
A Simple Guide To Getting Totally FREE
Smartphone Service
with the 99 cent FreedomPop (AT&T) LTE sim
kit 2018
The FreedomPop
free plan is OVER
JANUARY 2021
January 2021 - The FreedomPop free plan reviewed in
the guide has ended. Existing customers are being notified that
the service is being terminated and we need to "upgrade" to the new
FreedomPop "Freemium" plan before January 31, 2021. The new "Freemium"
plan offers 10 minutes, 10 texts, and 25mb of data per month.
I would never sign up for this new "Freemium"
plan. The small amount of minutes and data are basically
useless. If you go over 10 texts or minutes (even if they are wrong
numbers or spam texts), you are automatically charged $2 plus tax
for 100 more minutes/text (which expire at the end of the cycle). More
importantly, if you go over 25mb of data, you are automatically
charged $8 plus tax and are switched to their $8 per month
50/50/500mb plan. Freedompop was an interesting service in the past
(if you used my guide and knew how to play their game), but I do not
recommend it anymore and strongly advise you avoid Freedompop now.
I am not aware of any remaining free cell phone
service plans, but there are cheap service plans. I am currently using
Tello Mobile for all four of my family members, and we are extremely
pleased with the price and the service. If you are looking for cheap but
good cellular service, and you have good T-Mobile coverage where you
live, I highly recommend that you consider
Tello Mobile. Tello has plans
starting at $5 per month. They also have
great customer service. Although Tello service isn't free like
FreedomPop was (if you knew how to play all the FreedomPop "games"
explained below), Tello service is much better. You get a real phone
number and simple, trouble-free service for a very reasonable price.
Tello Mobile plans start at $5/month!
Read my Tello Mobile
review here.
|
* * * * *
November 13, 2019 update: I am no longer recommending FreedomPop,
although I will leave this review in place for people who have
questions or who find the information below helpful. I still have
several FreedomPop GSM sims that I am still using to get free service
with FreedomPop. I will continue to use FreedomPop until it stops
working or is no longer free. It is still a great deal for me and all
the other existing customers who know how to play the FreedomPop game,
but I no longer recommending that people sign up for or start the
service now. I don't think it is worth paying the start up costs when
it's unclear how much longer the free service will last, and since the
free data has been reduced to only 200mb per month (250mb with
friends).
JULY 2019 update: FreedomPop has been
purchased by
Red Pocket Mobile. Red Pocket has publicly stated that the FreedomPop
free plans will continue as is. Red Pocket says they may introduce new plans with native voice (instead of voip), though I
assume there would be a monthly charge for native non-voip voice plans. More details should
be announced at some time in the future. At this point, my FreedomPop AT&T LTE sims
still work just fine and I continue to enjoy completely free AT&T
cellular data and free talk&text using my free Google Voice number and
Hangouts.
From the
Red Pocket Mobile press release: "Red Pocket is excited to maintain the
best of FreedomPop and mix in some added wonderfulness, including live
customer service, native carrier voice, and soon service on all of the
country's major networks! Please stay tuned as we roll out many
improvements in the coming weeks. At this time, we're planning no
major plan changes, and we remain committed to FreedomPop's legacy -
including a free tier that allows you to try our service and hopefully
make you want even more of it!
We've worked over the last 8 years to bring competitive pricing to the
talk, text, and data plan market partnering with Red Pocket
accelerates that mission further. Red Pocket not only has deals with
all four carriers and the #1 ranked customer service, but they will
also be investing heavily to grow and improve the FreedomPop service
and availability.
Your current GSM Plans will not change and your existing services will
not be impacted in any way.
In the upcoming weeks and months, you will benefit from better
customer service and better products including SIMs with native voice
and SMS so you do not have to use the FreedomPop app if you don't want
to. As a valued FreedomPop customer, new upgrades will be offered
exclusively to you first." |
Last updated: August 24, 2019
I've been using FreedomPop for completely free smartphone service
for over three years. I first started with a FreedomPop Global sim in
August 2016, but changed to the much better and newer FreedomPop (AT&T)
US-only LTE sim in
January 2017. I have several FreedomPop LTE sims, several older FreedomPop Global sims, and even a FreedomPop
Sprint-based Moto E2 phone. I've written extensive reviews on all three
different Freedom services (the Global sim, the AT&T LTE sim, and the
Sprint-based phones). In my opinion, the new LTE sim provides the best service,
especially if you use it with a free Google Voice number and the Google
Hangouts app. Recently, FreedomPop has been making several changes, so rather than
trying to keep all three of my previous reviews up to date, and because I
think the new LTE sim is the best way to go, I decided to write this
(hopefully) simple "how to" guide on the best way to get free smartphone
service from FreedomPop. I highly recommend that you read and understand the
section on FreedomPop's Business Model and make sure that FreedomPop will
work for you and meet your expectations. If you don't need a lot of monthly
cellular data and
you're up for the challenge (it isn't that hard), as long as you know
what you're doing, you really can get totally FREE smartphone service
with FreedomPop.
FreedomPop has three DIFFERENT services. If you sign up of a FreedomPop
offer, make sure you know which of the three services you are signing up
for. I've tested and used all three services,
and think that the new LTE sim is the best way to go. For the record, here are
my three previous FreedomPop reviews. As of August, 2019,
FreedomPop now only offers AT&T GSM service, which I think was and is their
best service, and which is covered in this guide.
My Previous FreedomPop Reviews:
#1. FreedomPop GLOBAL GSM Sim Review
2016 (discontinued)
#2. FreedomPop Sprint-based
(CDMA) Smartphones Review 2016 (Sprint service was sold to Ting
Mobile in 2019)
#3. FreedomPop AT&T-based (GSM) LTE
Sim Review 2017 (now covered by this newer, more current guide)
* * * * *
FreedomPop latest updates...
updated August 24, 2019
August 24, 2019: FreedomPop was purchased by Red
Pocket Mobile in July, but since then nothing has really changed and the
service is still the same. My four LTE sims all still work just fine and
continue to provide completely free service.
April 24, 2019: I've received multiple reports that
FreedomPop is no longer refunding credits that are over 30 days old, even if
the credit is active. This means that the $10 credit you have to pay to
downgrade to the free plan will most like not be refunded if and when you
close your FreedomPop account. So the true cost now of starting FreedomPop
service is a penny for the sim, $10 to downgrade to the free plan, and $6.99
to turn off "auto-top-up" mode (recommended but not required). So your
upfront cost is now about $17, and you'll get 200mb (250mb with ten "FreedomPop
friends") of free AT&T data every month (plus the voip talk & text if
you want to use the FP app). I don't know if this is really worth it for
most people, especially with all the "games" you have to play with
FreedomPop (just look at the length of this guide). I'll keep
using my free FreedomPop sims as long as they are still free and still work,
but I really hesitate now to recommend FreedomPop to my friends (except
those who are as cheap as I am and who enjoy whatever challenge it takes to
get something for free).
Nov 15, 2018 PSA#1: If you use up all your monthly
data (i.e 250mb) and you have auto-top-up disabled, your data will be turned
off and you will need to contact FreedomPop at the beginning of your next
cycle to get your data turned back on. Contacting them via a direct message
on their Twitter Support (explained below) is the easiest. They will explain
that because their system allowed you to go a little bit over the data limit
before it was turned off, there is an outstanding charge they have to
remove, and then your data will work again. The system is supposed to
automatically restart your data at the beginning of the next cycle, but this
"bug" means you have to contact them to get it fixed. I think it is better
to just set a 245mb limit on your Android phone so you don't hit your data
limit. I think this is FreedomPop's way of making the free plans harder to
use, but unfortunately it seems to also be effecting paid plans (like the
$49 annual plan). So if your data gets used up and then doesn't
automatically start working at the beginning of the next cycle, contact
FreedomPop via Twitter and they will fix it.
Nov 15, 2018 PSA#2: FreedomPop is charging a new
$0.97 "regulatory fee" or "administrative fee" on some accounts that have a
paid service (like data rollover). None of my LTE sims or my FP phone
have been charged this fee (and I just had an LTE sim account renew today,
11/15/2018). As far as I know, no one with a totally free account is
seeing these fees. They are only effecting some people with a premium
service and/or data rollover service. However, if you live in San Francisco,
you may now see a $3.49 charge, but that is a $3.49 city tax which is
mandated and collected by the city of San Francisco.
September 10, 2018 update - It appears the FreedomPop Safety Mode
$6.99 service charge is no longer pro-rated at sign-up. Three readers over
the past three days have reported that FreedomPop now charges the full $6.99
when you sign up for the service (in order to disable auto-top-up), instead
of pro-rating it. I was recently able to sign up for Safety Mode service
near the end of my billing cycle (with 8 hours left) and only got charged
$0.21. I had done this multiple times, as had many readers. But it appears
this money-saving tip now no longer works, at least for now. You might want to hold off on disabling auto-top-up for now until
more reports come in, unless you are ok with paying the full $6.99.
Regardless, you should always set a data limit on your android phone, and
then you shouldn't have to worry about auto-top-up anyway. I will update my guide
with this new information as I learn more about it and as I have time.
September 4, 2018 update - Two quick new things...
First, you can use the full 250mb of data per my previous update below
and if you've disabled auto-top-up, your account will be suspended until the
next billing cycle. However, if you go over the 250mb limit before your
account is suspended (I used 252mb), your account will not automatically
un-suspend at the next billing cycle. Instead, if you go over 250mb, at
the beginning of the next cycle your account will still have the error
message about having run out of data (even though you will have 250mb
available at start of the next cycle) and your account will remain
suspended. You will have to contact support (via Twitter is easiest) to get
your account unsuspended. It won't cost anything, but it is a pain, so
because of this I would set a monthly limit of 245mb on your phone so you
don't go over the 250mb limit.
Second, as reported by several readers, FreedomPop now asks for a $20
credit (was $15) before you can downgrade to the free plan, but you can
still add a $10 credit before downgrading per my tip and explanation below
and avoid paying the $20 credit. The $10 credit is refundable if and when
you close your account
August 1, 2018 update - Although the maximum monthly
free data on the LTE sim is now 250mb (200mb + 50mb from friends), I just
ran a test on one of my LTE sim and confirmed that you can now use the
FULL 250mb of data (the 100mb/20mb auto-top-up trigger point has been
eliminated). I have auto-top-up disabled on this sim (see how to disable
auto-top-up below). I used the full 250mb (actually 252mb), and when my data
usage updated to 252mb used, my account and data were disabled. If one does
not have auto-top-up disabled, I am assuming that when you hit 250mb, you
will be charged the $15 auto-top-up credit, and the credit will allow you to
continue using data.
August 15 comment: Reader Nick reported in a comment below that he had
the same experience. He had auto-top-up disabled on his account. In his
case, he was able to use 259mb, and then his account data was turned off
(until the next cycle).

