Maybe you fellas have great luck with them. For the most part, my experience was good. They have been my only carrier since I was old enough to have a job to pay for a phone. I have been with them for almost 9 years now.

 

Me and the wife been kicking the idea around about a data phone. We are aware of many privacy concerns, but the allure of some things made us consider them. I could have stuck with a feature phone, but I also was tired of the idea of lugging around a phone book with me, too.

 

We spent months deliberating on what to do. We were going to go with some smaller carriers that allowed us to do a pay as you go but also with a data plan. Would have been comparable to what our feature phone plans were.

 

So my parents use verizon as well, asked her if she knew if verizon had a family share plan like ATT did. We were about to jump the boat and go with ATT until my mom replied back stating that verizon said they would match ATT's price plan.

 

Okay, cool. I'll upgrade, get on in a family plan and we'll save some money! WRONG!

 

Due to recent experiences, I'm totally turned off by their customer service! We got on a conference call to get onto the family share plan and the man was to get us on the plan that we requested. Not once did he ever tell us disclaimers or say that we were not eligible, etc. He completed it, I get my phone in, and lo and behold we were mislead!

 

What we were supposed to be on was the EDGE plan. This is what we discussed with the guy about being on and never once said how we all had to have our phones upgraded at the same time! He said that me and my wifes phone would need to be upgraded to do it, but that was it! It was supposed to work out to $160 a month for our plan. 4 lines, $40 a person. NOPE!

 

I got on the phone, lost precious sleep talking to reps and supervisors. I got the run around and a superficial apology! No one said ANYTHING about taking responsibility or being accountable for their snake in the grass actions!

 

After 9 YEARS with them, I get this sort of treatment from them! I for one will no longer think or recommend them or be with them when my contract expires! Unless they redeem themselves from this, I will be looking for another carrier.

 

Funny thing, the supervisor told me that I could return our phones and get an exchanged, JUST to get qualified for the EDGE on our two phones. I don't understand how that works as that would seem me and the wife would have to be on our own plan. I can't back out of the contract now even though I have 14 days. As the moment you break the seal on the package, its a $35 restocking FEE! I'm not paying $70 just because I put a hole in plastic!

 

My mother is highly disappointed in this as well as it was me, her and my wife listening to this conference call with this rep. and we all know what was said and what was to be done. But no one there wants to get up off their asses and do something!

 

What has happened to customer service?

 

Needless to say, fellas, the moral of the story is:

 

Politicians, lawyers, salesmen and Verizon are all snakes in the grass!

 

Find someone else to do business with!

Man,  u  really  touched a nerve  here!       I've only been with  US cellular... only because  it's the only  carrier  'out here'  that  I can get reception...    

 

about  6 years ago,  I bought a  'gross'  of   used   flip phones, off of  ebay,   with  extendable   antenna... (Motorola V323's )   for    something like     120 bucks for the box.   They were used,  but  came  with new  chargers. Shoot, they weren't even  wiped clean!  I got some pretty interesting  pics...

 

So  when ever  I   crush, drown,  electrocute  or just plain  lose  any of my phones..  I just grab  another one out of the box and  run down to  the office to have  it  activated.   I'm pretty sure they don't iike to see me  walk in the door!...    (gives me the willies just  to  walk in!!)   All they have on their mind is to  SELL SELL SELL!   service is NOT  on the menu  there!   They act like  they just got news of an impending root canal  while they  activate  my  phone...

Cell Phones.   sheesh,   talk about  the  biggest brilliant  scam  ever  devised...  

I got that same type of situation when I got off of my parents account. I opened my own account with verizon and everything just because verizon is the only carrier that I have had service literally EVERYWHERE I have been. I actually got to work with a guy at my local verizon store and he told me all the ins and outs. Each phone is only $40 but they tack on a line access charge to each phone of like $50-60. If you specifically ask to have no "line access charge", your bill will go down drastically.

 

As for carriers, Verizon is the only one that I have been able to get reception with anywhere in the country. Whenever any of my friends and I go anywhere we end up just using my phone for everything because ATT, Sprint, and Tmobile never get reception it seems unless you are in a city or sometimes a well traveled highway. US Cellular and Verizon share towers so they you are able to get reception in about the same places with either of those two carriers.

Around here Verizon is the main carrier and then AT&T but a ton of people are switching to walmarts Straight talk 100% unlimited plan, you buy whatever phone you want and need a card of some sort as well but then you use both Verizon and att towers as a secondary user. I have not heard of any issues from people using them around here but have had some coverage issues in other places while traveling but it was minor because you share the other carriers towers you are last in line for a spot on the air waves if tower traffic is large.

