RedPocket phone service renewal

Joined
Mar 2, 2004
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4,098
Location
Kentucky
Wife has been using Redpocket cell phone service for the last year. She received a text message yesterday that her plan expires today. I thought to myself, that's not much notice, but is what it is, so in a hurry I purchased a new plan today. Found they increased data from 8GB to 10GB for a slightly lower price. I went ahead and prepaid for a year.

Afterward, I got to thinking about it, and was fairly certain last signup we prepaid at the end of January, not December. I went through credit card statements, and yes, we started service January 20th, not December 20th. Once I purchased the plan, it reset everything and our new year service begins TODAY, so it appears Redpocket has robbed us $20 and a month service by stating that service expires today. I would have expected them to start the new plan I paid for on Jan 21st, AFTER my old plan actually expired.

The $20 is not worth the hour(s) long phone call it would take to resolve this, so I'm just going to eat it, but figured I'd mention it on here, since I know some of you folks use them-- also curious if anyone else has encountered this. It'll be the last year I use Red Pocket though, as that business practice is shady as heck.
 
I think they inform you 2 weeks in advance. If you need to resolve the issue go to there website and use the live chat. Easy peazy
 
I think they inform you 2 weeks in advance. If you need to resolve the issue go to there website and use the live chat. Easy peazy
The notice isn't what concerns me (I was prepared to pay the day I got the notice)-- it's that they said service ends a month sooner that it actually does.

And since we switched to a new plan, it started the clock over, and we lost the month that we paid for on the previous plan.

I noticed they have a support E-mail, I just tried that-- hopefully I won't have to invest too much time into this, but I might make it my life's mission till I get it resolved, just out of principle..... even if it's only $20.
 
Wife has been using Redpocket cell phone service for the last year. She received a text message yesterday that her plan expires today. I thought to myself, that's not much notice, but is what it is, so in a hurry I purchased a new plan today. Found they increased data from 8GB to 10GB for a slightly lower price. I went ahead and prepaid for a year.

Afterward, I got to thinking about it, and was fairly certain last signup we prepaid at the end of January, not December. I went through credit card statements, and yes, we started service January 20th, not December 20th. Once I purchased the plan, it reset everything and our new year service begins TODAY, so it appears Redpocket has robbed us $20 and a month service by stating that service expires today. I would have expected them to start the new plan I paid for on Jan 21st, AFTER my old plan actually expired.

The $20 is not worth the hour(s) long phone call it would take to resolve this, so I'm just going to eat it, but figured I'd mention it on here, since I know some of you folks use them-- also curious if anyone else has encountered this. It'll be the last year I use Red Pocket though, as that business practice is shady as heck.
Don’t call just use the instant message customer service in your phone or simple email and ask.
 
Yes, this happened to me. Like you, they didn't apply the 1 year renewal to the end of my service interval, costing me 3 weeks of service. I used their instant message service and got it credited back immediately. Their customer service has actually been quite good.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I began with them in August so I'll keep an eye out next year. I've had a good experience with them overall but the whole annual plan via ebay is kinda weird.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I began with them in August so I'll keep an eye out next year. I've had a good experience with them overall but the whole annual plan via ebay is kinda weird.
I think they will eventually figure out that it is more profitable to sell one year renewals to current customers on their own website.
 
I dont do contracts and I dont prepay.
Redpocket service on the monthly family plan has been right on the money for years now.
As others said, contact customer service if you prepay one year in advance and paid too soon, but a good heads up to others in the same situation to mark down so you dont pay ahead of time. It shouldn't have happened to you but ... I guess that is what customer service is for.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I began with them in August so I'll keep an eye out next year. I've had a good experience with them overall but the whole annual plan via ebay is kinda weird.
The original plan I bought on Ebay also. The new one I purchased right on their website, it was $20 less (per year $220 vs $240) with more data (10GB vs 8GB) than the old E-bay plan.

The catch with their online plan is that they charge about $50 more at renewal the following year, and they sign you up for automatic renewal on your credit card-- so you have to be diligent.-- I'll probably go back to an Ebay plan at that time (if they exist) and see if I can dodge that $50 increase.

