Cricket- Not a Great Deal
Written: May 19 '02
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Pros: "Unlimited Service", "$32.99 a Month"
Cons: Poor Service, $46.99+ Per Month, Few Features
The Bottom Line: Get a competitor's $39.99 phone with unlimited long distance.
Unlimited calls may be the future of cell phones, but the future isn't here yet with Cricket.
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| boulderman's Full Review: General Reviews of Cricket Communications Wireless... |
Unlimited minutes. $32.99 a month. Sounds great, doesn't it? Too good to be true, in fact.
Unfortunately, after adding common and important features like basic voice mail and call waiting, you'll be set back over $46.99 per month for the Cricket service.
Add another 80 cents for information service, 8 cents per minute for long distance and competitors offers of $39.99 per month start to sound a lot more reasonable. Most cellular companies add these features for free or for a very nominal charge.
It is also impossible to tell who is calling or has called because Cricket doesn't support Caller ID. Your phone will say you missed a call, but you'll have to guess who it was from. Similarly, text messaging isn't supported by Cricket either, even though the Nokia 5170i phone they sell offers that function on other networks.
Maybe the most annoying part of the Cricket service is that it puts you in "line" to make calls pretty often. The phone will say "searching for service" or it will ring four times and then tell you the network is busy and to try later. It can actually take five minutes to make calls sometimes!
Another annoying fact is that you have a very limited selection of phones with Cricket. The best model the offer is a year old Nokia full-size handset. The optional, and more costly, Motorola was a commercial failure because of hard to navigate menus.
One of the biggest problems with Cricket is that their automated bill paying and feature adding computer is regularly offline. I've called four times to have the system take money from my Visa account and never add the credit to my account. Some of these problems are still unresolved. Also, if you lose your phone or have it stolen, you'll lose all of your pre-paid long distance. No refunds are allowed at Cricket under any circumstances.
Unfortunately, this is the motto of Cricket: Long lines for service, no support and only basic phones and features. You truly get what you pay for. And you'll pay much more than they advertise.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 46.99+
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boulderman
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Reviews written: 1
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