Individual plans that are 100% unlimited as far as usage goes is like 40 bucks a month. I know folks are flocking over to them when their contracts are up from the bigger carriers. My wife and I have Verizon phones and I have the old GZ1 casio that is about 7 years old but when / if it dies I will possibly get my 1st smart phone and go with Walmarts straight talk plan.

S

 

Maybe you fellas have great luck with them. For the most part, my experience was good. They have been my only carrier since I was old enough to have a job to pay for a phone. I have been with them for almost 9 years now.

 

Me and the wife been kicking the idea around about a data phone. We are aware of many privacy concerns, but the allure of some things made us consider them. I could have stuck with a feature phone, but I also was tired of the idea of lugging around a phone book with me, too.

 

We spent months deliberating on what to do. We were going to go with some smaller carriers that allowed us to do a pay as you go but also with a data plan. Would have been comparable to what our feature phone plans were.

 

So my parents use verizon as well, asked her if she knew if verizon had a family share plan like ATT did. We were about to jump the boat and go with ATT until my mom replied back stating that verizon said they would match ATT's price plan.

 

Okay, cool. I'll upgrade, get on in a family plan and we'll save some money! WRONG!

 

Due to recent experiences, I'm totally turned off by their customer service! We got on a conference call to get onto the family share plan and the man was to get us on the plan that we requested. Not once did he ever tell us disclaimers or say that we were not eligible, etc. He completed it, I get my phone in, and lo and behold we were mislead!

 

What we were supposed to be on was the EDGE plan. This is what we discussed with the guy about being on and never once said how we all had to have our phones upgraded at the same time! He said that me and my wifes phone would need to be upgraded to do it, but that was it! It was supposed to work out to $160 a month for our plan. 4 lines, $40 a person. NOPE!

 

I got on the phone, lost precious sleep talking to reps and supervisors. I got the run around and a superficial apology! No one said ANYTHING about taking responsibility or being accountable for their snake in the grass actions!

 

After 9 YEARS with them, I get this sort of treatment from them! I for one will no longer think or recommend them or be with them when my contract expires! Unless they redeem themselves from this, I will be looking for another carrier.

 

Funny thing, the supervisor told me that I could return our phones and get an exchanged, JUST to get qualified for the EDGE on our two phones. I don't understand how that works as that would seem me and the wife would have to be on our own plan. I can't back out of the contract now even though I have 14 days. As the moment you break the seal on the package, its a $35 restocking FEE! I'm not paying $70 just because I put a hole in plastic!

 

My mother is highly disappointed in this as well as it was me, her and my wife listening to this conference call with this rep. and we all know what was said and what was to be done. But no one there wants to get up off their asses and do something!

 

What has happened to customer service?

 

Needless to say, fellas, the moral of the story is:

 

Politicians, lawyers, salesmen and Verizon are all snakes in the grass!

 

Find someone else to do business with!

So from what I can see, he did tell you....  Even if he didn't, it is his and every other carriers job to be sneaky.  In other words, you played a game without first knowing the rules and wonder why you got beat.  

 

Verizon is incredible.  Sprint has 0 service and ATT is supposed to have the best coverage but Verizon is sure holding its own as far as I can tell, and its much faster at that.  

 

Their website clearly says everyone has to be upgraded to be on the Edge plan.  Salesmen have one thing in mind, to talk as little as possible to make a sale.  Every sale is money in their pocket.  You cannot call them out for doing their job and apparently doing it successfully at that as far as they are concerned.  

 

All of these other posts you make about things have a lot of info behind them because of all this stuff you read and this and that, yet you can't look at big bold letters on a website?  You can't pick and choose what you should research and hope to not get shammed eventually.  Research everything as much as you can next time.  

Funny how some laws are, Verizon owns AT&T but because of competition laws they have to remain separate companies..............just doesn't make sense.

 

Hey I like Old fords, fill me in on the details of asking for no line access charge, is this for new or existing accounts?

I have had Straight talk for 2 years now and am pretty happy....(I switched from Verizon) From here to Va. it works well with great coverage...

Man,  u  really  touched a nerve  here!       I've only been with  US cellular... only because  it's the only  carrier  'out here'  that  I can get reception...    

