Ok so I went to the freedom pop website a couple of days ago. I bought one of their usb devices for the free 500 mb of data. When you purchase it they automatically sign you up for voice mail and roll over data at an additional monthly charge, but you can opt out of that, so I did, but they also automatically sign you up for the $20 a month “unlimited” plan, there is no way to opt out of the free “30 day” trial, which turns into a $20 a month subscription automatically if you do not cancel before the 30 days. Well as soon as you buy the product, the website does not allow you to see the entire website anymore, it is pretty annoying and frustrating. Today I returned to the website, it shows that I have used 0 mb so far, but it also says that I have 28 days of my free trial left. How can my trial start before I even get the thing, ridiculous!! Freedompop if you are trying to get better reviews than your past reviews, you are not off to a good start!
What this tells me is that the device was rooted and a custom recovery was installed by the previous owner. This is a red flag because it means the Freedom Pop Certified “tech” who “certified” the device didn’t bother to install the official software while “certifying” the device, so what else did they miss? “Certified” devices that aren’t really inspected and brought back to as close to like-new (software included) as possible before being resold, are just used with a meaningless tag of “certified” placed on them. Meaninglessly applying the tag “certified” to your wares harms consumer confidence in your brand, and could explain a few of your poor reviews.
DON’T DO IT!
I bought an S4 on a freedompop / woot deal, last year. I was optimistic about trying it out. Here is my experience:
The service never worked well for me. Sprint isn’t strong in my area (NW FL Gulf coast)even though the Sprint website said it was fine for voice and data.
My Bluetooth headset did NOT work with the FreedomPop phone software.
The FreedomPop VOIP (the phone is always in VOIP) did not work when I was in my car. The calls were normally garbled and had non-existent quality, and the phone dropped the calls constantly when I was driving. It was so bad, I quit using the phone when I was away from home.
No matter how many times I called customer service, my T Mobile phone number that I was using on a Galaxy S2 COULD NOT BE PORTED.
Customer service with FreedomPop is a nightmare! Every problem is addressed by phone, and I sat waiting for a customer service rep for AT LEAST 2 hours every time I called - which was frequently!
You get exactly what you pay for, and this service is free.
I am a reasonable guy, not someone who is critical or finds fault in everything.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS SERVICE!
Your official Free Trial period does not begin until the device ships. Once it ships, your period will reset back to 30. Once a phone is assigned to you, you’ll be able to downgrade it directly on your account page. Please feel free to PM if you have any specific questions that relate to your account.
Are these phones just unlocked or are they somehow only capable of being used with freedompop?
I’d bemore inclined to try this out if my $100 phone could be ported to another provider in the event that it doesn’t work out.
Former customer here: Their customer support is horrible. I had to wait a regular 40 minutes just to reach someone. Oh you want to bypass that and try to do something yourself via their webpage? You can’t. You can’t do things like change your plan without talking to someone. There’s no excuse for that.
It’s an untrustworthy company and I don’t know why it’s on Woot given their poor reputation.
OK I am responding to you here.
My Phone does not and has never worked properly after going through 100 hoops, resets, updates and other
FORUM suggestions (and some email suggestions from “tech” support)
Can I just get a refund? Or…a phone that works? I mean…I admit and appreciate I am not paying ANYTHING for the service (which works on and off depending on update status and restart or not…it really is a crapshoot)…but I did pay for the phone. And it doesn’t work (no ring just vibrate)
Well, I figured I would cross post this here, as I just received my note 2 from the 1 day woot sale last week:
Received my Note 2 last night, pretty impressed so far - only a couple of faint scratches on the screen, but they are no longer visible once I applied a matte screen protector to it, and weren’t visible while actually using the phone.
I’m 3.5 hours into my day and battery still shows 87%, did a little gaming and surfing on the bus on my way into work, and downloaded a 10mb app as well. Mostly on Wifi though as the bus has wifi and so does work.
texts are prompt so far (only tested over wifi) and calling is working both ways on first test. Overall satisfied at this point (not much of a sample timeframe though!)