My August 1, 2018, test above shows you can now use the full 250mb of
free monthly data with the FP LTE sim. After you get to 250mb, if you've
disabled auto-top-up, your account and data will be temporarily deactivated
until the next billing cycle. Otherwise, if auto-top-up is still enabled,
you should be charged a $15 auto-top-up credit and the credit will be used
to pay for additional data (at $.02/mb, I think).
* * * * *
July 12, 2018 update - FreedomPop
Friends bonus data reduction. FreedomPop is reducing the amount of free
monthly bonus data that you get having FreedomPop friends. It is changing to
5mb per friend, and the maximum is now 50mb (10 friends). It was 50mb per
friend with a 500mb maximum. So this means the maximum LTE sim free plan
monthly data will be 250mb per sim (200+50) instead of 700mb (200+500).
* * * * *
February 8, 2018 (updated August 12, 2018) -
SAFETY MODE: FreedomPop has changed how you
turn off (disable) data "Auto Top Up". In the past, you had to
pay a one time $5 credit to turn off Auto-Top-Up. Now you have to sign up
for their new "Safety Mode" service for
$6.99 per plan billing cycle
(monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual). However, when you sign up, you
are initially only billed for the pro-rated (partial) amount of
$6.99 left in your
plan's billing cycle. After you sign up and pay the pro-rated amount,
auto-top-up will be disabled. You can then cancel the Safety Mode service
and auto-top-up will remain disabled. If you don't cancel Safety Mode
service, you will be billed $6.99 at the beginning of each new plan billing
cycle. When you cancel Safety Mode service, you may get a warning message
saying "Warning: Deactivating Safety Mode will enable Auto Top-Up on your
account." I ignored this warning and cancelled Safety Mode, and
auto-top-up stayed OFF (disabled). Multiple readers have also reported that
you can ignore the warning, and that if you cancel Safety Mode, auto-top-up
will stay off. Read more about the new
Safety Mode service in my section below on
turning off auto-top-up. Also keep in mind that you don't have to turn
off auto-top-up, you just need to stay below the data usage trigger
which you can do by setting a data limit on your android phone. Again, read
the section below on auto-top-up and how to avoid going over your free data
limit.
August 12, 2018 update: I disabled auto-top-up on another of my LTE sims. I
did it with 8 hours left in the billing cycle, and was charged $0.21 (21
cents!) for the pro-rated (partial) Safety Mode service. I then verified
auto-top-up was disabled, and cancelled Safety Mode. When I was canceling
Safety Mode service, I received the warning saying "Warning: Deactivating
Safety Mode will enable Auto Top-Up on your account.", but I ignored it and
cancelled Safety Mode. Auto-top-up remained OFF. I also did this previously
on May 16, when I disabled auto-top-up on two of my LTE
sims. I did it with 8 hours and 4 hours left on their billing cycles. On
each of the sims, I was charged $0.21 for the pro-rated Safety Mode service
subscription. When I then cancelled Safety Mode service, I got the warning
message saying: "Warning: Deactivating Safety Mode will enable Auto Top-Up
on your account." but I cancelled the service and auto-top-up remained
disabled, and stayed disabled when the new billing cycle renewed. So
disabling auto-top-up on the last day of your billing cycle remains a very
cheap option.
* * * * *
January 17, 2018 - You have to pay for a one-time credit
before you can downgrade to the free plan. FreedomPop will prompt you to pay
for a $15 credit, but you should be able to downgrade for $10 (see below). Beginning last year, FreedomPop started requiring that you have a credit on your account before
you can downgrade to the free plan. First it was $5, then it was $10, and
now it is $15. However, you should only need a $5 credit, but
when you down try to downgrade to the free plan, if you have no credit ($0), the
pop-up message only gives you an option to pay for a $15 credit.
From their updated
"how to downgrade" support document, "As per our
terms and conditions, because actual data usage may be delayed up to 3
hours, to protect ourselves from fraud and leakage, you must have minimum
account balance to be on 100% Free account, if not, $15 will be added to
your credit which can be used for data overage." - source : How to Upgrade
or Downgrade your Plan, Updated 01/10/2018 05:39 PM
You should be able to pay $10 instead of $15 by adding a $10
credit before you downgrade. To add a $10 credit, go to BILLING and click on
ACCOUNT CREDIT & TOP-UP SETTINGS. You should then see the option to add a
$10 or $20 credit to your account. A reader (Nick) left a comment on 1/23/18
reporting that he was able to downgrade for $10 by doing this. Until
recently, you could add a $5 credit by turning off auto-top-up, but the $5
method no longer works because FreedomPop just changed the cost of turning
off auto-top-up (see below).

