FreedomPop is in my opinion a ridiculous SCAM company, they offer you a deal, you go into an annual contract, then after 3 month, they change the pricing and if you ask them to refund what you paid (even just prorated) they literally rip you off!

STAY AWAY!

It's already the 2'nd time in less than a year, that they changed my offer, 1'st I started with the FREE plan, but once my friends already saved my number, they sent me an email that they are "upgrading" their service and switching over all their customers to a sister company, once the migration was done, I was forced to chose a Pricy plan... so I realized you get what you pay for... so I started over again I opened a new account with FreedomPop (oh, forgot? Didn't they merge with a sister company?!?!?, oh guess just for those free customers, who they subscribed as a marketing target!), but now I made sure to take a PAID plan, I took an ANUAL PREPAID plan, hoping its worth paying in full in advance so they can't cheat on me again, unfortunately this did not work with a company that is out to SCAM! Less than 3 month into my (fully paid in advance plan!) I got a new Sim in my mail with instructions saying, WE ARE UPGRADING OUR SERVICES, BLA BLA BLA, go to our website and activate your new sim... when I did so (without any choice, per their instructions that otherwise my service will stop working) it asked me to choose a plan! Sure enough it was highly priced!, so I tried messaging them (as you know they got no Phone support!), they advised me that if I want they can reimburse me or I'll have to choose from the new plans... SCAM!, after trying to argue that this was a full year plan and i'm still under contract, (but when I realize that I can't win with someone laughing at me somewhere in China or russia...) I decided time has come to leave this crazy company so I asked them to please refund me, I emailed them the receipts of what I paid and the prorated calculation of what they owe me, but sure enough they came back saying we can only refund you this and this amount, please let us know how to proceed! I had no choice I took back whatever they offered and learned the price of A SCAM!

I write it here so you protect yourself!
I switched to TELLO, I'm paying $0.35 more a month, but I'm getting live customer support, and a real company with service as promised!

Don't waste your time, don't be aggravated by a scamming company!

Freedompop is a Scam and Ripoff! I bought the free SIM card that specifically States free monthly service only. It's usually $4.99 at Best Buy. I got it for $0.99 on Black Friday 2019. They charged my debit account I think 7 times but kept saying error can't go through and would not allow me to do the free account which is what I paid for with the SIM specifically stating free service monthly only with option to upgrade.

In fact they force you into the free trial and $20 to downgrade and $5.99 to get any kind of Live help which they automatically charge to your credit card or they don't even pick up.

Otherwise your option is to go to the self support page which by the way there's no live support there's no chat and there's no support whatsoever from actual FreedomPop sales or employees whatsoever Zippo zero NADA none. They're supposed support page has two options which are: number one everybody complains about how much they hate freedompop and got ripoed off and service sux... customers with zero experience to some try to help each other. What a sick joke. Option two. People that have been on there a long time iving and receiving complaints and helping other unfortunate people with FreedomPop are moved up in status as helpers but do not work for FreedomPop and do not have any training. There's no real help... you're screwed.

If you want to downgrade even though you just signed up a second ago literally it's an automatic $20 charge to your credit card!

They state it takes up to three hours for them to supposedy figure out if you've made any calls or sent out any text or used any data. It's impossible to use $20 in a matter of seconds or days. It took me three tries by phone and three tries online before finally my account was canceled. Online when I tried signing up there was an option to remove the free trials and just be charged a $0.99 activation fee which is BS because then site forces the 99 cent surprise activation fee but refuses tonlet you finish activation. Holds your bank money but says SORRY... ERROR... CALL FREEDOMPOP. I already paid $0.99 for this sim and ithere was not supposed to be an activation fee it's not stated on sim package or online until AFTER THEY GET YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO.

This is another act of fraud. The $20 downgrade fee from the forest upgrade when you try to sign up by phone is also fraud because they have to put up front in bold writing all charges on the device, on packaging, online, at cetera and on their website! Not legal to surprise you at the end with secret charges! When you realize it's a piece of crap then try to force you into a $20 downgrade fee on a free item.

