Maybe a phone for a teen or someone who doesn't need the service or reliability of the name brands. Otherwise - go elsewhere.

Pulled the land line and have used Cricket in the Cincinnati, Ohio market for 3 months. About a month and a half in - lost voice mail service. 1-800 customer service failed to resolve/or impossible to get through to them. Went to a "company" store. They deleted this thing and that thing from the account - and eventually got the voice mail to work - but not 100%.

Even though bill was up to date, beginning of next billing period - I discovered no voice mail, no text messaging, no incoming calls - just outgoing. This happened "over night." Again - could not get through to 1-800 Customer service.

Called a dealer - who contacted Cricket via his dealer line. Took a couple of resets/reprogramming.

Dealer subsequently explained that "company store" deleted various services but did not restore them. I will credit the dealer for getting me a service credit for the lost services.

And, Cricket advertises *611 as a short cut to get customer service (rather than dialing 1-800 service number.) This feature doesn't work in Cincinnati. I confirmed that with the helpful dealer. I wrote Cricket and they gave the usual dribble about reprogramming phone by dialing *228. Of course, I wrote them back and said...check with your dealers - the problem has been reported multiple times.

Overall, I think they have expanded to rapidly in certain markets, and training, and consistency are lacking. Great competitive idea - but by the time they work out their training and network bugs - it might be the competitive kiss of death for them. Great idea - poor execution.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 56