Just got mine in the mail and I have to say, I’m extremely impressed! Surprisingly, for a young adult, I’m not usually excited to put a cell phone in service cause I really don’t care and I can usually contact people over Facebook with wifi, but since I’m on the job hunt, I really do need something for employers to contact me if needed. This is pretty perfect for that, my Samsung Galaxy SIII that I just got from woot a couple days ago is fantastic, and best of all, the service is free and I even have the option to upgrade, so I am satisfied! Thank alot!
Oh, I used the handy unsubscribe link that was provided. Opt out, like everything else with this company. Except all I did was run a sprint device esn through the online byosd checker. To find out if you can bring your own sprint device to this service, which is a paid subscription that I was interested in, you have to give them a working email and valid street address. And then they tell you that your phone isn’t compatible, would you like to buy a S III, and there are no other phones offered. And then the next day you start getting spam. Oh, I am sorry, unsolicited commercial email. There was no fine print telling me that I was going to get spam for using the esn checker. This company is untrustworthy.
Because of my job, I spend weeks at a time out of the country; what happens if my phone is turned off for a long time? What is the longest period of time before service is suspended?
I really was not sure about this service when I ordered them.
I have been using my phone for 4 days now. I live in Salt Lake City and the coverage is great. I have had some minor issues making a call. But nothing waiting for a second wouldn’t fix.
The call quality I think is great! I get around wasting my minutes by calling my wife’s Freedom Pop using Facebook. At least when I know she is on WIFI.
I love this service. I have the $10 a month plan with has the visual voice mail. My wife uses the free plan.
Thanks FreedomPop for having an awesome service!
I’ve had an HTC EVo since they came out in oct 2013 - battery was terrible so I never actually used it - it is still however active, and I was never charged any fees (after I made sure to opt out of everything). I read they used to charge non-usage fees, but sounds like that is no longer the case.
Oh, and fyi I did purchase the note 2 last week, already received it 2 days ago - battery life is much much better, no issue going all day for the last 2 days (and it is an oem samsung battery, at least with the note 2 I received).
These phones can be activated on FreedomPop, Sprint, or any other Sprint MVNO. You won’t be able to take it to Verizon, AT&T, etc…
Very sorry about the hold times. We’re constantly increasing the size of our Support Team. You can also go to our Community Forum (forums.freedompop.com) or email support@freedompop.com
If you leave the country for extended periods of time, you can just downgrade to the Free Plan. You won’t get charged anything and your service will remain active.
Glad you all like your phone service so far! Puts a smile on our faces over here at FreedomPop HQ!
You said in the FAQ that 3G is completely free. Does that mean if I get to a spot that is utilizing 4G I will get charged? Or will I be able to use my free 500MB on either 4G or 3G.
On the free plan, you’ll get 500MB each month. This Free 500MB can be used on either the 4G LTE network or the 3G network.
We also offer mobile interent hotspots. The free plan on our mobile hotspots is 4G LTE only (doesn’t include 3G), so I wanted to clarify between the two here. Sorry for any confusion!
Did other peoples’ phones start working right away?
I got my phone yesterday and went to the FreedomPop website to set it up last night. When I enter my email on the phone it tells me a user is already associated with my email address. When I go to the account page on FreedomPop it tells me my status is still Processing. It also lists future steps including shipping me a phone.
By the way, I’m happy with the condition of my S4 phone. The screen is in like new condition. The only signs it was a used phone are scuffs in the chrome edge. There are some scratches in the back cover but I plan on getting a Samsung S-view flip cover.
So don’t go to the FreedomPop website directly like the FAQ says to do. I started the registration over from the message on my phone saying I need to activate the phone, with a different email address and my phone was working as soon as I finished the process.
Now I just need to get the other account cancelled.