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Anyone using Solavei for Service?

tardman91

tardman91

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
1,170
398
Tampa Area, FL
http://www.solavei.com

It seems like a pretty sweet deal. $49/month for unlimited everything, plus the ability to earn credits for signing up friends. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with it. Looking at their coverage maps it seems pretty solid in my area (as well as most of the larger metro areas in the US). Anyone using it with an unlocked iPhone, or planning to?
 
There is a kiosk in my mall for this place so I googled them and got some results that scared me away. Long term I was worried they'd be around so I dropped that idea quick.
 
They are the first one bringing the BlackBerry Z10 to the US. Steep price of $1000 unlocked, but still the first.
 
They use T-Mobile's towers, so the coverage will be as good as T-Mobile's is.
 
Lunchbox700 said:
There is a kiosk in my mall for this place so I googled them and got some results that scared me away. Long term I was worried they'd be around so I dropped that idea quick.
Click to expand...

this! they appear to be a sort of MLM/pyramid scheme. everything i was reading screamed stay away.
 
So what's funny is I noticed today on the way in that the kiosk I saw is now gone and advertising Girl Scout cookies. Finally something I can use.
 
It is a legit company. I would use them except t-mobile refarm is not complete in my area and when I tried T-moblie in Dec, the coverage here was terrible. If t-mobile gets thier act together, there are a bunch of mvnos I will try.
 
Yeah, you don't have to participate in their MLM part.

Luckily, they aren't selling ip their MLM part as a get rich quick scheme which other MLMs do. It's more of a casual referral service where for every 3 people you refer you get $20 off your bill.

Unlike spammy MLMs, they also don't require you to pay big sign up fees, buy training materials, attend expensive seminars, etc.

I'm actually thinking about getting this. If I refer my parents (who tell me they want a smart phone soon), my wife who now shares a plan with me, that could drop my bill to $30 for my line and $50 for the wife's. $80 a month for two plans sure beats the $170 I'm paying with Verizon -- and we would each get 4GB rather than 4GB to share.

I would like to know if visual voicemail works and if there's any other quirks. I imagine since T-Mobile said they'd support the iPhone officially that visual voicemail, mms, and all the features should work as expected.... If not now then very soon.
 
Gregintosh said:
Yeah, you don't have to participate in their MLM part.

Luckily, they aren't selling ip their MLM part as a get rich quick scheme which other MLMs do. It's more of a casual referral service where for every 3 people you refer you get $20 off your bill.

Unlike spammy MLMs, they also don't require you to pay big sign up fees, buy training materials, attend expensive seminars, etc.

I'm actually thinking about getting this. If I refer my parents (who tell me they want a smart phone soon), my wife who now shares a plan with me, that could drop my bill to $30 for my line and $50 for the wife's. $80 a month for two plans sure beats the $170 I'm paying with Verizon -- and we would each get 4GB rather than 4GB to share.

I would like to know if visual voicemail works and if there's any other quirks. I imagine since T-Mobile said they'd support the iPhone officially that visual voicemail, mms, and all the features should work as expected.... If not now then very soon.
Click to expand...
Actually if you try to sign up you must 1. be sponsored or 2. they will assign you to somebody. MLM all the way.
 
from their website...

"An opportunity to earn income by sharing Unlimited Voice, Text and Data mobile service on a nationwide 4G network for $49 per month"

sure sounds alot like the whole "earn $1000 a week from home" scams. how many other services that you pay for, groceries, car insurance etc, try to entice you by offering you "income" in exchange for getting new customers? Ambit Energy does this and they are a mess of a scam. the promise of dollar signs have been dragging people into these schemes for years. if its so awesome and blatantly obvious that we can all be SOOOOOOO rich from something like this, why dont big companies like Verizon and AT&T jump on the bandwagon? hell, i know dozens of people with Verizon, i could be a millionaire. its because its sketchy sounding and historically has been proven to be a grey area for doing business.

then there is this....

"1.1 Qualifications for Social Members

To become a Social Member, each applicant must:
• Be at least 18 years old;
• Complete the Social Member Qualification Process at www.solavei.com;
• Pay the Social Member Fee, as provided in Section 1.4;
• Provide proof of a valid social security number;
• Assent to this Agreement by online click-through or other means; and
• Provide any other information Solavei may reasonably request."

"1.4 Social Member Fee

Social Members must pay an annual non-refundable fee of $149 on the Effective Date and on each anniversary of the Effective Date. This fee is waived for Social Members who have an active account for Solavei mobile phone service. If Solavei does not receive payment of the annual fee on a timely basis, Solavei may terminate this Agreement and Your Social Member
status."


basically, you can push their product for a $149/yr fee without even having their service and take income on people you get to join. that sure sounds like many other MLM scams.

