Cell Phone Company Review

So I finally switched from the dreadful Tracfone service to a shiny new one called "Ting". Here's my review of the good and bad about this new service offered under Sprint, as well as my old service with Tracfone.

Maybe I should talk about the problems with Tracfone first...

• Customer Service
• When you call them you of course have to go through an automated robot system to actually reach a person. (and sometimes you can't actually get to one depending on your circumstances) Once you actually do get to a person, you're not going to have an easy time communicating. Listen, I know we all need jobs and it's totally not their fault, but yeah, it's pretty hard to understand the workers' accents. I was always polite, but sometimes I had to have them repeat sentences like 4 times before I finally understood what they were saying. They read from a script, so you can never tell if what you're saying is really getting through to them. If you have a problem, don't expect it to get solved quickly.

• New Phones
• Ordering phones from them was always relatively easy, and they very quickly replaced any that were stolen or broken. However, when it came to activating the new phone, transferring my number to it, etc, it was a bloody mess. Once when trying to transfer my number something went wrong and I had to be transferred from one representative to another for FOUR hours while they tried to figure it out. And this happened multiple times with new phones. 

• Transferring Numbers 
• Should you ever decide to get a new phone, you WILL have to retype in all your contacts. Unless it's a smartphone where you can back them up via Gmail or the like, you will not be able to transfer them. I had three different phones throughout my Tracfone days and despite being able to save the contacts to the Sim card, you couldn't actually transfer the Sim card to the new phone. They wouldn't accept anything but the Sim card they're given to you with. So yeah, that was a huge pain in the ass. (music, photos, etc. also were non-transferrable)

The good?

• Yes, it's cheap. 
• Especially if you just use the prepaid phones and not the monthly plans, it's a good deal. But it's the sort of service I would recommend for someone who rarely actually uses their phone. My parents still have it, and they only use their cell phone when they're out and need to call home, maybe once or twice a month. But if you're someone who actually calls people, texts, etc. then you can get a much better deal with Ting. I mean yes, Tracfone is still a better deal than the usual monthly plans with big companies, but compared to Ting, it's not worth it. 

So Ting... let's just start with the bad, because there really isn't too much of it.

• Acquiring a Phone
• If you plan on switching, be sure to read the requirements first of phones you can bring over to their network. It has to be a Sprint phone, but it can't be for the Boost Mobile network, those are locked. There's a huge list of acceptable models, so it's definitely not limiting in your choices. I was worried I wouldn't be able to find a phone I wanted, I like physical keypads but I dislike sliders, so I wanted something similar to a blackberry. I settled on the Motorola Xprt, and got to searching Amazon for a used one. (You can choose to buy new or used ones through a company Ting is partnered with, but they weren't offering the Xprt, so I chose to do it myself.) Now this is where the real problem was. Not necessarily anything Ting did wrong, but the hassle of finding an acceptable phone. The first one I bought was for the Boost Mobile network, the seller hadn't mentioned this. However, you can solve this problem just by asking for the ESN number, and checking it on the Ting website to see if it will work. So phone no.1 went back. The second phone I definitely checked the ESN for and it worked, however upon trying to activate it I came to find that someone had modified the phone (and the seller didn't mention that either), so it couldn't be activated. Finally on the third try I went to Ebay and found one with an ESN that checked out, I successfully activated it within an hour of receiving it in the mail.
• Data Coverage
• At the time, I was living in Marquette, MI. There was pretty much no data coverage up there, but to be honest it's not a big surprise to me. More isolated places don't get much coverage on a lot of networks. And with only a few months of class left it wasn't a big deal, I'd be back in Chicago in no time.

That's it. That's the bad. Pretty slim right? Okay, onto the good.

• Customer Service
• Amazing. Seriously, I have never actually dealt with such nice customer service. First off, when you call, you get a person. A real live person. No robots, just people. And for me, 9/10 you get a person without having to be put on hold first. It was great. Also, they're very easy to understand, and they are polite as hell. Not like "reading a script" polite, but actually easy to talk to polite. They're great. And after your call, they'll send you a follow up email just to make sure everything is working properly. In fact their email service is pretty quick and responsive, it's really nice. Overall, great customer service.
• Prices
• Hot damn just look at this chart. Just look at it. That is a goddamn deal. You are only charged for what you use, and that's it. Fuck yeah. I'm not even going to go into this, you can figure out how much money you'd save yourself.
• Easy Activation
• Maybe this isn't even a pro, maybe this is just a normal thing for most companies, but I got my phone activated and working in under an hour. That was highly unusual compared to the regular routine.

So, in conclusion... Tracfone is a good service for those who barely use their phones. It's good for mom and dad. But if you actually plan on using your phone frequently, then I would go with Ting. Some advice for switching to Ting, either buy a phone from them or be careful who you buy from online (if you're buying a used phone). The first two phones I bought were from Amazon "companies", you know the sellers who consistently have hundreds of items. I've found that despite them having good reviews, they're less trustworthy, because they don't necessarily know the history behind each of their products. The third phone I bought that worked was from an individual person just selling their husband's old phone. She had good reviews for the few things she had sold (under 50 items), and the package I received contained the original box, charger, and even the instructions. So if you're going to go for a used phone, you might want to try someone who actually knows where their phone has been. I think the "company" sellers tend to just pick them up from other people and not really get the full story on whether or not they've been modified or have any problems.

And that's it! If my opinion on Ting changes in the future, I'll definitely write another post about it, but so far so good.

Update!!

So last month I received my first bill from Ting. I was charged $3 for falling under the S size minutes plan, another $3 for falling under the S size messages, then $6 for using my phone on their network. Overall with taxes, my monthly bill was $15.15. Pretty cheap right? Well it gets better. In the email I received detailing all this, they said that I had $9.85 in credit for next month. Because when I was charged $3 for falling under the minutes and messages plans, I had barely actually used any minutes or messages. I had sent 33 texts and only made a single phonecall. Because I was closer to being in the XS ($0) plan, they rolled over the money that I really didn't spend on those minutes and texts. Awesome right? So this month the $9.85 will go towards my bill so I'll more than likely only pay like $4 or something. If I got any of this wrong I'll correct it when I get my next bill, but so far it looks like this is the coolest goddamn plan I've ever seen. Fuck yeah Ting. Fuck yeah.