$10 credit for
downgrading to the free plan: confirmed working as of February 14, 2018,
[see comment at bottom of guide by Andrew].
The bottom line: You now have to pay for a one-time $10 credit
to downgrade to the free plan, but the credit is REFUNDABLE, so it is
actually more like a "security deposit". Although you can't get the
credit refunded while your account is open and on the free plan, if you ever
close your account, as long as you make sure the credit is active (and not
inactive), you can ask for it to be refunded. I had a $5 credit on an old FP
global sim account refunded last year, and a reader (Kim) reported that she
had a $5 credit from a Global sim refunded this year, although she had to
close the Global sim account before it was refunded.
Feb 28, 2018 plan downgrading update: Several readers have
reported that even though they add the $10 credit first, they still get
the pop-up warning about the $15 credit requirement. However, they go
ahead and complete the downgrade by accepting the $15 popup message, and
they do not get billed for the $15. They only get billed for the
$10 credit. So as long as you add a $10 credit first, you should be able
to accept the $15 message and you will not get billed $15. If you do get
billed for both $10 and $15, you can contact FP via Twitter (see my tips
section) and request a refund on one of the credits.
April 7. 2018 update: Reader Dave reported that the $10
downgrade option is still working as of April 7 (his comment is posted in
the comment sections).
|
* * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Understanding the FreedomPop Business Model & Having Reasonable
Expectations
2. What FreedomPop Offers for FREE
3. Ordering & Setting Up the LTE Sim
4. How To Downgrade To The FREE Plan (and Service)
5. How To Get 500MB 50MB of Additional Free Data Every Month With FreedomPop Friends
6. Understanding Data "AutoTopUp" and How To Avoid Data Overage Charges
7. Talk & Text Considerations: Google Voice/Hangouts vs the FreedomPop App
8. How To Get More Data
9. FreedomPop Tips
10. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
11. Comments
1. Understanding the FreedomPop
Business Model & Having Reasonable Expectations
FreedomPop's business model is to offer limited basic service for free to
entice people to sign up for FreedomPop. But FreedomPop then expects that
a certain percentage of these new customers will decide to pay for more generous paid monthly plans
and/or will
pay for various add-on services. An example of this strategy is their offer of 200 minutes of
free voice calls. If you want more than 200 minutes per month, you need to
change to one of their paid monthly plans (which then gives you unlimited
minutes). Similarly, the free plan does not include voicemail, so if someone
calls you and leaves a message, you can't listen to the message without
paying for monthly voicemail service (though you can turn off voicemail, and
then your number will just ring and ring until the person hangs up). To some
extent, FreedomPop is similar to Pandora and Yahoo Email, both of which have
limited free service or paid premium service. It's important to understand
that FreedomPop must make money if they are going to stay in business long
term. Although FreedomPop uses a lot of automation and technology to keep
their costs low, every customer account still costs them a small amount of money,
and in the end, it all adds up. FreedomPop
can tolerate a certain number of non-paying customers (aka "freeloaders") as
long as they have enough paying customers to make up for
the costs and generate a profit. One legitimate gripe against FreedomPop is
that while some customers are willing paying customers, because of FreedomPop's often confusing "fine print", some other FreedomPop customers
become unwitting paying customers (which is a source of many negative reviews).
But if you read this guide and pay attention, and you determine that the
limited basic FreedomPop service is enough to meet your needs, then you can
use the information in this guide to avoid accidentally becoming an unwitting paying customer, and instead
you can instead be a happy
"freeloader" like me!
Managing Your Expectations: If you think that FreedomPop wants to
give away free service, you should probably reread the section above.
Similarly, if you wonder why FreedomPop doesn't give you larger amounts of
free data or make it easy to get a lot of data for free, then you probably
don't understand the FreedomPop business model. FreedomPop is willing to
give away some limited basic service to entice people to join, but they
aren't going to make it super easy to get free service nor are they going to
give away any more data than they need to to entice people to join. All this
said, I've been a happy FreedomPop "freeloader" for over a year now, and
it's really not that hard. And it's great getting absolutely free smartphone
service. It's just important to have reasonable expectations and be up for
the challenge (again, it is not that hard).
2. What FreedomPop Offers for FREE
200mb (250mb with FreedomPop Friends) of AT&T
Nationwide 3G/4G/LTE data
200 minutes & 500 texts (voip, must use FreedomPop talk/text app)
100 international minutes (voip, with Global Free 100 add-on plan)
The FreedomPop LTE sim card works in any unlocked GSM smart phone, and
provides you with AT&T cellular data. You get 200mb of free LTE data every
month. If you add 10 FreedomPop Friends to your account (explained below),
you'll get 50mb of free bonus data, or 250mb per month total. All you need to do to get the free data working
on your phone is to install the sim card in the phone and then set the phone
APN. You do not need to install the FreedomPop app to get the free data.
Your FreedomPop account will have a data feature called "AutoTopUp" enabled
by default. If you use up all of your free data (250mb
if you add 10 "friends"), you will automatically be charged $15 to create an account credit that will then
be used to pay for additional data if you continue to use data. I recommend
that you turn this "AutoTopUp" feature OFF, and explain how to below. Or you can just keep your data usage below
the 250mb free data limit per month and
not worry about it. If you have wifi at home and/or at work, and you just
need cellular data when you are out and about, 250mb may be ok for light users. Your FreedomPop LTE sim will come with two free 30 day
trials... a PLAN trial and a SERVICE trial. You need to downgrade the plan
and remove the service trial before the 30 day trials are over, or you will
be charged at the end of 30 days. The 30 day trials start when your order
ships, not when you get it.
In addition, you will get to chose a local phone
number for your LTE sim account, and you will get 200 free voice minutes and
500 free sms texts per month. The FreedomPop phone number is a VOIP (Voice Over
Internet Protocol) phone number and you must download and use
the FreedomPop app to use the phone number. It is not a traditional
cellular number, but instead is a voip number, and it will not work unless
you use the FreedomPop app. Many people (including myself) just use the free
data and don't install the FP app, and instead get a free Google Voice
phone number (which is also a VOIP-type phone number), and then use the Google
Hangouts app for talking and texting. You can also get 100 international
calling minutes (coverage includes Mexico, UK, Canada, India, and over 50
other countries) by adding the free "Global Free 100" International calling
plan to your account after you sign up. The international minutes are also
voip and also require you to use the FreedomPop app. If you want more
international minutes, there are paid monthly international plans for 300
international minutes ($4.99/mo) or 1,000 international minutes ($9.99/mo).
The LTE sim will work in any unlocked
GSM-capable Android smartphone or iPhone. The service is via AT&T, and gives
you LTE speed data, but also falls back to 3G/4G if LTE is not available.
There is no roaming. The cellular service is only via AT&T, so you obviously
have to have decent AT&T coverage for the service to work, but according to
AT&T, they cover 97% of the United States. Note that you need to have a GSM-capable smart phone
to use with the LTE sim. FreedomPop does not
sell phones with or for the LTE sim. The only phones that FreedomPop sells
are for their Sprint-based CDMA phones, which are different. If you see a
FreedomPop offer for a phone, it is for their Sprint service and not for
this AT&-T based LTE sim. If you want a cheap GSM-capable smartphone to
use with LTE sim, see my "Tips" section below buying a cheap AT&T PrePaid
smartphone, which you can buy for as little as $29.99 at BestBuy or Walmart.
So in a nutshell, with the FreedomPop LTE sim you get 250mb of AT&T data
(assuming you add 10 "friends"). If you install and use the FreedomPop talk&text app, you also get 200 free voice minutes and 500 free
sms texts, or you can use a free Google Voice number with the Hangouts app
for talking and texting. If you get multiple sims, you can switch sims if
you need more data (each sim will have 250mb of data assuming you add 10
friends).