 

about  6 years ago,  I bought a  'gross'  of   used   flip phones, off of  ebay,   with  extendable   antenna... (Motorola V323's )   for    something like     120 bucks for the box.   They were used,  but  came  with new  chargers. Shoot, they weren't even  wiped clean!  I got some pretty interesting  pics...

 

So  when ever  I   crush, drown,  electrocute  or just plain  lose  any of my phones..  I just grab  another one out of the box and  run down to  the office to have  it  activated.   I'm pretty sure they don't iike to see me  walk in the door!...    (gives me the willies just  to  walk in!!)   All they have on their mind is to  SELL SELL SELL!   service is NOT  on the menu  there!   They act like  they just got news of an impending root canal  while they  activate  my  phone...

Cell Phones.   sheesh,   talk about  the  biggest brilliant  scam  ever  devised...  

 

I used to keep my feature phones until the battery would literally no longer hold a charge or could literally no longer use it due to the screen, etc. I also had been struggling a while with the fact that they are all making such a big push towards the new phones. Just have to be careful not to become a zombie!

 

I got that same type of situation when I got off of my parents account. I opened my own account with verizon and everything just because verizon is the only carrier that I have had service literally EVERYWHERE I have been. I actually got to work with a guy at my local verizon store and he told me all the ins and outs. Each phone is only $40 but they tack on a line access charge to each phone of like $50-60. If you specifically ask to have no "line access charge", your bill will go down drastically.

 

As for carriers, Verizon is the only one that I have been able to get reception with anywhere in the country. Whenever any of my friends and I go anywhere we end up just using my phone for everything because ATT, Sprint, and Tmobile never get reception it seems unless you are in a city or sometimes a well traveled highway. US Cellular and Verizon share towers so they you are able to get reception in about the same places with either of those two carriers.

 

Tell me about how to get rid of the line access charge. I don't understand.. I do admit, I have had cell coverage even in some deep places in the forest!

 

S

 

So from what I can see, he did tell you....  Even if he didn't, it is his and every other carriers job to be sneaky.  In other words, you played a game without first knowing the rules and wonder why you got beat.  

 

Verizon is incredible.  Sprint has 0 service and ATT is supposed to have the best coverage but Verizon is sure holding its own as far as I can tell, and its much faster at that.  

 

Their website clearly says everyone has to be upgraded to be on the Edge plan.  Salesmen have one thing in mind, to talk as little as possible to make a sale.  Every sale is money in their pocket.  You cannot call them out for doing their job and apparently doing it successfully at that as far as they are concerned.  

 

All of these other posts you make about things have a lot of info behind them because of all this stuff you read and this and that, yet you can't look at big bold letters on a website?  You can't pick and choose what you should research and hope to not get shammed eventually.  Research everything as much as you can next time.  

 

I did not explain the whole story in detail as I would have typed up too much to bother reading. On a side note, call me a traditionialist when it comes to "playing the game". I forgot that the world we live in nowadays runs off of crookery and lies. As well, the rep was not a salesman, he was an AOL employee. "Assumption of Liability". If he was not equipped to fully help us grasp the plan, he should not have sold it.

 

I'm tired of seeing people do things half-assed, then when someone has trust in them is failed by them, they do not take accountability.

Around here Verizon is the main carrier and then AT&T but a ton of people are switching to walmarts Straight talk 100% unlimited plan, you buy whatever phone you want and need a card of some sort as well but then you use both Verizon and att towers as a secondary user. I have not heard of any issues from people using them around here but have had some coverage issues in other places while traveling but it was minor because you share the other carriers towers you are last in line for a spot on the air waves if tower traffic is large.

Individual plans that are 100% unlimited as far as usage goes is like 40 bucks a month. I know folks are flocking over to them when their contracts are up from the bigger carriers. My wife and I have Verizon phones and I have the old GZ1 casio that is about 7 years old but when / if it dies I will possibly get my 1st smart phone and go with Walmarts straight talk plan.

 

We were considering consumer cellular, because of bad reviews on straight talk. We liked the idea of it, but the idea of buying a smartphone and a decent one at that and also not having any sort of protection plan far outweighed the idea of doing it.

 

Try consumer cellular and see if you have any coverage in your area, when you get a chance.

I have had Straight talk for 2 years now and am pretty happy....(I switched from Verizon) From here to Va. it works well with great coverage...

 

I now have Straight Talk like YabbaDoo has, but only had it 6 months. And I very much like it so far.