I'm calling my bank tomorrow since they're closed now and having the 99 Cents removed. I'm also going to completely block FreedomPop from ever charging my card again. It also will not allow you to remove your credit card account info from their website even if you delete all cookies and it will not allow you to actually change your credit card info to something that has less money so they can steal from you. I'm returning the three SIM cards that I bought which includes the one that I never used it all and did not set up and already canceled back to BestBuy and I'm going to make sure they take every one of those things off the shelf why put up a sign with a warning saying buyer beware and why. I am also going to be calling consumer affairs and every other number for help that I can because I'm going to shut these people down the way I actually down BellSouth in Palm Beach County when they were doing illegal slam charges on my account and singular also noticed they're gone I'm the one that turned them in I was the first one to turn them in.

I have less than zero tolerance for scam artists and these people are the worst as far as phone companies go. Do not buy anything from them you will be sorry and you will be ripped off!

3 years ago September 2016 eioboard the previous Global set for 99 cents it didn't even work for the first three days and then they stopped the service and stole my money. When I call to complain they used to have just crappy life service and they had the nerve to pick on me cuz after all this only $0.99 and I said you stole my $0.99 and God knows how many other thousands of people or more you stole from for a device that didn't work. The global Sim hasn't worked since not even with the free app from Google Play. I also had to stop about 7 charges to my other credit card with just a few dollars that I keep in it because they kept putting $0.90 on hold as a test to see if my credit card was legit but then telling me online that it was an error and couldn't put it through and they can pie lady sings up and I had to call and get my money back. FreedomPop needs to be shut down by the FTC that's the Florida Trade Commission which is in charge of phone companies so feel free to call with your complaints to them Consumer Affairs and whatever other numbers you can find these people need to be stopped.

I cannot say enough bad things about FreedomPop. I've never run across a more incompetent company. I'll give a brief timeline of events.

12/21 - I order a mobile hotspot for an event I have to service on 12/29. For shipping, I order a 1-2 day rush.

12/27 - I receive an email saying the device was shipped that day. It is scheduled to be delivered on 1/9! That's 19 days after I ordered it.

12/27 - I call FreedomPop and order a 2nd hotspot overnight. They say it will be shipped on 12/28 and delivered on 12/29.

12/31 - It's two days after my event. I receive the device ordered on 12/27. It was shipped on 12/29 and was shipped via 2-day Priority, not overnight. The device is completely dead.

1/8 - I receive the device ordered on 12/21. No matter how much I charge it, the battery meter shows 0%. The battery completely loses its charge within a week.

1/14 - I've been sick and was hoping to call FreedomPop earlier, but I didn't have the energy. I spend 55 minutes on the phone with a rep. I want everything refunded. I'm told for the 12/21 hotspot, I will be refunded for the device when it's returned and for shipping less $7. They don't want to give me a full refund even though the device was delivered 16 days late and wasn't functioning properly. For the 12/27 hotspot, I will be refunded the cost of the device but not the $25.99 I paid for overnight shipping. This is despite receiving a completely dead device that arrived 2 days late. I was also charged $37.98 for service today. They said I can't be refunded that because there's a 14-day window after service starts to request a refund. They said service started on 12/29. That's the day I should have received my 12/27 device. However, I didn't receive it until 12/31, which is 14 days ago, within the window to be refunded. Moreover, the device I received on 12/31 was dead.

Fortunately, before my event I had enough sense to realize there was a good chance FreedomPop wouldn't deliver on their promises. I scheduled an expensive backup solution that worked. Hopefully my credit card company has enough sense to reverse the charges FreedomPop doesn't refund.

They say freedom has a price. In this case "freedom" cost me hours of valuable time, about $70 in non-refunded charges, and the desire to drive my head through a wall. That's all I'm left with.

