Thinking of leaving Virgin Mobile

[pfoneguy]

Well, I am finding it not really cost effective to stay with VM since Sprint's 3G data service is simply atrocious. We have no 4G Wimax and 4G LTE has not been built out yet and from my reading Sprint 4G LTE is not all it is cracked up to be anyway, so my son's EVO V 3D is pretty much 3G! I mean we get a whopping .39Mbps 3G download speeds and this is not just VM it is also with our Ting phones as well. I would complain that Sprint is throttling MVNO's, but I see more and more complaints on the Sprint post paid forums as well. The only benefit I saw keeping my son with his $35VM plan was the unlimited data and that is so limited it is not worth holding on to the plan. So I intend to just move my son over to TING with us, minutes are cheap, texting is cheap and I will simply cap the data on his phone to the extent that he has used no more than 500MB in any one month anyway, so switching to Ting leaves us in the same situation at a lower cost overall! Sorry for the blather,

So to my real question to you all!
I have $275 as a cash balance, which phone(s) would you recommend I purchase in order to turn around and sell to recoup some/most of that cash balance I have sitting there? Most of that balance came from heavily discounted Pins so I will not really be taking too big of a hit!
Thanks in advance.

 

[SuperAfnan]

Well, I am finding it not really cost effective to stay with VM since Sprint's 3G data service is simply atrocious. We have no 4G Wimax and 4G LTE has not been built out yet and from my reading Sprint 4G LTE is not all it is cracked up to be anyway, so my son's EVO V 3D is pretty much 3G! I mean we get a whopping .39Mbps 3G download speeds and this is not just VM it is also with our Ting phones as well. I would complain that Sprint is throttling MVNO's, but I see more and more complaints on the Sprint post paid forums as well. The only benefit I saw keeping my son with his $35VM plan was the unlimited data and that is so limited it is not worth holding on to the plan. So I intend to just move my son over to TING with us, minutes are cheap, texting is cheap and I will simply cap the data on his phone to the extent that he has used no more than 500MB in any one month anyway, so switching to Ting leaves us in the same situation at a lower cost overall! Sorry for the blather,

So to my real question to you all!
I have $275 as a cash balance, which phone(s) would you recommend I purchase in order to turn around and sell to recoup some/most of that cash balance I have sitting there? Most of that balance came from heavily discounted Pins so I will not really be taking too big of a hit!
Thanks in advance.

So you're saying you want to buy a ting phone or virgin phone with your VM balance? Or your credit balance? Sorry I'm not following, but I think you mean VM balance? Ting is like a separate company so you can't use a VM balance for that. If you mean ting balance don't buy a phone from ting, their phone prices SUCK.

Well here's the thing, you have fairly mediocre timing, the evo v isn't there anymore for purchasing, and the S3 gap is too big unless you want to buy 75 bucks more of top ups.

Another issue with that is that the s3 price is likely to drop down soon anyway since it's on a low valued carrier. I goofed and bought the evo for 300 then months later the value plummeted.

So what I'd do is buy the s2. They dropped the price down a lot and it's a nice device, except it'd two generations behind. Oh well doesn't matter.

That was the easy part. If you mean to tell me that you want to buy a VM phone and port it to Ting then you are facing a trickier situation. I hope you are familiar with rooting and nodding because you'll need to do that for the vevo if you want to bring it to Ting with no issues. The reason is because mms won't work unless you install a sprint stock rom and trick Ting AND Virgin. You should be able to do this though with the s2 if you get it, just be prepared to sacrifice mms because that's virgin mobiles weakness. They handle it differently and it's complicated.

So when you buy the VM phone you would have to try and port it to Ting it might not 100 percent but I cannot guarantee it can work with a Samsung phone.

