The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
Sorry this is kind of lengthy but I'm very pissed and need to vent and I also need some quick advise.
Okay perhaps the title is a bit misleading but at&t has finally pushed me beyond the point of no return. I share a family plan with two of my closest friends. Two of us have smartphones and one only uses a messaging phone. While this may seem odd, the two of us with smartphones only had a grandfathered 200mb data plan. I know it's abysmally small but we're fortunate enough to live in an area where we almost always have access to free WiFi. I attend graduate school and also work on the compass so between home, work, school, and the few bookstores and cafes I frequent regularly I'm never without access. We're not chatter bugs, at least not during the day time because who has the time. I hardly ever use my phone to actually call people but the other smartphones user can talk for hours on end with her boyfriend in the evenings (long distance relationship). The one with the messaging phone only uses that particular phone to keep in touch with people abroad, the time constrains of which actually forces her to call them in the early mornings to make for the 6 hour time difference. Between the three of us we have a 700min plan and have never gone over in the 5 years we've had the plan. We had the unlimited text, 100 international texts and everything came up to about $150 every month.
Well the other smartphone user dropped her cell and absolutely smashed it. Since I only use unlocked phones we went into the store so she could use my upgrade to get a iphone 5 and transfer the phone over to her number. While there we were dumb enough to get caught up in an upsale. The rep basically told us we could sign up for a shared data plan of 1gb and pay the same amount we're paying now. "You barely even use 400mb now but for the same price you never have to worry about accidental going over." Okay. The first bill after that was exactly $150 plus tax. Awesome. The next bill: $200.36 without overages. Immediately called at&t and spoke to a rep who said she didn't why the store rep would say the bill would only be $150. I explained that the first bill after the change was exactly $150, she explained that it was because the store rep had applied some credits to the account (which we were unaware of). Angry at the bait and switch I asked to switch back to the original plan for the next billing cycle. Was told that it wouldn't be exactly the same because parts of our old plan was grandfathered in and we lost them when we switched. I was literally boiling at this point. I got her name then worked out what the new plan would be: $180 plus taxes. Okay so we switched. Yesterday I get the bill for the new month and it's $346. The freak!?
Called and asked immediately to speak with a supervisor. He explained to me that the last rep I spoke with had retroactively applied the new plan up to the previous month when we were supposed to be sharing 1gb. And because we had gone over 600mb (which was the new plan) we were being charged overages. I'll be honest, I just can't with at&t right now. I've been using them for over 10years but customer loyalty really means nothing. Right now I want to leave and go to straight talk or simple mobile or some similar service but thanks to my friends using my line to upgrade I'm now stuck there for the next 17 months. Since I rarely use my phone to talk and 98% of my phone usage actually occurs on wifi, I've decided to buy a dumb phone for calls and use my note 2 for everything else over wifi.
I haven't had a non-smartphone in years and the only dumb phones I had before switching to Nokia and eventually iphone and android were sony ericssons. I had like 5 or 6 phones from their walkman series and I remember loving their volume and call quality. I can't be assed to mess around symbian (leaving that platform was the best thing I ever did) but I don't have experience with any other manufactures. Knowing what I would be using it for, can anyone recommend a dumb phone that I can buy unlocked from Amazon prime for under $75? I don't want to pay a lot for a phone I'll literally uses less than 30mins a day.
I'd really appreciate any recommendations.
Re: The final straw! Leaving my Note 2. What do you recommend?
Sprint.
Family plan is 129 + 20 for 2 phones and 3rd phone if it isn't a smartphone is $20... that's without insurance on the phones.
We have 1500 shared mobile mintues, but free mobile to mobile and nights and weekends.
Unlimited data and texts.
International is an extra fee
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
Thanks but I don't even remember the last I saw a sprint store within a 10 radius of the places I frequent. If they'd pay for my termination fee that might be a big enough incentive but that's not gonna happen. I just need a substitute phone.
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
Beside I would be severely limited in the kind of unlocked phones I can buy to use with either sprint or verizon.
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
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Beside I would be severely limited in the kind of unlocked phones I can buy to use with either sprint or verizon.
geez, so sorry to hear about your ordeal. That was really nasty by the rep, and unlike the experiences I've had with AT&T the last ten years or so. I've kept AT&T because their customer has gotten better and their coverage is great (I travel to Puerto and the US Virgin Islands regularly and those territories are considered domestic coverage; that's international though for Verizon. ouch.).
