I Love Cricket

 

I love Cricket, and this particular post will explain all the reasons why I switched from AT&T.

1. No Contracts
 Like most people these days, due to the poor state of the Economy I've had to get rid of a lot of unnecessary costs. AT&T, like most big shot phone carriers, likes to give you massive discounts on mobile devices, but they make you sign a 2 year contract. With that contract you're obligated to pay their monthly rates which usually have a cap, PLUS data plans if you're one of those hip cats that like to have smart phones. They also slam you with overage charges the second you go over your minutes or data, or texts, what have you.

Now I recall at age 16 I was still on my mothers AT&T plan, and I loved to text. I sent so many texts during a one month period that I ended up owing my mother $500 in overage charges. Luckily I had a job, and was able to pay her back in two pay checks with money to spare. After that, I switched to Cricket and kept my phone number. I thought that would be the end of the hidden charges, but then they charge massive fees for cancellation. Some are even up to $350. They take off like $10 for every month you had the contract, so my mom ended up spending $175 just because I switched phone companies.

Either way, even with the phone discounts you still end up spending much more in the long run because of it.


2. The Plans
I love Crickets Unlimited everything deal. Right now they've got these All-Inclusive 'True Rate' phone plans out including 2 smart phone plans including unlimited data. They go from $35 for the basic plan, $45 for the cool regular phone unlimited plan, to $55 for the Android plan, and $60 for the Blackberry smart phone plan. The only downfall with their unlimited data plan is they throttle your speed after so many gigs of usage. At least they don't charge you anything extra lol.


Now right now I have the $45 plan with handset protection and 30 minutes of Roaming on the off chance that I go out of the city. My monthly bill was usually around $65 dollars when they had taxes and other state fees involved, but it should go down to $55-60 after I change to the all inclusive plan. To view what's included in each plan you can visit here.


3. No Cancellation Fees
Cricket doesn't have any cancellation fees. I like this idea because in the bad economy (omg shes talking about it again!!) a lot of companies have been downsizing their workforce to cut costs and a lot of people get laid off or fired. Now, honestly I have a fear of losing my job only because I have so many monetary commitments that require a monthly bill, like my lease, utilities, etc. I like the idea of if I lose my job, and can't pay my phone bill they wont slap me with late fees, or cancellation fees. Unlike other phone companies might... Let me put it in perspective.

• Verizon's early termination fee is something to the effect of $175, or $350 if you purchased an Advanced Device.
• AT&T's early termination fee is $325 minus $10 for each full month of your Service Commitment that you complete.
• Alltel's early termination fee is $200 per line for any early cancellation.
• Sprint's  early termination fee is $200 which progressively reduces to $50 depending on the number of months remaining in your contract. They even give you a nifty chart to see how much money you're wasting.

So even if Cricket might not have the easiest to deal with customer service line, I've never really had any issues. When dealing with their call center during the last half of the day always expect to have at least 10-15 minute wait time, and always ALWAYS keep a pen and paper with you before even bothering to call them.

As far as their signal strength, I've only had a dropped call during thunder storms or if I'm in a garage or for some reason Walmart.
 Either way, I give Cricket a 5 out of 5 stars for price and 3.5 out of 5 stars for Customer service.
This is Cricket's latest commercial featuring some of their smart phones.