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Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
Yikes! Cricket is HARD to do business with!

Yesterday I was planning to purchase iPhone 5 on Cricket Wireless.
Jump to end of story: I did not purchase.

1) Cricket store did not have demo iPhone 5
2) Cricket store clerk couldn't answer my q's
3) Cricket brochure says TETHERING is included with $55/month plan
4) MyCricket.com does NOT mention tethering.
5) So is tethering included or not? Let's ask MyCricket.com chat....
6) MyCricket.com chat representative "Shane" would not answer my question, until I answered his survey q's

Okay, so I answered a few survey q's but then it got ridiculous, so I demanded that he answer my question about tethering. He said he was not allowed to assist me until I went thru his q's. Now it's been 3 minutes and I didn't get any answer to my simple question about tethering. No more survey questions please! Yikes! I asked for a supervisor. Shane said there were no supervisors there. (yeah sure) Eventually Shane ended the chat session (aggressively, and without giving me a chance to reply) and then he locked me out from opening a new chat. wtf??

When I buy from AT&T Store or the Apple retail store, things go SMOOTH and I am treated like a CUSTOMER.

My takeaways from this experience....

a) Cricket store had no demo iPhone
b) Cricket store clerk was uninformed
c) MyCricket.com chat guy interested in getting survey data instead of getting customers

d) Cricket corporate needs to send some secret shoppers to their retail stores & website, so they can see just how terrible it is trying to do business with them.
e) Cricket is HARD to do business with!
 

moldy lunchbox

macrumors 6502a
Sep 9, 2010
777
340
Sunny California
I had Cricket before, back when they only had crap phones. And I'll never go back to them. I didn't even have reception in my bedroom which was less than 10 miles from the store I bought it from. The ONLY positive thing from Cricket is the price. And sometimes even a cheapskate like me can afford to get something alittle nicer. :rolleyes:
 

bonskovsky

macrumors 6502
Dec 31, 2012
453
2
You probably just didn't have good employees in your area. I walked right into a Cricket and got an iPhone 5 just yesterday. I even sold my iPhone 4 to one of the other employees, so I walked out with a new phone and money in my bag.

All Cricket is is a communications service. That's all they do. The iPhones they have are directly from Apple.

They have the best price on unlimited plans hands down, you're just losing money with anyone else. :)
 

Agent OrangeZ

macrumors 68040
Mar 17, 2010
3,014
3,014
Planet Earth
e) Cricket is HARD to do business with!

They have the best price on unlimited plans hands down, you're just losing money with anyone else. :)

Cricket iPhone 5 doesn't support LTE on Cricket's LTE band 4.... so even when your city lights up LTE (only Phoenix and Tucson have it for the moment), your iPhone can't get it.

Plus Cricket's iPhone is only $150 less than buying unlocked. Do yourself a favor and get an unlocked AT&T iPhone and use it on T-Mobile if you live in a 1900 Mhz city. When T-Mobile's LTE network rolls out, it will be on Band 4 (1700Mhz)... which the AT&T iPhone supports.
 

Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
Eventually Shane ended the chat session (aggressively, and without giving me a chance to reply) and then he locked me out from opening a new chat. wtf??

Update:

After clearing my browser's cookies, I am no longer locked out of Cricket's chat.
.
 
Last edited:

j.dstasio

macrumors 6502
Jun 9, 2009
333
10
South Jersey
Third rate cell service providers often provide third rate customer service. That's really the moral of the story. You get what you pay for.
 

Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
wxman2003 said:
And that is why Cricket is a no name company and a no future company.
I thought Cricket was their name?

ROFL, reminds me of....

Q: "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?"
A: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over HERE in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children." (56 million YouTube views)
--Caitlin Upton, South Carolina Miss Teen USA

@Interstella5555:

What @wxman2003 meant by "no name company" is
national branding wise, Cricket is not considered a heavyweight carrier.

(plus, most people barely heard of them,
and the one's who have heard of them
just consider them to be yet another
crummy pay-as-you-go company)
.
 
Last edited:

Interstella5555

macrumors 603
Jun 30, 2008
5,219
13
@Interstella5555:

What @wxman2003 meant by "no name company" is
national branding wise, Cricket is not considered a heavyweight carrier.

(plus, most people barely heard of them,
and the one's who have heard of them
just consider them to be yet another
crummy pay-as-you-go company)
.

Oh thanks for clearing that up, I had no idea....
 

iceterminal

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2008
1,870
27
Dallas Tx.
I hope you're not judging the entire company based off of one store visit only talking to one employee.
If we all did this, then every company would be crap. :)

I am not trying to be snarky, just want to only portray that every business has issues. While Cricket is not a major player, they do fit a small niche in the market. And even offering the iPhone 5 to their clients is a feature.
Just because a guy sells me a car doesn't mean he knows should the timing and oil pressure of the engine....if that makes sens.

another thing to consider, Cricket is less expensive than the other major carriers. So in this case, you get what you pay for.
 

Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
I hope you're not judging the entire company based off of one store visit

Yes, I am. Namely because (a) Cricket is not committed to supply their stores with iPhone 5 demo phones; and (b) Cricket obviously doesn't have an effecitve method of training new hires about their key products; and (c) by intentional design, Cricket's website makes it difficult to do business with them. Come on, they forced popups inviting me to chat, then after I accepted they tried to squeeze me thru a #$@! survey before they'd answer any of my questions. Like I said before: wtf?
 

Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
Third rate cell service providers often provide third rate customer service. That's really the moral of the story. You get what you pay for.

Would love to hear from some Cricket users about their voice quality and data speed.
 

j.dstasio

macrumors 6502
Jun 9, 2009
333
10
South Jersey
Yes, I am. Namely because (a) Cricket is not committed to supply their stores with iPhone 5 demo phones; and (b) Cricket obviously doesn't have an effecitve method of training new hires about their key products; and (c) by intentional design, Cricket's website makes it difficult to do business with them. Come on, they forced popups inviting me to chat, then after I accepted they tried to squeeze me thru a #$@! survey before they'd answer any of my questions. Like I said before: wtf?

I fix iPhones & other gadgets at a cell phone shop (part-time), for fun more than anything. The guy that I work with also owns a Cricket store. I'm in that store quite often and will even work there a few hours at a time if he gets in a jam. A lot of the Cricket stores are independently owned & your bad experience may simply have been with that store in particular. I can honestly say that dealing with Cricket (not the retail shop, but Cricket the company) is not easy. They are not customer friendly at all & getting anything done is really difficult in my experience.
 

Its Trish

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2008
41
0
I can honestly say that dealing with Cricket (not the retail shop, but Cricket the company) is not easy. They are not customer friendly at all & getting anything done is really difficult in my experience.

Damn straight!

btw my second attempt at dealing with Cricket (not a retail store, but the main company at CricketWireless.com) via their online chat went equally as bad as the first (described in original post).
.
 
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