After two years of nonstop hassles with another carrier, I went with Cricket. They seemed to have the best plan at the most affordable price. Getting started was a bit nuts, cause I kept getting bogus information from them. This should have tipped me off that something was wrong. I had two weeks left on my contract with the other carrier, but wanted to get the sale price on the phone, so I got it figuring I'd use the new one for texting only since it had a qwerty keyboard.
I placed my order over the phone and got my phone in a few days. The manual that came with the phone would have been more useful for lining a bird cage than it was for learning how to use the phone.
A call to customer service proved to be more of a hassle than trying to figure out the phone. Their customer service, (if that's what you want to call it), is outsourced to India, so you can't understand the people who are supposed to be helping you. They obviously can't understand you either, as evidenced by what they repeat back to you concerning the reason for your call. Then I learned that they aren't techs. They only have the manual that you got with your phone. And that helps me how?
They were able to tell me to take it to a Cricket store to get help. I didn't feel I should have to do this, but I did and I was treated so rudely, that I called Corporate. The guy I talked to was also not a tech, but we discovered that his manual was different than mine. He still couldn't help me, but he did send me a copy of his manual. Guess what? It was "different" but no better at explaining how the phone worked. He too told me to go into a retail store, specifically a "corporate" store. No simple feat when the closest one is 5 miles away and you don't drive. I did that, and the gentleman there was able to help me understand how to work the phone.
The other contract ended and I followed the directions to have my phone # "Ported" over to Cricket. When it didn't happen in the specified time period, I called customer service. Fortunately this part is US based so I got an understandable person. She said that for some unknown reason the porting process hadn't completed. When she tried to do it manually she was unable to. The problem was that even tho I live in chicago, I was assigned a Phoenix area code by Cricket when they assigned me a temporary #.in order to fix it I had to, you guessed it, go into a store.in the meantime, however, people are calling me and getting messages that my Cricket # has been disconnected. Or they'd get a tone that sounds like a fax machine. Some actually got thru to me. I was so fed up, I called corporate again. I left a message, and no one called me back. When I called again, no one answered; in the middle of a business day. L Went back to the store by my house, and this employee was much more professional. When she looks up my Cricket #, she discovers that the # from the other carrier had actually been successfully ported over. All I had to do was dial *228 from my phone to confirm it. So my trip to the retail store was wasted.
I had some other issues, like the disconnect message, texts not being recieved, (ingoming and outgoing), not being able to log into my account online and the terrible sound quality of the phone. Then there was the issue of the fact that I have a balance due, but the first month is supposed to be free. She "Resets" my phone, tells me I need to wait 48hrs after changing the # to access the account online, and can't explain why I have a balance due. She also said that she can't get thru to corporate either. I inquired about the insurance I had been told about when I ordered my phone, but had elected not to purchase at the time. She said it had to be purchased within 7 days of purchasing the phone. How convenient.
I got home and called Corporate again; and again, and again. No answer and no one has returned my calls. My phone sounds like the speaker is blown. Texts are still not being received on either end, and I still don't know why I have a balance due.
I recently read reviews from others who've had issues with Cricket. My advice; STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM CRICKET AS POSSIBLE! As soon as my free month is up, I'm switching to another carrier. Life is tough enough without adding more stress.
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