 

I will say I have traveled from the middle of Tennessee to the ocean off California and deep down the strip in Vegas, and have had no more issues that when I had ATT & Verizon.

 

The difference I found are:

You buy your own phone (most are not that expensive)

You start off month to month, no 2 year contract to start

You can access payment with the pre-paid cards from Wally world, credit card, or debit card from your bank

Prepay per month, 3 month, 6 months and a year ahead

You can have ATT or Verizon towers access nation wide.

They have their rules like all the other bug boys do, but they have it all on the internet and they are easy to understand and live with. Not like the booklet Verizon wanted me to agree reading but didn't want me to read.

 

There are 2 types of cell phone systems:

GSM (most of the US and only used in Europe) - (ATT and T-Mobile systems)

CDMA (only in the US that I can find now, maybe Canada but unsure) - (Verizon and Sprint systems)

 

If you want to be mainly on GSM, you can get the Wally World Samsung and such, and you will have a SIMS card in there that will keep you in the ATT - T-mobile world

 

If you wan the CDMA, Verizon and Sprint world, you can use the Wally world LTZ phones. They are fully CDMA. My brother has one and is completely happy with it. The better one, their Majestic is the one he has and brags about, cost $179.00. You can read this one the Wally World site or go to the LTZ site. (or is it LZT ??? One or the other)

 

I found all this out after I joined, so I have the Samsung Galaxy S3 for me and the wife. Never an issue with them so far, and the accessories are still out there. They're also cheaper now, $349.00

 

Instead of having a long a$$ contract with the big boys and paying $180 a month for 2 cell phones, I now pay $90 each month for 2 cell phones, and laugh each time I use that extra money to buy more diesel. You get unlimited as the others, Only the data slows down when you max out on the data until the next month. They fully back again. Not pay more for the overage as with Verizon and ATT.

 

Either way, with the trash happening over the digital world, if nothing else, get a good Virus cleaner for the phones. You can find a free one, like Clean Master or CM Security off the Google Play Store that comes with every Android phone.

 

Sorry, was going to say 2 cents worth and rambled on for over a bucks worth. I was tired fighting with Verizon and now have a nicer life, except when the kids call for something.

Edited April 19, 201411 yr by anoldbiker

Thanks for the great info on straight talk Old Biker.

 

Hex0rz we do not have any other carrier in the state other than Verizon and AT&T except in certain areas there IIRC are a couple other ones with extremely limited service. A lot of folks come here from out of state with sprint and other carriers phones and rarely if ever get service.

Sprint is terrible.  They don't even have their own towers in a lot of places so they rent air time from other carriers.  Since other carriers could care less about sprint customers, the speed is way down when on roaming towers.  I was at a dirt bike event in "Egypt" where you drive 20 miles in the depths of woods and I was still speed testing with verizon and getting 5mbps at the location.  My ATT phone didn't even have enough service to send a text.  

 

 In columbia where 4G towers are everywhere, I have peaked at 34mbps with an average rate of 20mbps.  4G is incredible and verizon is the one putting all their money into it.  

Oh, something I forgot to mention about the Straight Talk system, they don't roam. Either your in the assigned system, or not. But so far, I haven't noticed loss of signal.

 

I 'was' on Verizon here in the country where I now live. I will say we did have service, but they only provide maximum 3G, sometimes.  It phases in and out. We're to far from the big city and the population to thin for them to invest in. That was from Verizon.

 

ATT and Sprint was the other large carriers, but they only provide over contract towers also. That's if and when they work. You can loose signal, and they will contact the contractors, but they will check and fix when they feel they want to. 1, 2, or 3 days later. Verizon contract towers were the same day or 'maybe' the day later. (from personal experience) But if you have or have not service, you better get they full payment in 'ON TIME.'

 

Cell service here is very frustrating to say the least. 

First phone I got from them was a Samsung Precident and it was my first smart phone ever , and I only paid 24.99 online for it (in the store it was over 100). Well let's just say after the Christmas party I went to it no longer worked,,,(It got "tanked" lol) So I came home and looked on line and got the Samsung Proclaim for free and only paid 14.50 shipping. This phone has been great so far and I must never get close to using all the data because it never slows down... (I did drop the other one in a Tupperware with rice and it did turn back on and I was able to get all my info off the phone and I probably could have even used it...) I will see how it will do deep in the mountains of Floyd Va in a few months... I will say the other one worked great in the mountains and got better service than my ATT phone does in the Lexington area of VA last fall... My new phone is a much better phone than the old one so it should do even better!!