At this point, after corresponding with FreedomPop's Facebook support team, I am somewhat placated. But not yet 100% happy. Primarily because I'm still not getting the "100% FREE High Speed Wireless Internet" that I was promised when I originally accepted this offer from FreedomPop. Even after jumping through all the hoops and dealing with all the unwelcome surprises they placed before me, I've still got a "Recurring Bill Amount" of US$0.51 on my account.

And what were all these hoops and unwelcome surprises? Let's take a look:

1. First of all, the initial 2-week trial period of their premium service(s) is a joke. The 2 weeks start right when you order the service. But then it takes a week to receive the Netgear Unite Mobile Hotspot and actually USE the service. So, in reality, you only have ONE week in which to try the premium service AND downgrade your account to avoid being charged the regular monthly charge(s). I can see how people might be confused by this and end up getting charged. Not cool.

2. Anyway, after accepting the initial signup offer and having $9.99 charged to my credit card, the first unwelcome surprise was being notified that ANOTHER $20.00 would need to to be charged to my credit card for something called a "Top-Up Credit". Supposedly - as they say in their response - this charge was necessary in order "to help avoid unexpected charges as a result of data usage beyond their plan's allotment during our data reporting delay". I was somewhat prepared for a charge like this, as research indicated that LOTS of other new customers were unpleasantly surprised by it. However, I was not prepared for it to be $20, as most of the previous complaints from other people were about charges of $5-10.

Also, as you'll notice in their response, they say, "If a customer does not use any data beyond their overage, the $20 credit will remain on the account." Since all I want is a basic account with minimal bandwidth for emergency purposes only, I will NEVER use that $20 "credit". So basically, it amounts another $20 added to the initial $9.99, for a total initial signup fee of $29.99 NOT $9.99 as they originally promised. Besides, if any of these "unexpected charges as a result of data usage beyond their plan's allotment during our data reporting delay" DID occur, they've already got my credit card number.

3. After resigning myself to that surprise charge, I endeavored to downgrade my account ASAP so they wouldn't have any other reasons to charge my credit card (or so I thought). I followed the required steps in my online account and successfully downgraded my service from the trial period of their premium services to the "free" account (or so I thought). Just when I hoped I was done and everything was finally set up to be a "free" account, I checked the billing page of my account. And for some unknown reason, there was STILL an $8.50 "recurring bill amount" noted there!

4. At this point, I contacted FreedomPop support via their Facebook page. They eventually got back to me and explained that this $8.50 was still there because I hadn't deactivated their FreedomPop Premier add-on service. Excuse me? Why wasn't this deactivated when I went through the prescribed steps to downgrade? Why wasn't their ANY mention of this service still being active and needing to be deactivated during the downgrade process? I wonder how many people think they've downgraded only to find this extra service charged on their credit card? Lots, judging from all the complaints I found online. Nevertheless, I went ahead jumped through that hoop as well and deactivated that service. Again, I hoped I was done hassling with this nonsense. But then I checked my account billing page again and there was STILL a "recurring bill amount" of 51 cents per month!

5. Back to their Facebook support team I went, to find out what THIS charge was all about. A while later, they explained that "This $0.51 charge belongs to FreedomPop Recovery Fee, as with all major carriers, we've added a nominal administrative fee to your monthly bill to recover and help defray costs incurred for increasing customer support services, offset higher payment processing fees, and other expenses related to fraudulent usage monitoring on our networks. Your recurring bill has been updated to include required taxes and regulatory fees as mandated by local, state and federal agencies. Please note these will be identified as Regulatory and Recovery Fees on future billing statements."

I fail to see how any of those "costs" that they're supposedly trying to defray would apply to a "free" account. But OK, whatever. I can live with that. Government always has to get their piece of the action even when there isn't any action. But again, it might have been considerate to WARN customers about this, before they commit to placing an order. Also, it's very deceptive to advertise "100% FREE High Speed Wireless Internet" when you KNOW these charges are going to apply, regardless.

