Consumer Cellular

I've had this phone for 8 months, and I've already had 3 major interruptions. Chat line and phone service is terrible. I really need to switch!

Consumer Cellular sent my daughter a new SIM card for her Iphone XR. (She had been using the phone on Consumer Cellular's network for the last 2 years.) (She needed a new SIM card because Consumer Cellular was switching networks from T-Moblie to ATT.) After she put in this new SIM card, her phone stopped working. Consumer Cellular told my daughter that she had to call Apple or T-Moblle to unlock her phone to work with her new ATT SIM card. Apple said they could not unlock it, only T-Mobile could. T-Mobile said that they would not unlock the phone (this was after they told us they would but it would take 3 days) because my daughter never had service with T-Mobile.) My daughter was without a phone for 4 days. (Between Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile and Apple - we had spent 5 plus hours on the phone.) I called Consumer Cellular (which I had been a customer of for 15 years) and told them to replace my daughter's phone which they refused to do. They told me to give them 3 more days to try and unlock it. I refused to wait three more days.

Husband died...they are still trying to charge me after I cancelled the service the day after he died.

Poor communication - human & technical. I really don't feel they are real technical and are just reading flow-charts,

My husband and I signed up for the Unlimited Talk, Text, and Data plan for $65/mo.
After three days, I got a notification that my husband's data was being shut off for "excessive usage". I called and they turned it back on.
A few days later, around 11pm, I got a notification that his data had been shut off again for "excessive usage". The website said they kpened at 6am, but when I called, they were not open til 8am.
I was told that they cap the data at 50Gs and it slows down after that. I reminded them that I paid for unlimited and they agreed that it was unlimited but after 50 Gs it slowed down. I said I understood that but please stop shutting my husband's data off when we paid for unlimited. They said it was an automatic thing the system did and they had no control over it, but just call and it would be turned back on.
10 days before the new billing cycle, they shut his data off again and this time said the system would not allow them to turn his data back on because we had exceeded the 50G limit. I reminded them that the plan said unlimited. They agreed it was unlimited but the system would not let them turn his data back on. I could still watch movies and listen to music on my phone but he couldn't.
Blatant misrepresentation and downright fraud.

Since consumer Cellular dropped their usage of TMobile tower's I have buffering like I did when I was with ATT, didn't have any problem with the T-Mobile towers! Bad decision

I lost my phone, have no access to email or text. They won't send my replacement phone without my ID.

If you use your phone a lot consumer cellular is not good enough. Even simple problems seem impossible for CC to solve.

Consumer Cellular advertises much information which is not accurate l found them to be untruthful on their billing.

Caitlin was especially helpful today. Very attentive and professional. She went the full nine yards to offer us better service.

Asked for auto pay. After a month it stopped. Nice flip phone but otherwise the company is unreliable.

They sent me a new sim card. Called for help. Lost all voicemails due to incompetent help. No help from them!

Consumer cellular told me to drive 3 hours, to have pictures transferred to my new phone, to Target store. Target said they don't do that. WTF?

They bill you fully even after you cancel your account. Do not set up autopay with them. They drain your account over and over again!

Read the reviews. Check with the Better Business Bureau.

My experience with them has been unfortunate. I ported my two mobile phone numbers to another carrier because of poor coverage, thereby cancelling my service with them. But Consumer Cellular continued to bill me for one of the two lines that was cancelled, because of a computer error. I called their customer disservice line (you cannot write to them; there is no published customer service email or address) and waited a very long time to be told that they would not correct that billing. They would continue to charge me for service that they knew was not provided.

This is how I learned Consumer Cellular is not trustworthy and that their customer service personnel are poorly trained and unhelpful. I will not call them again. Fool me twice…

Note, this was not an end-of-service proration issue. This was my being charged incorrectly for the last month (and again for the next month) of service on a line that was disconnected. And they were aware of that fact and intentionally refused to correct it at that time.

Well, I did not pay that bill. And you wouldn't either. So, Consumer Cellular charged me a late fee.
A month later, the incorrect changes were mysteriously corrected and within 30-days of that correction, I paid them what I owed them which was the correct prorated charges for the last month of service.