A typical billing summary from one of my LTE sim accounts.
What do I pay each month for my FreedomPop service? Nothing, nada, zip,
zilch, $0.00!
FreedomPop really can be free... if you know what to do!
3. Ordering & Setting Up the LTE Sim
Be sure to use a real email address when you order,
because
after you order, your order confirmation, information, and account password
will be emailed to the email address you use to sign up.
After you complete your order, your LTE sim kit will be sent
to you via US First Class Mail from California. FreedomPop previously sent
sim cards via FedEX SmartPost with a tracking number, but now sends them in
the First Class mail without any tracking number. Unfortunately, their
system still issues a tracking number, but the number doesn't work. On your
account, you may get a shipping notification that says something like,
"Your order 79598410 has shipped! Tracking code
0004000074523375954293111. It may take up to a day for the shipping
information to appear at Fedex.", but the LTE sim will come in your
regular mail, and there is no tracking number. You should expect to receive
it in 2-5 business days.

Although I already have several FreedomPop LTE sims, I ordered another one
to make sure this new FreedomPop guide has the latest information. I ordered
the sim on Tuesday, September 26 (2017). It shipped the same day and I
received it two days later on Thursday, September 28, via US First Class
mail. It came in the regular standard size plain white envelope shown above,
and was mailed from Poway, California.
Your FreedomPop LTE sim will come with instructions on how to use it, but
the instructions are very simple. First, you need to pop out the correct
size sim for your phone. The sim card is perforated so that you can pop out
a regular size, micro size, or nano size sim. Then you install the sim in
your phone and set your APN to fp.com.attz. Once you set the correct
FreedomPop APN (fp.com.attz) on your phone, your cellular data should work
(you might need to restart/reboot your phone, and/or enable or turn on your
phone's cellular data setting). That's all you have to do.
Install the sim in your phone, and set the APN. If
you want to use the FreedomPop phone number for calling or texting, you need
to install the FreedomPop app.


Setting the APN:
For Android phones and devices, go to Settings > Network Connections > More > Mobile Networks
> Access Point Names". Click on Add or "+" and enter fp.com.attz as
your APN and save.
*Note that some Android phones may be a little different. On my ZTE
ZMAX2, I went to
SETTINGS > Mobile Networks > ACCESS POINT NAMES. I then tapped the "+"
sign to create a new APN and typed "FREEDOMPOP" for the name and "fp.com.attz"
for the APN. I then saved the new APN.
For iPhones and iOS devices, connect to wifi and go to
www.freedompop.com/iosapn Select [Country: United States] and
[Product: US LTE SIM]

The partial screenshots above show the APN setting on an Android phone
and an iPhone 6.
Setting up the FreedomPop LTE sim to get cellular data is simple. Just pop the correct size sim out of the card and install
sim in your phone. On an Android phone, go through settings and set up an APN
for fp.com.attz as shown. On an iPhone, connect on wifi and go to
www.freedompop.com/iosapn and follow the prompts. These instructions will
also be printed on the packaging that your FreedomPop LTE sim card comes in.
4. How To Downgrade To The FREE
Plan (and Remove the Service)
When you order the FreedomPop LTE sim, you are automatically signed up for
TWO
one month "free trials". One trial is for a PLAN (for
example, the "Premium 2GB LTE Unlimited Trial
($24.99/month)" plan, and the other trial is for a SERVICE (for
example, the "FreedomPop Phone Premium
Trial ($7.99/month)" service. Here is an example of the terms from one of their
recent offers...
"By clicking Activate, you agree to
pay the amount Due Today. Your FreedomPop
service will not begin until your device ships. Your subscription includes a
1-month(s) free service trial. At the conclusion of your free trial, your
service will automatically renew at the provided rate found in your shopping
cart of $32.98 every month."