6. Since it looked like I was stuck with this 51-cent monthly charge on my supposedly "free" account, I decided to change the credit card they had on file (as I didn't want the original one to have this stupid 51-cent charge every month). After I successfully jumped through THAT hoop, a window popped up and said that my new credit card would have some kind of $20 fee added to it just to make sure it had enough credit available to handle the 51-cent charge every month. The window promised that this $20 fee wouldn't actually be charged to my credit card. But as you can imagine by this time, I was highly suspicious to say the least.

7. Finally, I contacted FreedomPop's Facebook support team one more time. I asked them if this 51-cent charge could be deducted from $20.00 "Top-Up Credit" that I already had. Not surprisingly, they said no. It had to be charged to my credit card for some unknown reason. So again, this $20.00 is just lost. It won't be used the way they say it should and it can't be used the way I would prefer.

No doubt there's more, but those 7 points are all I can think of at the moment. And yes, I'm sure all of these pesky little details are squirreled away in their microscopic fine print somewhere. But absolutely NONE of the above unpleasant surprises were made crystal clear up-front. It was a major hassle having to clear up all of the misunderstandings due to lack of information provided beforehand.

Bottom line: if this company was serious about customer service and they genuinely desired to make me somewhat happier after all this, it would be incredibly easy. All they would have to do is one of the following:

A. Refund that $20.00 "Top-Up Credit" (that will never be used).

Or...

B. Subtract the 51-cent recurring bill from this $20.00 "Top-Up Credit" INSTEAD of charging my credit card every month.

Neither of these options will cost them one thin dime. If they can't even manage simple solutions like these, I'll have to assume their negative reputation is truly deserved.

First I have been very patient and understand with this company for about 2.5 years now. I agree they have low prices but that comes with many headaches and stress... but when it's down to them being liars and thieves, it's the last straw.

Here is the long story, but covers alot:

In mid 2016 they had bundle of a used phone and 1 year of unlimited text/talk, 1 gb data for about $250. Steep but I needed a phone and plan. I paid $10 to port my number over and did not work, I was promised a refund for that and never got it. So lost of $10 and lied to. Upon using the device, I found out I cannot use group text/chat with my family. Then I had to cough up another $20 for this service by FP. I barely use the phone but it's hit and miss with both phone calls and texts. The very next year before I can switch I already got charged, they do this a month beforehand to make sure you are stuck. Well, they overcharged me by $20. They charged me twice for group texting and took nearly a week for them to refund me after threat of chargeback.

A few months gone by and my son broke the phone. I asked them what phone I can get to continue using their service because my family donated an unlocked phone to me. They told me I have to go to their shop and buy one that said CDMA on it. The one I got was GMS and wont work. I could not afford their crazy prices so I waited a bit more.

Then they had a prepaid plan the same as mine for way, way cheaper at $50 so I got one and a preown unlock phone to use this time. Activation and again paid extra $20 for group texting. However I was told after a year I cannot use the card and will have to buy a more expensive one that they have. Note when I bought this off of Best Buy, it said it can be renew for the same rate... one said this while their ticket reps said not true. After a good dozens of messages and a claim with the BBB, their supervisor said it can be renew for the same price. This was important because I need to port the number over and cancel the other account I have with them before they charge me hundreds again.

Service has been crappy to be honest, missing calls and but at least the texts are fine. A few months ago, I keep getting a 2mb data usage out of nowhere but
Never affected me because I don't use up any data to begin with. Less
Than a week ago they had a update to their messaging app and I did that.
Right away I got message I used near my max, first time ever but still
Under the 1gb. This was at the end of my last cycle. Then on Nov 26 I
Went out and the first thing I got was I used all my data and need to
Top off. I wasn't able to use my phone at all. I came home and check my
Usage online and saw they drained my entire 1gb for the month in less
Than 50 mins (35 mins to be exact, from 7:15 - 7:50 pm)on Nov 24 at around 7ish pm. I as at home on wifi with
Their data turned off as usual. I checked my phone and saw it was
Running in the background when I turned of data already. Wow, I checked
The months before and notice each month my data usage keep going up and
Used all by their app. I have on option for my phone to switch to wifi
At home or anywhere that has it and manually check each time for more
Than 2+ years with them so I know for sure. My phone showed them running
In the backgound on their own. So all my month's data gone 50min on the
First day of cycle and I no longer able to use my phone. I called but
Not allow to speak to them unless I paid a monthly fee. Either I top
Off, which mean keep paying $20 each time just to having them drained
Data within mins, even when you are not using your phones. The only app
That used all this was their app. I have other running which uses less
Than a few megs each for the whole cycle. Also, beware if you add your
Cc to your account, they will charge you out of nowhere.

