I recently started a post about issues with my Unreal Mobile phone which it appears I have not posted yet. I briefly mentioned I would be posting about it – Red Pocket Mobile Announces FreedomPop To Offer Free Plans On All 4 Major Networks — BestMVNO. Tello update follows my mini-rant against Unreal Mobile.
Bit of background; last July (2018) I purchased a refurbished phone from Unreal Mobile. I wasn’t sure how good their service would be so I went with one of the cheaper phones. A few weeks ago, it stopped charging unless I held it at some odd angle and kept it at that angle while it charged. I don’t use cell phone insurance as it’s not worth the price between the monthly premium and the co-pay/deductible most companies charge – Why I Don’t Have Cell Phone Insurance.
End result, I didn’t pay my Unreal Mobile bill on June 26, 2019 because my Unreal Mobile phone is not charging. It’s a refurbished phone that I purchased July 2018. I submitted several tickets to Support. In the first one, they made it clear reading my ticket wasn’t something the agent did. She recommended doing something I told her that I had done; she also said I needed to call the Sales Department which I hadn’t done. I replied to the ticket and let them know I didn’t appreciate them not reading my ticket. The second agent informed me that I had to call the Sales Department as the ticket agents couldn’t do anything.
I talked about having two Tello phones (Pay As You Go – PAYGO) where I spend $10/year/line and use them as emergency back-up lines. They were originally RingPlus lines that I ported out to Tello when RingPlus stopped offering phone service. Tello offers several monthly plan options – Tello Vs. Twigby Comparison. One of the cheapest plans was Unlimited talk and text; 500 MB LTE with unlimited 2G data once the 500 MB LTE limit was reached. It’s $9.00/billing cycle. I didn’t know how much the extra fees would be; but usually around $2.99 or more is common. You can choose how much talk and data you want, ranging from none or very little to a lot. I could have went with 1 GB LTE for an extra $1.00, but decided against it. I already had two Tello phones from my RingPlus days; neither as good as the refurbished Unreal Mobile, but one was good enough. I looked at purchasing a Tello phone, but their cheapest smart phone was $75 so I decided to go with my better Tello phone as I knew it worked on Tello.
With Unreal Mobile, I was paying $10 + $2.99 in fees for Unlimited talk and text, 1 GB LTE with unlimited 2G data once the 1 GB LTE limit was reached.
I bit the bullet and upgraded my Tello from PAYGO to the $9.00 plan. When I reached the payment section, the fees were only $0.60, much less than the $2.99 I was paying to Unreal Mobile in extra fees, plus it was $1.00 cheaper for the base plan. I can always downgrade it back to PAYGO in the future.
If I could have purchased an Unreal Mobile refurbished phone, I would have gone that route, but they don’t make it easy for existing customers to replace a phone, and as far as I can tell, it’s nigh impossible, if not impossible, to buy a refurbished or even new phone for existing customers.
Both Unreal Mobile (my phone as it was CDMA not GSM although Unreal Mobile offers GSM with VOIP) and Tello use Sprint for service so I don’t anticipate much difference between the two systems.
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