But I did not pay the late charge (you wouldn't either). Now every month I get an invoice with a late charge for not paying the previous month's late charge, which was bogus to begin with. Is that even legal? These compounding late charges are beginning to add up. I expect there is no way to stop this extorsion other than to pay it.

They cheat me; they will cheat you.

You have to pay for data separately, as soon as my phone is paid off, I'm switching back to T-Mobile

Buyer BEWARE. Especially if you are a senior. I NEVER get warranties on phones. I also get paper billing. The warranty they put on my phone without my permission was not realized until several billing cycles. I went on the website to see what was up and there was an un-authorized warranty. I called and was told " we record all phone calls and I will check the recording and get back to You". No one did so I called again, No reference to the recording and they took off the charge but, would not refund the months they charged me. I was told " you paid for it so that was the authorization" Keep in mind this charge was not on my paper bill. ONLY on line. After 2 months of back and forth I decide to go elsewhere closing the account on the 10th of the month. The last day of the billing cycle. I received a bill for 22.27 and was told that was for the cycle of the 20th to the 10th. WHAT? The bill reflects cycle ending on the 10th but, they say it's from the 20th to the 20th. Not reflected on any bill I have. I was on the chat on their website and from the way the conversations were going I believe I was talking to a AI. No real resolution and they kept offering to send me last month's bill, which I had in my hand. Any conversation that proved my point was responded to with the same circle of "we can listen to the recordings and get back to you" or "would you like a copy of your bill". You are going to HATE dealing with chat. Talking on the phone is a little better at least you are talking to a human. But, you'll not get anywhere. The promises to investigate go unheeded. Better off banging your head against a wall..

Buyer Beware! I have been a CC customer for several years. When it came time to replace my phone I searched CC's selection. Most were sold out. I was left to choose between very expensive or 'third-tier', poorly reviewed lower priced phones. Ultimately I was not happy with my choice and so began the saga of trying to return the phone. Trying to find the "100% Risk Free" return policy was like an easter egg hunt that yielded no easter eggs. All I could find was vague, ambiguous and misleading advertising. Calling Customer Service was equally fruitless. I was on hold the first time for 45 minutes before I gave up, 32 minutes the second time and after 40 minutes the third time, finally reached an actual customer person rep. Who basically informed me that the phone was mine whether I liked or not. Trying to understand this involved a great deal of double talk so I will cut to the chase. If you are considering doing business with CC go to their website, scroll down to the bottom grey area where no one ever goes and in the string of text that says " CAREERS - PRESS - PRIVACY & SECURITY - TERMS & CONDITIONS click on "TERMS & CONDITIONS". It is a 30 page document, but heck, you have nothing better to do but read a 30 page document before buying a phone! Hint: it is searchable, so you can hold down the Control key and hit F and get a tiny field at the bottom of the screen where you can type in "100% Risk Free" and it will take you the paragraph that explains what THEY mean by "100% Risk Free". I warn you READ CAREFULLY - this paragraph is minefield. NEW CUSTOMERS have 30 days FROM ACTIVATION OF YOUR SERVICE to return your phone BUT you will be charged for any usage. However, EXISTING CUSTOMERS are subject to a 14 day return period. Period. You already have service so there is no such thing as 'from the date of activation of your service' because your SERVICE, not your PHONE, are already activated. In either case, if you manage to get this far and a little further into exactly how and where to return your phone, you better not leave a fingerprint on it or it will be considered used and you will not get a refund. Good luck. I hope this is helpful

Customer service has gone downhill dramatically in the last few years. I just purchased a new phone thru them. I told the rep I wanted to order a new charger because the one I currently have might not fit. What she sent me was a cord--nothing more. No way to plug the cord into the wall. I had to make one phone call to find out I didn't have what I needed, and I had to order it myself through Amazon. Then I read instructions that tell me to insert a sim card, but no sim card was included. I have to call again to find out there is NO physical sim card, it has an e-sim, but nobody sent me the link to the QR code to activate that. So then they have to send that out. I call again to complain about how this was handled, and I get a rude SOB on the phone who talks down to me and tells me it's written on the box that there is no charger AS BIG AS LIFE. Guess what, you moron? I don't need to read it when I open the box, I NEED TO KNOW IN ADVANCE THAT I HAVE TO ORDER IT. Finally, I call to register a complaint about all of this mess, and I get a supervisor who insists that the person who set up my order told me what I needed to know. Excuse me, NO, SHE DID NOT. She never told me that she was sending ONLY a cord, and not the piece it's inserted into it that plugs into the wall in order to actually charge your phone. The supervisor also spoke down to me, as if I was supposed to automatically understand what her employees were saying even tho I have no idea what their verbiage means. She then made it even worse by telling me she can send me a different phone that has what I need. Umm, hey, dum dum, I have been telling you all along that I already ordered the charging pieces from Amazon, NOW THAT I KNOW I NEED THEM. If you fools had told me that to begin with, I could have placed the order immediately as soon as my phone was ordered. I told her that all she accomplished was upsetting me more, and now I'm going to call around and get pricing from other carriers. GOODBYE!

