cricket communications sold me a defunct hotspot device marion Illinois

This is a long rant but it's true.

I hate Cricket, which means I hate ATT also but I always hated ATT. I had them for wifi Internet in Chicago for 19 years and for 19 years. I never had the data I paid for. I always had a weak signal, I always had buffering and totally dropped from the Internet on a regular basis.

When I did find the time to bother to call and complain they always found a problem outside my house in the back where the bundles of wires dangled from the poles and if I ever asked the tech what the problem was, they always blamed squirrels. Right.

In September I moved from Chicago to a very small town in Southern Illinois, thank God. Out here wifi is very spotty and I was prepared for this and knew it would be about 2 to 3 months to have them come out and install fiber optic cable. I made the mistake of buying Cricket's mobile hot spot for my home internet. I did not expect it to be great. I had read most of these hotspots have issues. 

But I knew I needed something for a couple of months until my cable was installed. I was supposed to get 10 gigs per month and had the option of purchasing more data if needed. I ran out of data within my first 24 hours and I found that really strange. I used the net for emails, text and calls, and also streamed about 3 hours of TV each night but this does not equate to 10 gigs of data.

I called Cricket customer service the third morning when I had 0 data and this began a roller coaster, nightmare and for this I am quitting Cricket altogether including my phone after having their cell plan since 2016. I got different answers and suggestions from their phone reps and completely different info at the store level. Many times I just hung up and called back because the rep didn't have a clue.

After many calls the phone rep told me the hostpot is automatically linking to my cell phone and to be sure to turn it off because this was sucking up my data. I did that and my data would, again, be eaten up almost immediately. I called back and was then told by a different rep to turn off the hostpot while I sleep or not use it because it must be running itself in the bakground. I did this.

What I found was that after turning off the hotspot, it would turn itself back on in 30 seconds or so, and this was what was actually causing my data to dissappear. The only way I could preserve my data was to undo the back and pull out the battery and then it had no way of turning itself back on. Nice.

Well, this took a few weeks to figure out so I visit the store and they simply stated without any care or empathy: "you didn't purchase the extended warranty and it's been over two weeks so you're on your own."  If I was going to use the hotspot indefinitely, I would have definitely purchased the extended warranty but I really thought that since I only needed an quick internet provider for no more than three months, the Cricket hotspot should be able to suffice. I assumed Cricket sold decent stuff that actually works. I had cell phone experience with them and their versions of cell phones are decent for the price point.

Instead The hotspot was defunct from the get go and if it was refurbished they did a great job of making it look brand new. BTW every time I needed to add data they would accept my money immediately wether through the app or on the phone but then I got connected to a customer service rep who would put me on and off hold and mumble a bunch of stuff, constantly thanking me for my patience while they finished processing my payment. Meanwhile I'm staring at their confirmation that my payment was accepted.

They said all these extra steps was to protect my account bla bla bla. I expected buffering and drops but I thought their device would work and that they would take care of a customer at the store level. Instead, they stuck to their guns and left me in the dust. All I asked for was for a new hostpot. I never even asked for a refund. And it was such a tacky, nasty experience that has left such a bad taste in my mouth that

I don't care that I lost 79.99 on a piece of defunct crap. I was going to go to the BBB but I called my bank to dispute the charge, got my money back and will happily end my relationship with Cricket (and ATT by proxy) forever. They're horrible at the most basic level. Good riddance. You won't go there if you're smart and read this entire rant; and it was therapeutic writing it.