number. This has worked well for me in the past, with the exception of people getting confused when their caller ID gives them the underlying carrier number instead of my Google Voice number on outgoing texts and calls.
Sounds like a good deal, but would share your concern. I don’t like all the administration of the change and uncertainty either. Of course, their is a price to be paid for certainty and convenience. Tom
Sometimes the deal is just too good to be true. This is one of those times. I am actually surprised that you went for it even without an answer on the stingy 30MB. I think that would have been a big old ‘nope’ for me.
I meant to cover this a little more in the article. I think the combination of it being vetted by CNET’s Cheapskate and it feeling like a limited-time, exploding offer deal pushed me in that direction. There were also many, many people in the Slickdeals forums saying that it worked for them. In the end, it still could be great for some, I guess I just didn’t feel that I had the opportunity to test.
I’ve been using Google Voice for years now. No more worries about crappy cell providers flaking out since I’ll have my number no matter what. I’ve been using Freedompop for free* for the past 4 years. So far so good, even in Europe with their “global” SIM (no longer available; global = mostly just Europe). It’s not the best but it’s free*.
* free = mostly free. They occasionally charge a penny per month to prove the payment method is still active. And when I recently bought my kids a phone each, I had to pay $10 to add credit so I could downgrade to the non-auto-topup plan (or something like that).
That sounds like a killer set-up, Justin.
Some of my dog sitting clients text to my caller ID and are confused by my own Google Voice set-up. If everyone actually used the number I gave them instead of the caller ID number, it would be fine, but that doesn’t always happen.
I’ve thought about FreedomPop, but that’s another set of hoops to jump through from everything I’ve read. I also don’t think they have the good AT&T service that I need in my area.
I hate worst experiences! There it goes my trust! Thank you for sharing yours!
I am somewhat cautious on deals that sound too good to be true. I may lose out on some great deals but then don’t have the headaches like you experienced. Thanks for sharing.
Sheesh…sounds like a nightmare. I recently switched from Boost to Twigby and porting was a breeze with them….I was nervous about talking to customer support on chat only, but they’ve got it down for sure. It’s way more convenient. Glad you got out of this.
so you were going to save $180/year and it wasted how many hours?
hmmm … by my calculations if you spent more than 6 hours TOTAL on this project you lost money. if ONE client couldn’t reach you, you lost money.
cellphone service is one of the few things i don’t look to save money on.
even though we have a landline [required for my husband’s work] my cell service is how all my clients/friends/family contact me. if they can’t text me, i lose money and waste TIME! it is not unusual for a client to send me 4-5 texts in a row, just hitting send after each sentence. i could see using up my ‘test run’ in less than a day.
i’ll stick to MetroPCS unlimited talk/text/data for 4 lines for $100/month including fees and tax, thank you very much.
Good math. I didn’t think I was going to waste any hours.
When I switched from Straight Talk to Cricket to save around $120/year it was about 2 hours. I have saved for around 3 years before this debacle, so it was $360 in savings.
The dog sitting clients that text me directly is typically one every couple of months. It’s unlikely that I lose one client in the switch, but I didn’t want to lose one long term due to losing the underlying phone number. All my friends/family know to call my Google Voice permanent number which redirects to whatever temporary underlying one I am using. Unfortunately, I can’t be sure the dog sitting clients listen to what I say vs. what their caller ID tells them.
if you download google voice app and respond call or text with google voice app your client will see your google voice number on the Caller ID. but if you respond outside of google voice app, then yes your client will see Caller ID.
Thanks. I don’t like to use the Google Voice app as my phone client. Perhaps it should be an option in the regular Google Android app. It’s all Google, after all.
You do realize you can call your bank and process a chargeback for almost any transaction, right?
I suppose that’s true, but when it is an Ebay transaction, I think a bank could say, “Why aren’t you handling this dispute through Ebay?” Also, in this case, they had control of my phone number, which is pretty valuable. Finally, I like to adhere to the terms of conditions and not have to say, “Well, yes Bank, I did willing break their terms by using too much data to test, I still would like my money back.”