"2.2 Independent Contractor

Social Members are independent contractors. Neither this Agreement nor any other communication from Solavei shall be deemed to create an employee/employer relationship, agency relationship, partnership, joint venture, or other representative relationship of any kind other than that of an independent contractor as provided in this Agreement. You acknowledge
and agree that, with respect to any and all work You do in connection with Solavei, You have complete control to set the hours You work, where You work, whether You work alone or with others, and the other methods and conditions regarding your work. Solavei does not owe and will not provide You with any benefits whatsoever except as expressly stated in the
Compensation Plan. Social Members must always identify themselves as independent contractors of Solavei in their dealings with potential Solavei members and any other parties. Under no circumstances shall Social Members state, suggest, imply, confirm, fail to deny, or indicate in any other way
that they are employees, agents, partners, joint venturers or representatives of Solavei of any other kind, except for independent contractors under the terms of the Agreement."

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. independent business owner MLM anyone?


"2.8 Media and Media Inquiries

Social Members must not respond to any media inquiries of any kind about Solavei, its services, its business model, or any other issues, including without limitation any inquiries from print, radio, television, broadcast, cable, blogs, or other media entities, whether online or offline. If a member of the media contacts You, You must refer them immediately to Solavei’s corporate
communications department at (425) 628-6300."

sure. gotta keep the whole scheme hush hush. this just all seems too whacked to want to be involved in. way too much work, and the average joe isnt going to see squat in a return.

https://support.solavei.com/docs/DOC-1395
https://support.solavei.com/docs/DOC-1462
 
Gregintosh said:
But you still don't have to buy anything other than the phone service right?
Click to expand...

as a matter of fact, after reading their ToS, you dont even have to buy their phone service in order to start making money. but as i posted above, it will cost you a smooth $149/yr in order to be "privileged" to push their product.

basically, if you buy their service, the $149 gets waived and you can still be an independent contractor for them if you wish. they got a whole "how-to and do's and don't" marketing crash course section on their site you must abide by.

oh and you also cant make any mention of t-mobile. so while selling, you cant even let people know they use the t-mobile network. thats nice.....they want you to get people to commit to something and not even let people know the real facts. and you also cant get into the whole "we can make money by dragging more saps in" without letting them read their compensation disclosure. guess they dont wanna get peoples hopes up on making $$$ under false pretenses.
 
No one hates MLMs more than I do and I would never recommend someone sign up with the intention of getting rich from one because that never works.

The principal reason that does not work is because the products they hawk are usually below average in quality and way more expensive than what's out there so they never sell well. The only way to make money is from referrals.

So no, I would never recommend anyone sign up for Solavei if climbing the pyramid for money is the goal. It's just not going to happen and all the time and money you will spend trying to get recruits and sales is not going to pay off.

Think about it, at $20 per month income for every 3 sign ups, you would need to sign up 450 people (who all would have to remain as subscribers) in order to earn an income of $3,000 a month - which I'd consider bare minimum for a half decent full time income.

If you contacted a bunch of people and signed up one per day, it would take you more than a year to do that. During that year you'd be making far less money than a regular job and you will be spending money on traveling, flyers, meetings, events, etc. that you will have to put on to make sales. Chances are with the expenses mounting, it would be a long while before you got your investment back (especially if you include opportunity cost of forgoing legitimate jobs or business opportunities). Overall, not a good deal.

So in conclusion, I agree that the company is MLM-scammy if you are looking at it from the perspective of a business opportunity.

Now why doesn't Verizon do this or some other company? Because they are willing to spend hundreds of millions on ads. Solavei prefers to spend money on giving discounts to people who make referrals. If many people who sign up early get 3 or 6 referrals so that they can get a $20-$40 discount, their user base will grow rapidly. Same effect as buying TV ads and what not, except here they only pay when they get results. It's a good deal from Solavei's perspective.

From the clients' perspective it's good too because you get a bit of a discount. However, turning it into a full time income generating proposition is definitely not going to work, as explained above.

WITH THAT SAID, if all you want is $49 a month phone service as a customer, looks like you can sign up, pay the $49 a month, and get unlimited text and voice and 4GB of web before you get throttled, all on the T-Mobile network.

The $149 fee you mention does not apply if you are a subscriber to the network. You also are not required to buy or spend anything else other than pay your $49 phone bill to maintain service. So basically you can shut all that MLM stuff out of it and just treat it like another phone company if you want.

That is a pretty good deal which only Walmart's StraighTalk (which throttles you sooner at around 2GB and has funky terms of service) can match.
 
I just signed up for them.

I have been with Verizon for two years. Was with AT&T for two years before that. My bill with Verizon is the least expensive plan they have available for smart phones. I pay $85 for 400 minutes and 200 (maybe it's 250) texts. Data is 3G and super slow.

In my opinion, Verizon is waaay better than AT&T.

That said, I still get dropped calls with Verizon and in my office I get one bar (which leads to dropped calls 100% of the time). It works great from my house.

T-mobile doesn't have as good of coverage as either Verizon or AT&T. But I get dropped calls no matter what. So, would I rather pay $49 for dropped calls or $85? ;)

No brainer. :D
 
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