FreedomPop questionable first time

[wmyers4u]

Ordered hotspot and during checkout it offered a $4.99 2nd hotspot promo.

Figured that's cool to have 2 devices to share data  for only $4.99 more.

WRONG!!!!!!!!

Fast forward a week...3 packages on my door step.  Somehow I have been shipped 3 hotspots. Each on a different data plan for $ 24.99 a month.

1st they made me pay $15 credit to downgrade one hotspot to free.

2nd and third hotspots failed to deactivate/downgrade.

I've now had $70 taken out of my PayPal account and I have no idea what is going on except it appears I am on the hook for $50 a month for the accounts that won't deactivate.


Also, FreedomPop free service does not stop when you run out of data. It just bills you by the megabyte or if you buy a $7 plan they'll give you and extra 500mb and then stop it after that.....if I read it correctly.


Be warned. Pretty sure I'm getting scammed here.

 

[John61CT]

FreedomPop has a 30 day return policy for a refund of your device costs minus shipping charges. 

Do your best to cancel and get refunds, document your efforts and if necessary get PayPal involved.

FFR for any autopay subscriptions use prepaid plastic.

AMEX's Serve.com is excellent, can have up to four sub-accounts to keep things segmented, easy to cancel each at any time without affecting your main account, they send you a new card out free.

Costs max $1 a month for non-ATM usage, fund for free with cash from any CVS or Walmart, also from a bank debit $200 per day. Even that $1 gets waived if you use it regularly.

 

[wmyers4u]

This whole things seems so very shady. I'll try and update this once I have a resolution.

 

[Firtree]

AMEX's Serve.com is excellent, can have up to four sub-accounts to keep things segmented, easy to cancel each at any time without affecting your main account, they send you a new card out free.

Costs max $1 a month for non-ATM usage, fund for free with cash from any CVS or Walmart, also from a bank debit $200 per day. Even that $1 gets waived if you use it regularly.

Can you explain the prepaid plastic, specifically the AMEX. Is there a thread on this? Should we make one? 
So how do you find a good one, where to get, how much do they cost, how do you use, can you use at Costco, how do you load, what else?

 

[John61CT]

Is there a thread on this? Should we make one? 

You do the research, nerdwallet is a good source, plus of course Serve.com

https://www.google.com/search?q=details+fee+cvs+"american+express"+serve+best+prepaid

Take notes and you'll be the local expert, post a summary in a new thread if you like.

If you still have questions about what I posted after your research, I'd be happy to clarify.

 

[wmyers4u]

Update:

2 inquiries sent to FreedomPop:

1. asking about website saying that downgrade took my money($15 mandatory deposit to downgrade) but downgrade failed.

Answer: they sent me a link to the downgrade page that failed.

2. asking why I received 3 units???
Answer: info to cancel and return hardware. no explanation for why three units sent or status of $15 deposit for this unit.

Also of note: while hunting their site to cancel service(they don't make it easy to find)...I found that they have a different account for each device so each process has to be completed multiple times for each unit and they also separate plans and add-ons into separate pages so you can cancel a plan but still be billed for an add-on even though you cancelled the plan......pretty sneaky BS.

So with 3 units I have to pay $15 in to their service for each one ,$45 in mandatory charges....so lets say you were broke.......you might be prevented from getting out of a paid plan. to add insult to injury.........with separate plans and add-ons there are actually 6 processes that I have to complete to end this nightmare........I can't help but feel that this is intentionally designed to confuse people into missing steps and getting unintentionally billed when they are trying to stop or downgrade.

 

[RVTravel]

There are story after story of Freedompop's shady practices.

 

[sreesekelley]

I got an email from them, sounded like a good deal. signed up and got the package within a couple of days. What they signed me up for wasn't what was in the email, the phone was refurbished leftover from sprint and when it wouldn't stay connected to my wifi i called and canceled the entire deal. They apologized, told me not to send the phone back and I got the cancellation email from them while I was on the phone.

They sell mostly refurbished items from Sprint and AT&T neither of which I get a good signal from and would have never picked had I known beforehand.

I'm out a total of $5 to find all this out but getting rid of FreedomPop was much easier than getting it and I'm glad I did.

 

[John61CT]

So much easier to just cancel the card# as outlined above, lots of outfits are like this.

Tip 2: do thorough research on HowardForums.com before signing up with any MVNO.

Certainly should know which underlying network you're buying into first.

 

[jimindenver]

Freedompop use to be a better deal if you understood that they make some of their money off of peoples ignorance of their practices. It was free to downgrade, free to turn off auto up when you ran low of data and you could share data between your friends. I use to be a pro on their forum where you could have contacted one of two people to resolve this with little fuss. I still have my accounts but rarely turn on the devices or kept up with the practices.

 

[jimindenver]

Interesting.

I decided to check on my original Freedompop account since it had been so long and my Sprint Mingle was not connecting. As suspected my account was deactivated so I reactivated it. At first the Mingle would only connect to 3G, then after a service update and PRL update it went to LTE. Oddly a speed test only shows 1.3 Mbps down and 1.1 up when the PCs4people hotspot gets 22 Mbps down. I expected the mingle to be faster since it has both band 41 and C.A. I wonder if they are limiting the speed now somehow. I use to pull over 30 down will no issues.

 

[wmyers4u]

Update:

$30 of the $45 forced deposits refunded - they are keeping $15 credit apparently tied to the still open account that should be set top free. I'm ok with that I guess

2 additional accounts show in the system as being closed on 5-25-18 but as of 6-4-18 they have not sent RMA instructions and in their support section it says returns without an RMA receive no credit.