I wish I read your blog post before buying the $99/year or $8.25/month plan for 500 mins, 500 texts, and 500 mb data through eBay. Some of my calls go straight to voice mail without ringing and my texts are delayed. The only thing that seems to work well in San Francisco is the 500 mb data. I’m so frustrated about my missed calls and unreliable reception. I still have 5 months before I could switch, or I lose $41.25. I tried to get a refund through eBay and my credit card company, but they denied my claims. I’m definitely switching and running away from Red Pocket.
You know Red Pocket does have monthly plans, right?
All you had to do was try red pocket on a monthly plan first to make sure you like it before switching to the annual plan. You could do the $10 plan first and use it for couple of weeks to make sure the cell service works for you.
No reason to jump on to a 1 year commitment and take a risk. The only risk is $10 if you try using monthly plan.
The deal I was looking to take advantage of was a limited time offer on Ebay. In hindsight, they seem to run it fairly often, but I didn’t know that.
Because of the timing, I couldn’t try it. I also wouldn’t have been able to switch to the annual plan deal that was offered on Ebay.
The big risk I found isn’t just the $10 or monthly fee, but the hours and hours that you spend on the phone to get your number ported correctly… and back to your old provider if it doesn’t work out. The system isn’t set up to switch a phone number a couple of times in the same day like that.
My thoughts exactly. If he was trying to take advantage of an eBay coupon, that has nothing to do with Red Pocket. Otherwise, their annual plans are there every day for purchase. Once purchased the code is a good for a year. The month to month can be upgraded to annual at any time by submitting the code. He could have purchased the code, set up monthly service and tried it, and then either used the code later or asked for a refund. This entire complaint is a case of someone jumping on something with an impulse buy without doing proper research first and then blaming the company because it wasn’t how he expected.
It was Red Pocket’s official Ebay store. If that has nothing to do with them, then they need to contact Ebay for someone stealing their trademark. I linked to the listing in the article, so you can click and verify yourself.
I had looked over the deal for quite a long time (3-4 day up to a week). It was the furthest thing from an impulse buy.
You could have tried Red Pocket as a monthly option first. The yearly plan is not the only thing they offer. The yearly option is for those who are ready to commit for a year, not those that want to test the service. I have moved my entire family to Red Pocket yearly plans, as well as a friend. Of the six lines I ported, I had a problem with only one, because for some reason the info didn’t submit. (Probably because my home internet is flaky.). It took all of two minutes on chat to get it resolved. The rest of the problems you describe are true of porting to any carrier. You need the correct account pin/password. I understand your confusion, but you would have had difficulty with any carrier.
The promotion included the sim card. So if I signed up for the monthly option first, I would have had to buy the sim card and pay the full monthly price at more money than my current plan. During that time, the yearly deal may have disappeared rendering all that work a waste of time.
They do have a provision to test the service in the year option – a minute, text, and data allotment. It’s just that it is too ridiculously low to be used for its intended purpose. It seems designed to give someone the false hope of a trial period, only to ensnare them in the fine print.
Red Pocket’s instructions on the porting created the difficulty. That wouldn’t have happened with any carrier – unless they had similarly poor instructions.
Ebay coupons have NOTHING to do with Red Pocket’s ebay store. The coupons are issued by ebay, paid for by ebay, and processed through ebay. Red Pocket’s plans on ebay are ALWAYS available. So, the only thing that you could have missed out on with the deal would have been using an ebay issued coupon. (15% off of anything, etc.) You yourself stated in your other post “the deal I was looking to take advantage of was a limited time offer on Ebay. In hindsight, they seem to run it fairly often, but I didn’t know that.” Again, if you meant the Red Pocket annual plan, then it isn’t “fairly often”, it is ALWAYS available on eBay. If you meant an ebay coupon, then that isn’t Red Pocket’s fault. Lack of research #1.