So:
1. LG phones are available prime on amazon and they're very good
2. Where are you located? I have a good contact at our local AT&T shop and I can ask him what can be done if you'd like (he's gone out of the AT&T sphere to help with solutions for me in the past)
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
So let me get this straight: they bait-and-switched you into a $$ plan, and you're basically stuck with AT&T for the next year and a half. just curious, why do you want a 'dumb' phone? to avoid data fees?
if I were you, I would just permanently set 'mobile data' off on your Note 2--no point in carrying around two devices when the one can serve for both. and since you're probably on-campus with free wifi all the time, it's not like it would make much of a difference either way. Trust me, texting will be a b**** and a half on a dumb phone. you'll just be spending more money unnecessarily. for the rare off-chance you need to use your mobile data, dl an ultra-light web browser like opera mini (you can disable images and the like).
unless you want to sell your Note 2, which would probably get you ~$500+. If you're totally fine with a dumb phone, cash in the Note 2 for a small tablet like the Nexus 7. I have a mini folding bluetooth keyboard with my Nexus 7, they're a match made in heaven. When I was a freshman, I had a bulky 17" laptop because tablets were nonexistent. makes me wish I was a few years younger lol. I'd buy your Note 2 off of you, but I'm stuck with my DNA for the next ~100 days (if I switch/deactivate, I'll have to fork up the full price of the phone).
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
Yeah. I basically want the dumb phone to avoid data fees. Toggling data off wouldn't really make a difference because I would be charged for it anyway since I would still be using a smartphone. The only way I've ever gotten pass that particular requirement was when I used unlocked gsm smart phones that were never available in the US market. Because the phones weren't in att's database they never forced a data plan on me. It wouldn't work with the Note 2.
I want to downgrade my plan to the lowest possible feature set by using a dumb phone. I still want to try straight talk and since I have the N7100 using it with another service along side maintaining my att service would be possible as long as the att was low. However I can't move my number from att until the service is cancelled and I rely on that number for everything. They've got me by the short hairs but at this point it's principle. The 300+ I would pay to terminate could easily carry a dumb phone payment until the service is up.
Do you think it would be misguided to ask my friend to pay the termination fee since she benefited from the upgrade? She got her iphone at a discounted price but I didn't get my phone from them and I paid full price so that's also why I feel like paying the termination would be double on me.
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Thanks for the offer rankar7 but I think at this point I'll just wait the contract out then cancel my service. I spoke with like three different supervisors and the first one must have made a note because they all kept parroting the same nonsense. Apparently the credits the initial rep applied to my account (which he never mentioned and I assume he only applied so my first bill would seem to match his quote) have been removed and now they say the jump in price is due to negating the initial change in service. whatever. They've lost me at this point. I'll check out the lg phones on amazon. My brother's first two smart phones were lg and they were both terrible, dropped calls and awful batteries. The lg thrill was the worst phone I've ever used but maybe their feature phones are better. Thanks.
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
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My brother's first two smart phones were lg and they were both terrible, dropped calls and awful batteries. The lg thrill was the worst phone I've ever used but maybe their feature phones are better. Thanks.
at our local library there is a depository for old cell phones, etc. and i can't tell you how many times that thing gets filled up in a month. quite amazing especially for a small town of about 20,000 people. maybe you can get a few free phones from similar depositories/give aways just to get you by for now.
Re: The final straw! Leaving my Note 2. What do you recommend?
I travel alot and Sprint is ok if you don't mind not getting a signal lots of places and very inconsistent data performance. Verzion has the best coverage and ok customer service. But they know it and charge for it accordingly.
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Sprint.
Family plan is 129 + 20 for 2 phones and 3rd phone if it isn't a smartphone is $20... that's without insurance on the phones.
We have 1500 shared mobile mintues, but free mobile to mobile and nights and weekends.
Unlimited data and texts.
International is an extra fee
Re: The final straw! Leaving AT&T and need another phone. What do you recommend?
Quote:
. . .I'll check out the lg phones on amazon. My brother's first two smart phones were lg and they were both terrible, dropped calls and awful batteries. The lg thrill was the worst phone I've ever used but maybe their feature phones are better. Thanks.
Ohh I see, I didn't realize you could opt out of the data fees entirely, I thought it was hard-set in your contract. I've had LG feature phones before, and they worked fine. If you text a lot, I'd mostly look into whatever keyboard would suit your needs. Almost all available feature phones are either Samsung or LG anyway. Just be wary of 3rd party sellers on Amazon--just because it ships with Prime doesn't mean it's coming from a totally credible source. You could end up with a refurb, or something that doesn't work.
If your friend wouldn't mind getting her own plan, I'd definitely consider terminating. If you guys are going to be paying ~$200/month for the next year and a half for something you're unhappy about, it'd be cheaper in the long run to split the termination fees (maybe split it 40-60 or 25-75--she did use your upgrade, but at the same time it's not like she knew you were planning on terminating the contract). Straight Talk is what, like $50/month? And you'd keep your Note 2 instead of buying a separate feature phone.