 

[mrnyjet]

Well, I am finding it not really cost effective to stay with VM since Sprint's 3G data service is simply atrocious. We have no 4G Wimax and 4G LTE has not been built out yet and from my reading Sprint 4G LTE is not all it is cracked up to be anyway, so my son's EVO V 3D is pretty much 3G! I mean we get a whopping .39Mbps 3G download speeds and this is not just VM it is also with our Ting phones as well. I would complain that Sprint is throttling MVNO's, but I see more and more complaints on the Sprint post paid forums as well. The only benefit I saw keeping my son with his $35VM plan was the unlimited data and that is so limited it is not worth holding on to the plan. So I intend to just move my son over to TING with us, minutes are cheap, texting is cheap and I will simply cap the data on his phone to the extent that he has used no more than 500MB in any one month anyway, so switching to Ting leaves us in the same situation at a lower cost overall! Sorry for the blather,

So to my real question to you all!
I have $275 as a cash balance, which phone(s) would you recommend I purchase in order to turn around and sell to recoup some/most of that cash balance I have sitting there? Most of that balance came from heavily discounted Pins so I will not really be taking too big of a hit!
Thanks in advance.

i would get 4g/lte phones for future sale or else grab an iphone or two after the price drops. Either way , you should be able to use or resell them after lte service near you is turned on.

 

[RealFastOne]

My understanding is that your outstanding balance can be transferred to a "family member." Call Virgin Mobile for details. They will not check to see who you transfer it to, or what kind of deal you worked out with that "family member."

 

[christiansoto]

Virginmobile is horrible . They actually canceled my services after I topped up 35usd

 

[pfoneguy]

So you're saying you want to buy a ting phone or virgin phone with your VM balance? Or your credit balance? Sorry I'm not following, but I think you mean VM balance? Ting is like a separate company so you can't use a VM balance for that. If you mean ting balance don't buy a phone from ting, their phone prices SUCK.

Well here's the thing, you have fairly mediocre timing, the evo v isn't there anymore for purchasing, and the S3 gap is too big unless you want to buy 75 bucks more of top ups.

Another issue with that is that the s3 price is likely to drop down soon anyway since it's on a low valued carrier. I goofed and bought the evo for 300 then months later the value plummeted.

So what I'd do is buy the s2. They dropped the price down a lot and it's a nice device, except it'd two generations behind. Oh well doesn't matter.

That was the easy part. If you mean to tell me that you want to buy a VM phone and port it to Ting then you are facing a trickier situation. I hope you are familiar with rooting and nodding because you'll need to do that for the vevo if you want to bring it to Ting with no issues. The reason is because mms won't work unless you install a sprint stock rom and trick Ting AND Virgin. You should be able to do this though with the s2 if you get it, just be prepared to sacrifice mms because that's virgin mobiles weakness. They handle it differently and it's complicated.

So when you buy the VM phone you would have to try and port it to Ting it might not 100 percent but I cannot guarantee it can work with a Samsung phone.

Sorry if I was not clear, was kind of thinking out loud. I have my son on a VM $35 plan using an EVO V 3D and the wife and I are on Ting. I was keeping my son on the VM plan since it does have "unlimited" Data and Ting Data is costly, but he does not use more than .5GB a month, uses less than half his 300 minutes, but he does use a fair amount of texting, which is relatively inexpensive on Ting. Since Sprint 3G sucks and his limited use of the data anyway, it does not seem to be a benefit to keep him on the VM plan so I was going to bring him over to Ting. I have a Sprint EVO 4G LTE phone sitting around not being used so that is the phone he will be using and he is not too upset about that.
I just want to use up the VM cash balance I have sitting there and the only way I see to do that is to buy a phone(s) and resell it/them. Then port his number out at the end of the month and sell his EVO 3D. I am just trying to figure which current VM phone would have the better resale value, one that I can use the current cash value on. If the 50% off top ups would not have dried up recently I would have added more and bought an SIII for sure. I could buy 2 Reverbs @$130 ea. and pretty much use up the cash balance, but could I get a decent return on those? Events are on sale @$48, could I get a decent return on those?? Maybe a Victory and a Event?? Either way I am taking a hit and eBy will suck their 10% out as well.