You also state: “Because of the timing, I couldn’t try it. I also wouldn’t have been able to switch to the annual plan deal that was offered on Ebay.”
The timing is irrelevant, other than it being an impulsive buy. You very well could have started on monthly and switched. It is incredibly easy to do so. As I have stated in my other comment, you buy a code on eBay, and then you have a full year to use the code to activate an annual plan. And as for the SIM card, really? After all that complaining you are worried about the cost of a SIM? You can get a SIM for $3.75 on ebay. Lack of research #2.
You indicate very clearly that you rushed into this, and that you hadn’t ported for several years. I agree that porting can often be more complicated than it needs to be, but it would not have taken much time or research to understand which PIN/Password you need. Straight from Red Pocket:
“If all the information that you provide is accepted by your Old Service Provider, the port in process can take from just a few minutes to a few hours. However, porting in a landline number can take about 14 working days.
Note that prepaid wireless accounts all have Account Numbers and Passwords, even if you don’t know them. If in doubt, please contact your current wireless provider and request your Account Number and Password to ensure a smooth port-in process. ”
Additionally, with ANY wireless carrier, once a port goes in with the wrong information, it can be a major pain to get it straightened out. That is just the nature of the porting system. I worked for a landline phone company for five years and ran a small Verizon authorized shop for a a few years. Porting can be a mess. It’s quite a bit smoother now than it was initially, but it is still a mess.
I’m not trying to troll you, but it isn’t fair to Red Pocket or your readers to try to pass off things you didn’t quite understand at the time as being negatives of the service. Red Pocket can offer you cheap plans because of slim margins and not changing the rules for everyone that requests it. Try it first. If it works for you, great. Then go all in on a year long plan. If not, move on. The SIM and a month of basic service to test it with would have cost less than $15.00. And, you could have spent a little time on HowardForums beforehand and gotten every question you had answered and some real reviews of what works well and what doesn’t. You don’t have to rush things to save money.
It’s been over a year since I wrote this, so I’m going off of memory. I re-read what I wrote a couple of times and I think I missed the part about the Ebay coupon. There might have been one, but I don’t remember it and I couldn’t find a mention of it in the article . However, even if I did mention a coupon, I never would have suggested that Ebay coupons were related to Red Pocket’s Ebay store.
At the time when I placed the order it was not known that the deal was ALWAYS available. You are quoting my observation in mid-December, which was after 7 months of noticing that that the deal didn’t go away. Unfortunately the mid-December version of Lazy Man didn’t have a time machine to go back to talk to the May version of Lazy Man to share that information.
Keep in mind that I scooped CNET’s Cheapskate blog on the deal by a few days. They don’t post deals that are ALWAYS available.
Since you now have to acknowledge that no one knew how long the deal was going to be around (as I mentioned in the article), we should be able to agree that it wouldn’t make sense to get a separate SIM even if it was cheap. That eliminates lack of research #2. Please note that I was also ignored more than once by Red Pocket when I reached out to them on their official Twitter. Even if you were the CEO of Red Pocket Mobile, you would say, “We did a poor job when this customer reached out with his research questions.”
If you are not trying to troll me, why are you being misleading by misrepresenting the date and timing of what happened. Previous commenters were able to follow it easily.
I can see your point a little bit about the porting, but you seem to make the same mistake of conflating PIN and Password. While it may not have taken me much time to research the paragraph you quote, why not put the correct term, PIN, for ALL website visitors? Even this explanation today still uses the wrong term of “password.” Just do a Google search for “Number porting PIN” and you’ll find any number of carriers using PIN.
Surely you aren’t faulting me for trying to correct Red Pocket’s error and helping all their customers, right?
Wrong assumption – cell resellers do NOT make money by having razor-thin margins (although coincidentally they often do have those razor-thin margins). They make their money by selling a reduced-priority service. For example, if the underlying carrier is AT&T, real AT&T traffic will go first and only then reseller traffic …even if the reseller traffic arrived a bit earlier.