The typical FreedomPop offer, as shown above, will include TWO free 30
day trials, one for a PLAN and one for a SERVICE. The free trial period
starts when the sim ships, not after you receive it. Per the terms, the
trials last 30 days, and then you will be charged for the plan and service
(which may be for 1 month or 6 months depending on the offer). If you don't
want to be charged, you need to downgrade to the free plan and remove the
service. Many people make the mistake of not carefully reading the offer or
the terms, and assume there is only a single trial. Thus they don't remove
the service and they get charged for it. Or they will assume the trial
doesn't start until they receive and/or activate the sim, and again they get
charged. Please don't let this happen to you!
If you don't downgrade your plan and service within 30 days (from
when your sim ships, not when you receive it), you will be charged.
If you only downgrade your plan and not your service, you will be charged
for the service. You need to downgrade/remove both! But if you can follow simple directions and you downgrade your plan
and your service to their free plan, it really is free. I've ordered
several LTE sims, several
Global sims, and a FreedomPop Sprint-based Moto E2 phone, and I have never had
any problems
downgrading any of them to the free plan and service. I have never received
any additional or "unexpected" charges. Please note that some
FreedomPop offers are for monthly plans and services, while some other
offers are for six-month plans and services.
* If you try to downgrade before your sim ships, the my.freedompop
website will NOT show you the links to downgrade your plan or service. These
links will be available after your sim ships. If you don't want to wait, you
can use these two direct links: https://my.freedompop.com/plan and https://my.freedompop.com/services
FreedomPop now requires a "minimum account balance" to
downgrade to the free plan
* It will cost $10 to downgrade, but the credit is refundable. *
(updated 2/27/2018) FreedomPop requires that you must have a
minimum account balance (credit) on your account before you can downgrade to the free plan.
If you try to downgrade to the free plan with no credit on your
account, you will get a message that you must have an account credit
and you will be prompted to add $15 in account credit. If you
agree, your credit card will be charged $15 and a $15 credit will be
added to your account. If you don't agree, you won't be able to
downgrade.
However, you should not have to pay the full $15. All you really
need is a $5 credit to satisfy the minimum account balance, but there
is no way to add just a $5 credit. However, you can add a $10
credit to your account, and you will then be able to downgrade
without paying the $15 credit. To add a
$10 credit (go to BILLING > ACCOUNT CREDIT). This $10 credit will also allow you to then downgrade to
the free plan without any further charges. Keep in mind that that the
credit is refundable, but only if you close your account or switch to
a paid plan, and not as long as you are on the free plan.
or

If you pay for and add a $10 credit to your account before you
downgrade to the free plan, you should be able to downgrade without
paying the $15 credit.
2/28/18 plan downgrading update: Several readers have reported that
even though they add the $10 credit first, they still get the
pop-up warning about the $15 credit requirement. However, they go
ahead and complete the downgrade by accepting the $15 popup message,
and they do not get billed for the $15. They only get billed
for the $10 credit. So as long as you add a $10 credit first, you
should be able to accept the $15 message and you will not get billed
$15. If you do get billed for both $10 and $15, you can contact FP via
Twitter (see my tips section) and request a refund on one of the
credits. |
To downgrade to completely free service, you will need to change TWO THINGS, your PLAN and your
SERVICE. After you've downgraded your plan and service, then you need
to CONFIRM that both are actually downgraded. To get started, log into your FreedomPop account, and do the following:
DOWNGRADE TO THE FREE PLAN:

FIRST - DOWNGRADE YOUR PLAN:
* 1. Log into your account and click on "PLAN" (if you don't see
the main menu at the top, click on the three white bars in the corner to get
the menu). If your sim hasn't shipped yet, you won't see the menu link for
plans. You can also go to https://my.freedompop.com/plan
* 2. Click on your trial plan (for example, the
"Premium 2GB LTE Unlimited" plan for $24.99/mo)
* 3. You should now see your plan details. Find the small link on
the far right that says "To downgrade, click here". FreedomPop makes the
downgrade link small for a reason, but if you look hard, you can find it. :)
Click the link.
* You will get the following warning screen: "Warning: you are
about to downgrade your plan. By downgrading your plan, if you are on a
trial, you will lose all additional minutes/messages/data. Any usage
incurred above your new plan limits will incur additional charges."
* Click "Downgrade anyway". You will need to
click on a couple more screens and enter your password to confirm your
decision.
You can downgrade at any time after you order. You can downgrade right
away immediately after you order, or you can wait until you get your sim and
verify it works. I do recommend that once you get your sim and confirm it
works, you should then downgrade, or at least downgrade soon after that so
you don't forget.
2018 update: FreedomPop now requires you to have a "minimum account
balance" before you can downgrade to the free plan. You will be prompted to
pay for a $15 account credit before you can downgrade. If you don't want to pay for a $15 credit,
you can go to BILLING and click on ACCOUNT CREDIT where you can add a
one-time $10 credit which will then allow you to downgrade to the free plan
(see above). Either way, you must now pay for a $10 or a $15 account credit
(deposit) before you can downgrade to the free plan. However, the account
credit is refundable, but you have to ask for a refund and you can't get it
refunded while you are on the free plan. You have to change to a paid plan
or close your account.
DOWNGRADE AND REMOVE THE PAID SERVICE:

SECOND - DOWNGRADE (REMOVE) THE PAID SERVICE:
* 1. Log into your account and click on "SERVICES" (if you don't see
the main menu at the top, click on the three white bars in the corner to get
the menu). If your sim hasn't shipped yet, you won't see the menu link for
plans. You can also go to https://my.freedompop.com/service
* 2. Click on your trial service (for example, the
"FreedomPop Premium Plus" service for $7.99/mo)
* 3. You should now see your service details. Find the small link
at the bottom right-side of the page that says "To deactivate, click here". FreedomPop makes the
deactivate link small for a reason, but if you look hard, you can find it. :)
Click the link.
* You will need to click on a couple more screens to confirm your
decision and decline any other service (you will probably need to click
buttons that say: DOWNGRADE ANYWAY, DOWNGRADE AND LOSE DATA, and again
DOWNGRADE ANYWAY. You will probably have to also enter your account password
again. Eventually, you will get a message confirming you have successfully
deactivated (removed) the service!
THIRD - CONFIRM YOU ARE ACTUALLY DOWNGRADED (both PLAN and
SERVICE)
Since some time in March 2017, there has been an ongoing
"service downgrade bug" that has effected myself and many readers.
It appears this has finally been fixed on the new my.freedompop.com site.
However, after you downgrade to the free plan and remove the paid service
bundle, go to your account OVERVIEW page and confirm your plan is free (it
should not show any charge) and your paid service bundle was removed (you
should see "no services found"). If this is not the case, repeat the
downgrade and/or removal process, and please leave a comment below to let me
know.