I noticed in May of 2022 how bad and rude and un-knowledge Consumers customers service have become!

I went to Consumer Cellular to switch my service to that carrier. I told the cellular representative that I was willing to buy 2 new sim cards, but if they were going to sell me new phones, I did not want that. The rep assured me that they wouldn't do that. After 4 and a half hours of trying to get me on line and speaking on a three way call with the rep, a supervisor from cellular and a rep from verizon to make sure network and phone devices were unlocked, verizon hung up and now it's the cellular rep talking to the celluar supervisor on the phone. At that point the supervisor from cellular told the rep your guest has to buy 2 new phones. At that point I said forget about it, reimburse me for the sims and let me go. After reimbursement for the sims cards, I had no incoming or outgoing calls nor did I have my old cell number. He said the best thing to do is to go home on your computer and call cellular. How could I if I don't have phone access? At that poinit I had to call Bethlehem police to get involved. Incident number PA2023-*******. All I received was a shrug of the shoulders of the rep when I said I had no service. I am a senior citizen that is still very active in my community and about. My mission now is to tell of my experience with consumer cellular and not just to one person - to crowds, gatherings, church dinners, bingo, and supermarket cashiers that I am friendly with. I will be consumer cellular's worst form of advertisement to let the masses know of this treatment and with a smile at the end is enough to fuel my energy. Beware of a scam ripoff called consumer cellular. I have also reported this incident to the Better Business Bureau. Losing my phone number of 20 plus years and having to call numerous people and doctors to let them know my new number was not worth the minimal savings to switch carriers. I am still in the process of this notification. God bless Verizon and it's professional workers.

They used to be good; now it is really, really terrible.

Looking to switch my service ASAP.

After receiving our latest bill from Verizon with a large price increase, we decided to switch our cellular service to Consumer Cellular. They had nice commercials and promoted their low-cost service for senior citizens. Unfortunately, the switch was not as simple as we expected.
Consumer Cellular is supported by a US based customer service organization, and the majority of them had no idea what they were doing. They attempt to provide customers with customer service and technical support using a manual which was not easy to follow. What I kept hearing from them were excuses why our phones were not working instead of providing us with solutions.
Anyhow, our switch to Consumer Cellular was a painful experience, and if we had to do it once again, we would not repeat the same mistake.
Our problem started with the SIM cards Consumer Cellular provided us to support our switch from Verizon. Unfortunately, one of the SIM cards they mailed to us was bad. The technical support person in our local Target store was helpless. He was an independent contractor with limited technical knowledge and limited commitment/ability to solve our issues. He was being treated very poorly by his management and it reflected in his attitude toward us as Consumer Cellular customers. He managed to install the SIM cards provided to us by Consumer Cellular but could not overcome the incompetency of the Consumer Cellular representatives with whom he was speaking on the phone. When something didn't work the generic solution provided by the Consumer Cellular representative was to Change a SIM card. We ended up with two useless cell phones with no ability to receive phone calls or send/receive text messages.
After changing a few SIM cards with no real solution to our ongoing operational issues, and after wiping one of our phones clean by one of the Consumer Cellular contractors, my wife ended up in the Apple store. A very efficient associate referred her back to the Verizon store (to pay our outstanding bill). The associate at Verizon was familiar with this issue and told her the problem was with Consumer Cellular. The ports for our two cell phones were not setup correctly. When my wife called Consumer Cellular, her call was transferred to the right level, who apologized profusely and took care of the issue right away. Both our phones were back to normal that evening.