WHERE YOU AT? GET BOOST-ED (PRE-PAID NEXTEL)
Written: Jun 17 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Local Coverage: |
 |
|
| Plan Flexibility: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
|
|
|
Pros: Low cost if you use it only as an emergency phone or are nearly mute
Cons: add on services make it the most expensive cell phone option available.
The Bottom Line: Avoid if at all possible; over a 6 month or longer period a conventional plan is MUCH cheaper.
|
|
|
| sloopiek's Full Review: General Reviews of Nextel Customer Service |
My 15 year old son was infatuated with a particular brand of cell phone which was available from Boost Mobile, the pre-paid cellular division of Nextel. They seem to market predominantly to inner city minority groups (see Boost television ads), but my son liked this particular phone, and the idea of a pay as you go plan for a kid who doesn't talk much seemed appealing.
First, to see if the plan would work for us, I bought a used cheapo phone on eBay that was already set up (activated) for use on the Boost network; about a month later I bought him the model he wanted and had his phone number switched to the new phone; meanwhile, I took over the old phone and passed my phone on to my daughter, who can talk endlessly (Boost would be WAY too expensive for her).
I immediately did not care for the phone I was using, and the need to enter the area code even for local phone calls. The price was right, though, since I only use the phone a couple times a week and would probably only spend $10 a month.
My son was very happy with his nice flip phone, with fancy flashing lights and downloaded songs for ringtones, etc. He signed up for Boost extras, like being able to check sports scores in real time, and using the phone as a walkie talkie (expensive). It turned out to be not such an economical deal, but I thought I'd give it a try until my wife's Cellular One plan expired, then I'd shop around and we'd all go in on a 4 phone family plan somewhere.
In February I purchased 2 $50 re-boost cards and a $20 card all on eBay, and added these credits to his account.
The deal with Boost is that you must re-boost (i.e. add money) to your account at a minimum of every 90 days, or they will consider your account inactive and expunge any credits from your phone. To use your phone after they wipe out your credits, you have 60 additional days to buy more credits, or they close your account.
After adding the money in February, I thought that would be sufficient to get my son through the 90 day period ending in mid May of this year. Imagine my surprise when he came to me in mid April and said his phone was "dead". I didn't suspect anything was wrong with his account, but was told when I called Boost "customer care" on April 30th that his account had been zeroed out to the tune of $59 due to inactivity;
they claimed that it had been over 90 days since I had "re-boosted". I gave the rep the exact dates in February on which I had added to the account, and I was told that their people who perform audits on these things would look into it and I would receive an e-mail within a week.
I added $20 to get the account going again so that my son would have his phone, fully expecting that their investigation would end with reinstatement of his credits.
Well, I didn't follow up when I did not receive an e-mail; and my son basically reduced his phone use dramatically at the same time. I didn't even think about it until my son came up to me with a "Dad I need money look" in early June, and told me that the account was down to under $3 and needed another re-boost. It then occurred to me that there had been no action on the credits that had been "boosted by Boost", so I called "customer care"...this time I took names, and notes, and gave them dates, dollar amounts, etc., but was thrown a curve when the rep said that they couldn't go back as far as February unless I could provide them with the code number that I had used to re-boost the account. Obviously, you don't keep a card with a number on it once the credits have been successfully placed on your account, so they had me there. After two long sessions of being on hold, I was told that they were denying my request to have the $59 credited back to my account, and that basically it was my fault that I had waited so long to get back to them (despite the fact that I had never been notified that I needed to give them more information).
Boost has a really slick, hip, and cool image, but "customer care" is absolutely laughable...they intend only to ring every last dime out of the hip hop generation, and the parents who are paying for it all.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 200
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
sloopiek
|
|
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.