I have nothing but good things to say about the service, wife has been pleased (hard to do), 95% as good as Verizon which we had prior. This has been the only issue I've had-- that they claim expiration date is a month before it actually expires.

For my own phone I use Mint (T-mobile towers) and I signed up at the exact same time as my wife. I've yet to receive a renewal notice (but I'm sure it will come), but when I visit their website/online account, it clearly tells me my service ends on 1/20/22. Not so with Redpocket, the text message was clear that our service was ending on 12/21, when it should be ending on 1/21/22.

I have an E-mail into them, will update this post if I get a response and/or resolution.
 
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Update: After a few days they responded to my E-mail and extended my new plan to 13 months-- so essentially credited me the month I missed out on by renewing too soon. Can't really complain much as it was hassle free other than the 5 minutes it took the write the E-mail.
 
Update: After a few days they responded to my E-mail and extended my new plan to 13 months-- so essentially credited me the month I missed out on by renewing too soon. Can't really complain much as it was hassle free other than the 5 minutes it took the write the E-mail.
Like I said, their customer service has actually been quite good. Having said that, they need to fix their website so that this sort of thing doesn't happen on renewals.
 
Air Voice has been GREAT for me a VERY light phone user $10 for 3 months + 100 min, data available + charged as used .0666 per MB + you can talk to a real person if needed like i did for initial setup!!
 
Another update, I switched my own phone service to Red Pocket today, as my Mint plan expires at the end of January.

Compared costs between the two, and at first glance they're comparable -- $19.00 a month for Redpocket, $20.00 per month with Mint, both 10GB data plans. When I went to checkout with Mint for renewal, they add about $45 in recovery fees which is buried along with the taxes at checkout. I checked RP for grins, and they add the taxes at checkout, but no recovery fee.

If Mint (T-Mobile towers) had better service, I'd have no issues paying the extra $57 per year, it's pocket change after all. But my wife and I got to compare Mint vs Redpocket (AT&T towers) for a whole year, and hands down, she had better service than I did. Cross country trips on rural/desolate stretches of highway, AT&T wins. Over Christmas we took a trip to rural central KY, and she has service 90% of the way, my Mint service had service about 40% of the time. Thinking back, I don't recall there ever being a moment that I had service with T-mobile that she did not-- it was always the other way around.

Keep in mind, neither of us have 5G phones, nor have any use for it. So perhaps T-Mobile/Mint excels in bigger cities and/or with more widespread 5G coverage; who knows. I can routinely get 100mbps using 4G with a decent signal (with any carrier), that's plenty for me. I'm not a heavy phone user when I'm away from Wi-Fi, so coverage / service availability is what matters to me.
 
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Keep in mind, neither of us have 5G phones, nor have any use for it. So perhaps T-Mobile/Mint excels in bigger cities and/or with more widespread 5G coverage; who knows. I can routinely get 100mbps using 4G with a decent signal (with any carrier), that's plenty for me. I'm not a heavy phone user when I'm away from Wi-Fi, so coverage / service availability is what matters to me.
5G isn’t just about speed, T-Mobile has been using it quite a bit to expand coverage (albeit at lower speeds). For instance when we had iPhone 11’s (non-5G) our phones didn’t work in our downstairs living room which is partially underground. We both upgraded to iPhone 12’s and now we get service down there.
 
5G isn’t just about speed, T-Mobile has been using it quite a bit to expand coverage (albeit at lower speeds). For instance when we had iPhone 11’s (non-5G) our phones didn’t work in our downstairs living room which is partially underground. We both upgraded to iPhone 12’s and now we get service down there.
That's a good point. The low/medium band (crude terminology) 5G offers promise for increasing coverage. I think all major carriers are rolling it out, except Verizon which I've heard is concentrating on mmWave for increased speeds in select/dense areas. But I have no real qualms about the 4G service I received from T-mobile/Mint. But given the fact that RedPocket w/ AT&T is less expensive for the same data plan, with better 4G coverage (for my use case / location), that was an easy decision to switch. The cost/benefit equation to buying a new $1000 smartphone to get 5G just doesn't work out for me right now, though that will likely change in the next couple years.
 
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