5. How To Get 250MB of Additional Free Data Every Month With FreedomPop Friends
note: On July 9, 2018, Freedompop changed the friends bonus to 5mb per
friend with a max of 50mb (10 friends). The old max was 500mb. :(
The LTE sim free Basic 200 LTE plan includes 200mb of cellular data every month. You can get up to 50mb more data every month by getting "Freedom
Friends". You will get 5mb every month for each "Freedom Friend" you
have on your account, up to 50mb maximum. Once you get a friend, you get the
data every month. You don't need to keep adding more friends, though you
should have some extra friends (more than 10) in case any drop out or have
their accounts suspended. All you need to send a
friend request to another FreedomPop account is the email address associated
with that account. After you send the request and the other account accepts
(or they send you an invite and you accept it),
you will get the 50mb bonus, which will repeat every month. I recently started a
FreedomPop Friends list where you can find email addresses for sending
invites, and add your
email address to the list if you want. I also have one of my account email
addresses listed there if you want to send me a friend invite.
To send a friend invite, on the my.freedompop site and (1) click on
EARN & SHARE on the top main menu (or click the three white bars in the
upper corner if you don't see the top menu), then (2) click on INVITE
FRIENDS, (3) cut and paste or enter an email address, and (4) click the
green "INVITE FRIENDS" button to send the friend invite. You can also click
"FreedomPop Friends" to see a list of your active friends, and click "Friend
Requests" to check the status of invites you have sent and/or check if you
have received any invites that you need to accept. FYI: the direct link to
send out friend invites is my.freedompop.com/earn-share/friend-invite
Keep in mind that when you send out friend invites, other people won't see your request until the next time they log
into their FreedomPop account, so you might not hear back from people
for a while. Some people may have already gotten enough friends and may
never check for new invitations or respond. In general, it's pretty easy to get at least 10 friends
fairly fast, and then you'll have the extra 50MB of data
every month. Also, if an account gets suspended, deactivated, or cancelled,
it will stop working as a friend, so it's a good idea to get a few extra
friends in case any of them cancel their service or have their accounts
suspended or deactivated.

6. Understanding Data "AutoTopUp" and How To Avoid Data Overage Charges
August 1, 2018 update: Freedompop used to have a 100mb (or 20mb)
"trigger point" below your free data limit, and when you hit this "trigger
point" you would get charged the $15 auto-top-up credit. Freedompop just
changed this policy, and now you can use all of your data before the
auto-top-up credit charge is triggered. The $15 credit charge is now
triggered when you surpass your free monthly data limit, and not when
you get within 100mb or 20mb below it.
Your FreedomPop LTE sim account comes with a feature called "Automatic
Top Up" that is enabled by default. When you reach your free data
limit (i.e. 250mb), you will be charged $15, and a $15 credit will be added to your
account to pay for any data overages (at about $.02/MB). If you continue to use
data, your data stays on and your
credit is used to pay for the overage data. If you use up your $15 credit, the process will repeat. You can be
charged for up to seven $15 credits per month (7x$15=$105), and then your account
will be
suspended for the remainder of the billing cycle. From the FreedomPop website:
"FreedomPop
uses an 'Automatic Top-Up' feature to ensure you are never left without
broadband access when you exceed your subscribed Monthly Plan limits. The
default top-up amount is $15.00.... In any billing month that your usage
surpasses your Monthly Plan broadband data allotment limit, your FreedomPop Account will be charged the automatic top-up amount using the
registered payment method associated with your FreedomPop Account. As your
broadband data use exceeds the broadband data allotment of your Monthly Plan, an
amount equal to your total additional usage multiplied by the additional cost
per megabyte as defined by your Monthly Plan, will be deducted from your
FreedomPop Credit Account balance. When your FreedomPop Credit Account balance
falls below $2.00, your registered payment method will be charged the applicable
Automatic Top-Up amount as described above. This payment will occur each time
your FreedomPop Account balance falls below $2.00 to prevent an interruption in
the Broadband Service we provide you... If you do not use your Account Credit
for a period of 30 days, FreedomPop will place your Account Credit on inactive
status. You can reactivate the Account Credit by following the reactivation link
at https:// freedompop .com/billing_overview.htm Account Credit on inactive
status is not refundable."
There are two ways to avoid data overage charges. You can (1) set a
cellular data limit on your (Android) phone, and/or (2) disable Auto-Top-Up on
your FP account. I recommend that you do both.
First, you can set a cellular data limit on your phone.
Note: This
is a feature available on Android phones only. If you have an iPhone, there
may be apps which will do this. On an Android phone,
go to Settings > Data Usage... and turn on "Set mobile data limit". Change
the monthly cycle (start and stop days) to match your FreedomPop billing
cycle, which you can find on your FreedomPop account under "data usage".
After you've set the correct cycle, you can then pull up or down the warning
level and limit level to adjust them. Set your data limit to be less than
the point where the Automatic Top Up would charge you $15, or, if you've
disabled Automatic Top Up (see below), set your phone's data limit little a
little below your FreedomPop data limit to account for any data reporting
delays and/or small discrepancies between your phone and the FreedomPop
system.