Freedom Pop proves that you CAN go wrong with a "free" service
Here is my list of grievances with Freedom Pop, please read before you try their service!

TLDR: You can't answer your calls, they hold your voicemail hostage, they hijack your phone number if you port it to them, and their customer service ignores you.

1) the Alcatel phone they bundle with their service is so slow and laggy that I often could not get the screen to load in time to answer calls, so I would miss the calls
2) there is no basic voicemail service, the visual voicemail is the only option to retrieve messages, and it is behind a paywall. Essentially, they hold your voicemail hostage and send you texts to let you know that you have a message that you cannot access without paying for it
3) When I actually answer the calls in time, I do not actually get connected more than half of the time. The line is silent for a while, then the call drops.
4) IMPORTANT: They will hijack your ported number. You cannot port your number from Freedom Pop to other common carriers. When I tried to port my number to Cricket, they did not show it as a valid, portable number. My wife and I both had Verizon phones before I tried Freedom Pop. I ported my Verizon number to Freedom Pop, then when their service proved impossible to use, my wife and I both decided to switch to Cricket; her Verizon number ported fine, my Freedom Pop number would not.
5) Customer service is also behind the paywall. They allow you to send emails for free, but as far as I could tell, they didn't actually care when I sent my complaints. I sent several in my frustration, trying to give them time to fix things so that I could get my number ported to Cricket, but although I got a message telling me that they have escalated my issue, I have not heard from them for two weeks.

Please do NOT waste your time and money trying Freedom Pop! They are THE WORST!
If you choose to ignore that warning, at least don't port your phone number over, you will never see it again!

I have been using FreedomPop phone SIM service, on Sprint network and AT&T, for over 2 years as an economical way to have cell service for my two children for communication with their parents. I can now say with confidence, it was not worth the hassles I have gone through and I likely paid more in the end than using a major carrier. I honestly don't have the time to go through the numerous, almost made me go postal, moments I have had with FreedomPop service, but I will just summarize some of the hassles I have had with them.

-You can not get phone support unless you pay extra. Amazingly, there is no exception to this rule... ever. Even if you are getting charged incorrectly, which I have been.

-The only group you can talk to consistently is sales, of course. I just talked to "Ryan" for example, who sounded a lot more like an Aditya or Ashish, and when I asked for billing support for invalid charges, he would not help me and literally hung up on me while I was calmly explaining to him that their automated support system will not let me through to billing unless I agree to pay for support service. I pay about $35 on average per phone a month, and an extra $26.45 mystery fee, and I have to pay more for call support to know why I'm getting charged the extra $26.45.

-When I added a second sim card for phone back in Aug, I was told my sales that I could port over a Sprint SIM phone number to an AT&T phone. I would just need to call support to port over the number once I had the SIMs. Once I got the SIM cards, I had to pay additional for phone support to talk to someone to try and get the number transferred. Yes, I had to pay for service to get a phone to work with the correct number that sales said it could. The first support person I talked to said I absolutely, without any doubt in her mind, could not transfer the number over. She would not escalate my call either. Eventually, with a lot of calls, I talked to someone at higher level in support that fixed the issue in about 1 minute.

-In Feb of this year my charges mysteriously jumped up about $10 per SIM per month. No explanation given. Again, I can pay extra for support to talk to someone to find out why.

-The phones stopped working a couple months ago for no reason. Again, I had to pay for support to find out why. They told me some ridiculous thing that their account managing system has a expiration period on the plans, even if I'm still paying for service. I have to email them when this happens so they can reset the expiration timer/date?!?!?!? As I think about this again now, I am just amazed by this. I have to remind them to reset a timer on my account, after my phones stop working.

