Sub $35 LTE phone carrier plan NJ?

[blahcomp222]

I've had Virgin mobile for like 4 years. After one year, their rates went up but they let me keep my old rate of $25 no contract 300 minutes unlimited data and text and the price for new customers was $35. My phone broke so I got my replacement today and tried to activate it only to find out that since it's an LTE phone, they will not honor the $25 rate anymore, I have to pay $35. They have been letting me pay $25 for what others had to pay $35 for years but I guess the cost of LTE for them is too much to let anyone use it for $25 a month. I tried to talk to the supervisor but they wouldn't connect me and said this comes up all the time. I asked them to just block LTE from my service but they said it's not possible. I mentioned how there was zero mention of this on the website so I bought a phone and wasted all this time because of their fault, and now I probably not only will return the phone which leaves them with a used phone they can't sell as new and have to pay someone to sit there and sort through my box and repackage everything and possibly pay postage to mail it out to another place and that I'm probably leaving VM for a better deal if I can find one, which is what I'm asking to hopefully save me some time.

I'm in NJ. VM's coverage hasn't been great. I might not even use LTE because I don't like all the radiation, but want it for just in case when I'm trying to google something and 3G is slow as hell. I can return the LTE phone and all VM really has left for 3G-only phones is the POS that just broke on me in 13 months, one month after the warranty.

I honestly have no idea how much data I use. It's mostly for GPS driving, and I barely use the internet. I don't stream music or anything really. I use the GPS driving maybe 3 hours a month. 300 talk mins is enough as long as I'm not left on hold. texts I need like 200, often they are picture texts.

does anyone know of a plan that's under $35 no contract that can do as much as I need and allows an LTE phone and has decent NJ coverage?

 

[blahcomp222]

From the prices I saw, I might just stick with VM's non-LTE 3G $25 month 300 mins unlimited data and text (which isn't really unlimited, they all say unlimited and then the cap amount under it but it's probably way over what I need). The 3G phones they have suck though, my ZTE AWE just broke and acted buggy all the time, alarm going off randomly, incoming calls sometimes fail to show the correct blank background and instead show whatever I last had open like a text or note which I don't want happening in case I lose the phone. Can't even hide the incoming calls, so I could lose my phone and someone can answer it pretending to be me. Better phones just display a contact memo in the lock screen in case it's lost and the finder tries to return it.

I'm calling VM now to see if they have any record of how much data I really used per month. I might be able to go with another $25 service provider that has unlimited miuntes and talk but less data than VM, but possibly LTE. Or I can figure out how to call free through google or something.

I'm refusing to pay return shipping for the LTE phone that I bought that isn't compatible with my grandfather plan which is no where mentioned on their site and thus not my fault, I will open a claim with my credit card, and I want compensation for lost time without a phone now that this is happening, a free month or something. I just want them to block LTE from my plan and keep the $25 300 mins plan, but they said it's not possible, but we'll see.