The flip side on all this musing is that I am only paying about $19 a month for the $35 plan due to the discounted top ups I purchased, but I still feel I am paying for something that is not being used, even at a discount I feel I am getting screwed??? Maybe not?

I have a month to decide before they suck another $35 out, so any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Deleted User]

personally I would leave VM due to the lagy sprint service, I moved on to T mobile and enjoying my 35mbps+ LTE

 

[HallOfPromise]

LTE is not atrocious where I live. I am getting around 20 to 30 Mbps down where I am. I guess it just depends on the market you are in.

 

[pfoneguy]

Well, I know all about the service issues, good and bad, but that was not what I was asking about! I was wondering which phone(s) would be the best to buy and then turn around and sell to recoup by balance I have sitting there. Thanks

 

[7Priest7]

I don't think anybody here knows for sure exatly which phone is best to buy then resell.
You could get on VMs site and search the phones you could afford(with your credits) on Amazon.

I looked one up for you the HTC One V sells for 129.99 New on amazon and costs 149.99 on Virgin Mobile.

 

[pfoneguy]

I don't think anybody here knows for sure exatly which phone is best to buy then resell.

Apparently not. I was just asking for some input is all.

You could get on VMs site and search the phones you could afford(with your credits) on Amazon.
I looked one up for you the HTC One V sells for 129.99 New on amazon and costs 149.99 on Virgin Mobile.

I use eBay as a guide and new unopened Events seems to sell for as much as on the VM site and recent sold items showing it still selling at regular price when it is on sale and the SII seems to sell @ the VM price as well. Not even sure I am going to go down this road now anyway. :dontknow:
Thanks to all.

 

[Palmetto Fellow]

i would get 4g/lte phones for future sale or else grab an iphone or two after the price drops. Either way , you should be able to use or resell them after lte service near you is turned on.

Top Up balances can't be used to purchase iPhones or the new Galaxy S3. You can buy pretty much all the other phones with it though.

For the record, I get good coverage (not great) for most of the places I travel to in my area. I have one spot where I lose all coverage on my afternoon commute, and there's a few stores I go to where the coverage is crap as well. WalMart and Lowes seem to use the highest quality building materials...I can't get signal in their stores, but you step outside, and BAM...several bars.

What's also shocking to me is that at my house...which is out in the country, I get over 20Mbps LTE download speed. My area isn't even on their map for LTE coverage...so that's pretty sweet if you ask me. My experience has been that I get LTE in more places than I got Wimax.

 

[pfoneguy]

Top Up balances can't be used to purchase iPhones or the new Galaxy S3. You can buy pretty much all the other phones with it though.

True with the iPhone, but you can use your account balance to purchase the SIII.

 

[alexacuna]

What's also shocking to me is that at my house...which is out in the country, I get over 20Mbps LTE download speed. My area isn't even on their map for LTE coverage...so that's pretty sweet if you ask me. My experience has been that I get LTE in more places than I got Wimax.

I'm experiencing the same thing. I got fairly poor service in my apartment on my EVO. Using the Victory and get LTE almost everywhere around here.

 

[medmansri]

I've moved to T-mobile a couple of days ago. To get the VM account number I had to speak to the tech dept. While trying to convince me to stay with VM, they offered me discounts on current phones, including the S3 for $340. I thought about it for a min but went against it since the signal at my house went from fair to crap in the past 2 months, without outages.
The discount wasn't helpful for me but could be for others with good VM coverage. I had an EvoV.

 

[ragnarkar]

Here's my experience leaving VM for t-mobile (paraphrased) :

Me: I'd like my account number
VM: why?
Me: I'm transferring my service.
VM: is there anything we can do to get you to stay?
Me: Sure. Find some way so I can use my unlocked Nexus 5 on VM.
VM: we can't do that.
Me: then I'd like my account number
VM: here you go...