Example of a cellular data monthly limit and the warning message and
cut-off message you see when you hit your warning and then your data limit.
Second, you can disable the "Automatic Top Up" feature.
To disable Auto-Top-Up, you must agree to sign up for "Safety Mode"
service, which is $4.99 $6.99 every plan billing cycle (depending on your plan it
can be monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual). The initial charge when you sign
up will be pro-rated depending on how many days are left in your plan cycle.
So if you sign up near the end of your plan cycle, the initial charge will
be much less than $4.99 $6.99. If you agree and activate Safety Mode, you get
charged the pro-rated charge and auto-top-up will be disabled. Once
auto-top-up is off, it will remain off (unless you turn it back on). If you
stay subscribed to Safety Mode, you will be charged $4.99
$6.99 at the beginning
of each billing cycle. Or you can cancel safety mode, and auto-top-up will
remain off. You only need Safety Mode service to turn auto-top-up off, you
don't need the service to keep it off.
April 5, 2018
SAFETY MODE UPDATE: Several readers have reported that when they went to
cancel safety mode service, they received a pop-up warning them:
"Warning: Deactivating Safety Mode will enable Auto Top-Up on your account."
However, they cancelled the service and auto-top-up remained OFF. So if you
get this warning, you can probably ignore it. The FreedomPop support
documents do not say anything about Auto-Top-Up turning back on if you
cancel safety mode. They only say you need safety mode service to turn
auto-top-up off, but not to keep it off. If it gets turned back on, let me
know with a comment. Also keep in mind that you do not have to disable
auto-top-up as long as you stay below the trigger. I have it disabled on two
of my sims, but I have not disabled it on my other sims.
May 21, 2018 update: On May 16, I disabled auto-top-up on two more of my
LTE sims. I did it with 8 hours and 4 hours left on their billing cycles. On
each sims, I was charged $0.21 for the pro-rated Safety Mode service
subscription. When I then cancelled Safety Mode service, I got the warning
message saying: "Warning: Deactivating Safety Mode will enable Auto Top-Up
on your account." but I cancelled the service and auto-top-up remained
disabled, and stayed disabled when the new billing cycle renewed. So
disabling auto-top-up on the last day of your billing cycle remains a very
cheap option.
To turn off (disable) Automatic Data Top-Off:
1. Log into the my.freedompop site and click on "BILLING" on the main
menu.
2. On the billing page, click on "ACCOUNT CREDIT & TOP-UP SETTING"
FYI: the direct link to disable auto-top-up
is my.freedompop.com/settings/credit-balance
3. You will see that Automatic Top-Up is Enabled. Click on "Enabled" to
turn it off.
4. You will now see a Pop-Up message informing you that you must activate
Safety Mode. If you click "ACTIVATE" you will be charged the pro-rated
amount of $4.99 depending on how many days are left in your plan cycle. If you
click "CANCEL" you won't be charged, but Auto-Top Up will remain enabled
(ON).
5. After you active Safety Mode (and get charged the pro-rated amount),
auto-top-up will be disabled. It will remain OFF unless you turn it back on.
You can keep the Safety Mode service, and you will be charged $4.99 at the
beginning or each plan cycle. Or you can cancel Safety Mode service, and
auto-top-up will remain off.
TIP: If you are near the end of your billing cycle, the
initial pro-rated Safety Mode charge will be small. I turned off auto-top-up
on a monthly LTE sim that had two days left on its monthly billing cycle.
Thus, the pro-rated Safety Mode charge was only 30 cents. This turned off
auto-top-up, and I then cancelled the Safety Mode service so I would not
have to pay the $4.99 $6.99 at the beginning of the next billing cycle.

If you disable auto-top-up near the end of your plan billing cycle, the
pro-rated charge for Safety Mode will be smaller. In my case, with 2 days
left on a monthly billing cycle, I only had to pay 30 cents.

February 2018 update: You now have to sign up for "Safety Mode" service
in order to disable auto-top-up, but the initial charge will be pro-rated,
and after auto-top-up is disabled, you can then cancel safety mode if you
want, and auto-top-up will remain off (disabled).
WHAT HAPPENS IF and AFTER YOU DISABLE AUTO TOP-UP?
First, if you leave Auto-Top-Up ON (enabled) and you use all your free data
(i.e. 250mb), you will be charged $15 and the credit will be used to
pay if you then go over your free data limit. If you continue to use data,
this process can repeat up to seven times, so you could be charged
7x$15=$105 if you use a lot of data. I've never heard of this happening, at
least this many times, but I have read that some people have been surprised
and upset that they left auto-top-up enabled and then triggered the
auto-top-up and got charged $15.
If you disable auto-top-up, what happens next depends on if your credit
balance is over $2 and is ACTIVE or INACTIVE. When you add credit to
your account, it will start as ACTIVE credit. But if it isn't used after 30
days, it becomes INACTIVE. You can log into your account and re-activate
your credit, or leave it inactive. I don't know why FreedomPop makes credit
"inactive" after 30 days and I don't think they should, but it is what it
is.
✔ IF your credit is over $2 and is ACTIVE, you can use all of your
free data. If you use up all of your free data, your data stays on, and your
credit is used to pay for the overage data at about $.02/mb. If and when
your credit balance drops below $2, then your account will be suspended
until the next billing cycle.
✔ IF your credit balance less than $2 or is INACTIVE, then your
account will be suspended when you use up your free data limit.
Your account will reset and start over at the beginning of the next billing
cycle.
* Once you turn off "auto top up", it will remain off (disabled)
permanently, regardless of whether or not you have credit on your account,
unless you turn it back on.
* Your account credit balance is only good for paying for data overages. The
credit can not be applied for monthly plan or service charges, or other
expenses.
* There is up to a 3 hour delay in data reporting (AT&T reporting data usage
to FreedomPop). Thus it is possible to go over your data limit before
FreedomPop finds out and turns off your data. If this happens, I believe
FreedomPop charges for this type of data overage in $1.99 increments.
Because of this, I highly recommend you set a cellular data limit on your
phone (see above).
* If you don't use your credit for 30 days, it becomes inactive. You can
reactivate your credit as follows:
1) On the my.freedompop site, click "BILLING" on the main menu.
2) Click "CREDIT BALANCE" (look just under "History")
3) At the bottom of the page, look for "Your credit balance has expired.
Activate Credit."
4) Click "Activate Credit" to reactive your credit. You can reactivate
the credit as many times as you want
7. Talk & Text Considerations: Google Voice/Hangouts vs the FreedomPop App
I prefer to use my free Google Voice phone number on the Hangouts app for talking
and texting, even though I'm "losing" the free FreedomPop App 200 minutes &
500 texts. I'm not knocking the FreedomPop Talk/Text app. I've tried
the FreedomPop app and it works,
both for talking and text. The FreedomPop app is a good choice for people who don't want to
set up a Google Voice number and use Hangouts. You do get 200 free minutes
and 500 free texts, but there are some limitations.
* The FreedomPop minutes/texts do not count against your data usage, but the
minutes/text do get counted and used up both when you are on cellular data
and when you are on wifi. I was a little surprised that texts sent on wifi
still count against the 500 text limit since you aren't on cell service, but
they do, and minutes used on wifi also count. Of course, if you need more
minutes or texts, all of the FreedomPop paid monthly plans include unlimited
talk and text.
* The free FreedomPop texts are SMS only. If you want to send and receive MMS, you need to
pay for a monthly MMS plan ($1.99/mo or included in the $7.99/mo Premium
Plus service).
* By default, the FreedomPop voice number will go to voice mail if you don't pick it up,
and if someone leaves a message, you won't be able to listen to the
message unless you pay for a
monthly plan with voicemail ($2.49/mo or included in the $7.99/mo Premium
Plus service). If you don't want people to be able to leave a voice mail
that you can't access without paying, you can disable voicemail and then
your number should just ring and ring. To disable voicemail, go to your
account under account settings and find [voicemail preferences]. Although it
says "disabled", you need to click "edit" and then click "save", and then
you will get a message saying "voicemail disabled." You can confirm that
voicemail is now actually disabled by calling your number and confirming it
just keeps ringing.
* Each FreedomPop sim has it's own phone number. If you change sims, you
change numbers.
* Google Voice with Hangouts includes free domestic calls, free voicemail,
and free sms & mms texts. Texts (SMS) essentially use no data. When you are
using Hangouts on wifi to talk, you won't use any of your cellular data.
When you use the Hangouts app (with your Google Voice number) to talk on cellular data,
it uses about
.55mb per minute based on my testing. That means 100 minutes of talking should use about
55mb of
cellular data. Most of my talking is when I'm on wifi (other than when I
do a weekend walk and call my father), and I usually text
instead of calling people.
* Most importantly, if you have a Google Voice phone number, you can install
the Hangouts app on any or all of your phones and then send and receive
calls and texts. You can set up your Google Voice number to
ring on multiple phones, either by forwarding it to a phone number or by
using the Hangouts app. I have my personal Google Voice number ring on both my FreedomPop (Sprint) Moto E2
with Hangouts and my ZTE Zmax2 with my FreedomPop LTE sim with Hangouts.
A Google Voice phone number with the Hangouts app gives you a lot of flexibility.
How To Install The FreedomPop Voice/Text App
If
you only want to use the FreedomPop LTE sim to get the free cellular data,
you do NOT have to install the FreedomPop app. All you need to do is set
your phone APN to "fp.com.attz" and then turn on cellular data, and
it should work. But, if you want to use the FreedomPop phone number to get
the 200 free minutes and 500 free texts, then you must install and use the
FreedomPop voice/text app.
The FreedomPop phone number is not a traditional
cellular number. It is a "virtual" (voip) phone number, and you must install
and use the FreedomPop Messaging app to be able to use the phone number. Also
remember that each FreedomPop sim has its own phone number, so if you switch
sims, you are also switching FreedomPop phone numbers. There are several
FreedomPop apps on the Google Play Store. The app you want to install to use
with the LTE (or Global) sim is the "FreedomPop Messaging Phone/SIM".
Step 1) Find the FreedomPop Messaging Phone/SIM app on Google Play
Store and select INSTALL.
(note: for iPhones, the FreedomPop app is on the app store and is
named "Calling & Texting")
Step 2) The app will need access to a bunch of things... select ACCEPT.
Step 3) Wait for the 37.61mb app to download and install (you may want to
install it when you're on wifi to save your cellular data)
Step 4) After it install, select OPEN. The app will remind you to set your
APN to "fp.com.attz" (actually, the app says fpop.com.attz, which is wrong).
The app will explain that you must use it to send and receive texts with
your FP number. The app will explain how to activate voicemail
(voicemail is a PAID feature, not free). The app will tell you that you can
port your number to FreedomPop. The app will show you how to get self help
and support. Now select DONE. The app will ask you to set Messaging as
Default. You can say ok and change it later.
Now, whenever you reboot or power up your phone, the FreedomPop Messaging
app will provision the phone and you'll get a message saying, "FreedomPop Setup Complete. Your
phone number is ###-###-###".