-If the support issues were not enough, these phones require you to use an APP to make calls and to text. You are not using the phones standard features. The APP does link to the iPhone contacts, so you don't have to maintain separate contact lists. The APP is not full featured and is sometimes unstable.

-My daughter has had numerous times when she tried to make calls, or we tried to call her, and the call did not work. This negates the idea of just using these for important calls as I had originally intended.

I purchased $0.99 SIM card one month FREE trail on November 30th 2017. Since that date I was able to use FP only few days, few days in 2.5 months! One week I was waiting for shipped SIM card, two weeks to unlock my cell phone because MetroPCS phone was not working as promised with installed FP SIM (probably it is my problem, not FP), last week I finally was able to setup everything and made mobile voice calls just before trail expiration. I downgraded my plan to Basic. Immediately I was charged $10. I did not know that there are two things to deal with - plan and service. I canceled my payment method and refunded $10, but FP attempted $26.94 service charge that did not get through. My account was suspended. It took me over one month submitting Support Tickets to figure out what is going on and how to re-activate FREE service. I changed payment method and was immediately charged $26.94 on new credit card.
I disputed the charge. Next day my account was canceled. Well, all I wanted is to try the advertised FREE Basic service. What did I get? No service and definitely not free.
FP trail was a disaster. Always some kind of problems, not working, suspended, canceled...
- Dont even try FP for your main cell phone;
- There is no live customer service unless you pay $6 a month. Any troubleshooting will take you much longer. You will have to read many forum posts to troubleshoot and learn how things work;
- Support Ticket people do not read your post. You will get auto reply of facts that you already know. They do not help at all;
- Your service will be cut off immediately with no warning or grace period if any danger to the "money link";
- Set Automatic top up off and never touch it again! If you turn it on it will cost you additional $5 to turn off again;
- Use spare credit card as payment method because you will have to dispute FP charges and it simpler than deal with PayPal;
- The advertisement of FREE is false. There is absolutely nothing for free at FP. The business model is to get your credit card and charge it all sorts of fees for any your move, providing no service in first place. The amount of all charges will be more than you simply buy $10-$20 a month basic plan from many other MVNOs. (About same time I purchased prepaid MintSIM less than $10/m and it works just fine, hassle free);
- FP does not want your business. FP wants your "money for nothing";

YOU HAVE TO PAY TO TALK TO A MANAGER. OR GET TECH HELP. See below.

Worst cellular company I've ever dealt with and I've used them all. Service would not function. I called in for help and was redirected to a "pay for support" automated system in order to talk to a live person. Considering that I havent even yet used the service, I refuse to pay to do so. I used their online ticket method. I called in 5 times in a row explaining to each that I would not pay for help for a product that hasn't functioned since day 1. Each time they directed my call to the automated system asking for money.

I used their online ticket service. The person Dalgin C. Told me information already available to me. It solved nothing. I explained my situation. He told me to pay for live support if I wanted it. I told them all I wanted was to see if their service even worked. I've been on hold for 20+ minutes waiting for a manager only to be prompted to pay in order to talk to someone.

I told them that if this isnt resolved, then I'm going to cancel but admitted that if customer support provided me a solution to the issue that i wouldnt. They ceased to respond to me.

This company is simply picking up scraps from the larger carriers that they lease from. They don't care if you stay or go.

I'm a big believer in quality products/services, or at the very least good customer service. This company has neither. Go elsewhere.

Here is a list of other companies that might not be as terrible. Whatever you do, don't start with freedompop.

MintSIM
RepublicWireless
Metropcs
ProjectFi
U.S. Cellular
H20 Wireless
Ultra mobile
Total wireless
Net10
PAge Plus
Selectel
Simple Mobile
Straight talk
U.S. Mobile
Boost Mobile
Cricket Wireless

It provide Free Wireless Internet and 4G Mobile Broadband ISP.