If you're like me, you bought a Nexus 4 with the intention of using the Walmart exclusive 100m/Unlimited Text/5GB 4G data pre-paid plan.
Well let me tell you something to watch out for...
If you use this plan, DON'T sign up for Auto-Renew and be VERY careful about fees and minutes. They will screw you in a very cynical way. DON'T add money to your account balance with a debit/credit card. ONLY use refill cards, which you can buy at Walmart.com
-I ran up my 100 minutes of talk time and my phone service deactivated, rightfully so.
-I refilled my account using my debit card, and the next day I had my phone service back.
-Something went wrong in their system and they ended up charging me $1.50 in extra fees for talking, even though I was unable to make or receive calls. I am not sure what happened, but I do know that it was 100% not my fault. The refill bill I got was $32.58, so there's no possible way I ended up with an even $28.50 on my account from calling fees.
-Something got overridden SOMEWHERE and even though I applied the correct amount of money to my account, they revoked my phone service.
-I now have an account balance of $28.50, no phone service, and they only accept payments of $30 on this plan.
I now have two options:
Pay them $10 (the minimum you can add at a time) so I can apply the minimum amount of $30 to my plan. This will put me in an endless cycle where no matter what I do they get to keep the $8.50.
Or I can drop the plan altogether and use their pay-by-the-day plan. I have to use the $3/day plan so I get decent data. Once I switch to this, there's no going back to the $30/month plan.
Once my $3/day plan reduces my account balance to less than $3, I'm switching to AT&T.
I would have considered staying on T-Mobile anyway, since $8.50 really isn't much money to care about, but their service sucks in my area and I get absolutely no coverage at my jobsite so I have no reason to try and stick it out with them. Plus if I end up with a Nexus 5 someday, I want AT&T's superior LTE coverage. In Connecticut T-Mo's LTE doesn't exist anywhere in my daily travels. (I've done the LTE hack to confirm this).
The plan was great, as were the savings, but as soon as you get any fee whatsoever (and we all know how phone companies like to ding you with bullshit fees) you get stuck in a cycle where you end up with a significant amount of money in your balance that you cannot access due to their BS pricing model. It reminds me of Xbox Microsoft Points, where no matter what you do, you have MS Points you can't use.
So it just goes as they say "You get what you pay for."
Well let me tell you something to watch out for...
If you use this plan, DON'T sign up for Auto-Renew and be VERY careful about fees and minutes. They will screw you in a very cynical way. DON'T add money to your account balance with a debit/credit card. ONLY use refill cards, which you can buy at Walmart.com
-I ran up my 100 minutes of talk time and my phone service deactivated, rightfully so.
-I refilled my account using my debit card, and the next day I had my phone service back.
-Something went wrong in their system and they ended up charging me $1.50 in extra fees for talking, even though I was unable to make or receive calls. I am not sure what happened, but I do know that it was 100% not my fault. The refill bill I got was $32.58, so there's no possible way I ended up with an even $28.50 on my account from calling fees.
-Something got overridden SOMEWHERE and even though I applied the correct amount of money to my account, they revoked my phone service.
-I now have an account balance of $28.50, no phone service, and they only accept payments of $30 on this plan.
I now have two options:
Pay them $10 (the minimum you can add at a time) so I can apply the minimum amount of $30 to my plan. This will put me in an endless cycle where no matter what I do they get to keep the $8.50.
Or I can drop the plan altogether and use their pay-by-the-day plan. I have to use the $3/day plan so I get decent data. Once I switch to this, there's no going back to the $30/month plan.
Once my $3/day plan reduces my account balance to less than $3, I'm switching to AT&T.
I would have considered staying on T-Mobile anyway, since $8.50 really isn't much money to care about, but their service sucks in my area and I get absolutely no coverage at my jobsite so I have no reason to try and stick it out with them. Plus if I end up with a Nexus 5 someday, I want AT&T's superior LTE coverage. In Connecticut T-Mo's LTE doesn't exist anywhere in my daily travels. (I've done the LTE hack to confirm this).
The plan was great, as were the savings, but as soon as you get any fee whatsoever (and we all know how phone companies like to ding you with bullshit fees) you get stuck in a cycle where you end up with a significant amount of money in your balance that you cannot access due to their BS pricing model. It reminds me of Xbox Microsoft Points, where no matter what you do, you have MS Points you can't use.
So it just goes as they say "You get what you pay for."