Sorry for posting this late, you guys are on a roll.

I am not sure of all the details, but this is what I know about the line access charge. I opened my own account last summer with verizon and it was $100 per month just for my phone. I do have a data phone with unlimited talk/text and 2 gigs of data usage per month. I went down to look at putting my wife onto my account as she is still on her parents account. When the guy looked up my account he said that I was paying way to much and admitted that whoever set my account up left out some "details". My phone/data plan costs $60 per month. Then they had a $40 "line access fee" on top.

The line access fee basically allows me to add more devices to my current plan for no charge anytime I want. Thats why they say "if you buy one phone, you can add another phone to your plan for only like $5 per month" "any device" just means phone, mobile WIFI hotspots, or anything that will use data

. Well, we decided to leave my wife on her parents account. That means I wont be adding any more devices to my plan anytime soon. He took the line access fee off and my bill immediately dropped $40 per month.

I am not sure if this is the same on family plans or not because in that case you do have more than one device on the plan. I only have the one phone on the plan so I dont need the line access for other devices.

A couple reasons I stick with Verizon:

Awesome reception coverage, 98% of my family/friends are on verizon with means talk/text is free with all those people, I really dig the upgrade plans and phone insurance plans, just to name a few.

The other thing you can do is only work with private phone companies that work under the Verizon name. I have found that if you work with the actual verizon stores, you will get bent over everytime. I personally like to work with the private companies like the kiosks in malls. They arent just out for the sale.

Hope this helps guys.

Glad you're happy with it. The important thing is if your happy, it's worth what ever it cost.

 

But after 2 years with Verizon, I wasn't. That's why I changed. This weekend, one of my kids finally was able to port their number over and asked me to go to Wally World and walk min through it. No problem. He ended up with Straight Talk and bought the Samsung Galaxy S3 they had on sale for 350. But after talking to the sales lady, she did [prove to me that if you get on their plans, you can decide which system you wanted.

 

Here it is stronger signals and reception on the Verizon / Sprint systems. And I mentioned before, that's the CDMA systems in the USA. The phone DID NOT come with a SIMS's card (we looked at the SIM's Card Slot, it was empty) and that would indicate it's Verizon / Sprint system that does not use a SIM's card.

 

If he wanted to go SIM's (or the ATT / T-Mobile system) he would have to buy a SIM's card from Straight Talk, (which isn't much) and insert that. So he went from Verizon to a Verizon system and pays less per month for what he had, Unlimited Talk, Unlimited Text, and now Unlimited data. (Which was only 2 gig per month PLUS extra if you went over).

 

I was treated with respect when dealing with Verizon during the entire time I was there. Heck, my wife retired from Verizon, we know many people that are retired AND still working there. Not so much at the local stores, but in the main facilities and customer service centers. She even agrees with me, it like the communication companies center view point, it's all down to the dollar at the end of the month. All the frills and who ha's are nice, but it's the dollar at the end of the month.

 

And I might be wrong, but in the end, it seems like the service you get, the price you pay at the end of the year, Straight Talk ends up dollar for dollar in the lead ..... AT THIS TIME !

 

Now this to could change, grasshopper ...... it's in their hands .......

Did you read the article from the LA Times about Verizon ? My wife showed me this article about 2 days ago from the internet version of the LA Times.

 

Verizon Wireless states: They are not only dropping a cookie in your computer when you sign in that allows them to work on your computer, but when you sign out or leave their site, they can now track your web browsing to find where you go after visiting them and sell this to vendors for marketing.

 

You have to delete their cookies each time you leave their site to stop this.  

 

Sneaky in my eyes. In the article, they openly admit they do this. They said there is no personal information like ID or passwords collected, just where you go after the contact with their webpage. You pay monthly bills to them for their services and they make extra from your web searches. 

 

And they admitted this information is for sale but won't say to who, per the article.

Yea, it really is no surprise to me, actually. Thats why I have certain stuff on the puters to keep this from happening.

I am sure that most websites do that now. This one doesnt but a lot of others like CF, I notice that the adds all are about things that I have searched recently.

I am sure that most websites do that now. This one doesnt but a lot of others like CF, I notice that the adds all are about things that I have searched recently.

What browser are you running? I have FireFox and have several tracker blockers running and an ad blocker so I don't see 99% of that crap.

I only use firefox. Always seems to work better than any other browser. What ad blockers do you have? Do they come with firefox or did you get them elsewhere?