After you've installed the FreedomPop MESSAGING app, to make a phone call, you can click on the Android PHONE icon or the FreedomPop MESSAGING icon.
To send a text, click on the FreedomPop MESSAGING icon.
TIP: If you want to check how much data you have used or get other account
information, open the FreedomPop MESSAGING app. On the home screen, swipe from the left side, and you'll get a side menu showing
your account information.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: If you install the app and you are able to send texts
but not make calls, try this. In Android, go to [settting] > [apps] > select
Messaging app. Select "Force Stop" then under Storage "Clear Data" and
"Clear Cache". Exit settings, and then open the FP Messaging app and try
making a call. On one of my phones, I had to do this twice to get calls
working.
The FreedomPop MESSAGING Voice/Text app will use up your free minutes and texts both
when you are on cellular and on wifi. You can always see how many you have
left by using the tip above to swipe from the left side of the Messaging app
screen to show your account information, including your FP phone number and
minutes/texts/data used.

The FreedomPop MESSAGING app allows you to send and receive 200 free
minutes of voip voice calls and 500 free texts. If you swipe across from the
left side, you will get a summary of your plan details, including your phone
number and email address for your sim, and how much data you have left.
8. How To Get More Data
Each LTE sim can get a maximum of 250mb of free data a month. The free way to get more
monthly data is to have additional sims, and swap them in your phone when
they run out of data. Of course, this is a bit more work, but it is free. If
you are switching sims, note that each sim has its own FreedomPop phone
number, so your FreedomPop phone number will change every time you change
your sim.
Another option is to consider one of the FreedomPop paid plans. They
have monthly plans, as well as plans where you pay for 6 months at a time
(at the beginning of the period) and you save about 50%. The free option
with a single sim works great for me because I'm usually on wifi and really
don't need very much cellular data, but the paid plans are an option for
people who want more data without bothering with swapping sims all the time.
FreedomPop is currently running a special promotional offer (see below)
where you pay $49 upfront for a year of service, and you get unlimited talk
and text (and free mms and voicemail), plus 1GB data every month (plus you can get the 50mb
bonus data).
If you're willing to pay, this seems like a good deal to me. $49 per
year works out to a little over $4 per month, and you get 1GB of AT&T LTE
data every month, and if you use the FP phone number and FP app, you also
get unlimited talk and text.
9. FreedomPop Tips
TIP#1: If you need a cheap GSM smartphone for the LTE sim...
✔
Technically and officially, you need an unlocked GSM smartphone for
the FreedomPop LTE sim. That said, the LTE sim also works in AT&T PrePaid
smartphones (formerly called GoPhones), even if they are not unlocked.
You can find good deals on AT&T PrePaid smartphones at BestBuy and Walmart,
either in-store or online.
One cheap but decent option is the new AT&T PrePaid ZTE Maven 3
smartphone, which has a 5.0" display and runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat. You can
buy the Maven 3 at BestBuy for $29.99 or at Walmart for $29.88. The Maven 3 does not have a super powerful
processor, nor does it have a lot of RAM (it has 8GB, but you can add an up
to 32GB microSD card), but the Maven 3 is also only $29 bucks! There are
other AT&T PrePaid phones available as well, although I wouldn't spend too
much on one of these phones because they will be locked to AT&T PrePaid
service (unless you are using the FreedomPop LTE sim). However, they should also work as a "wifi"
phone without the sim installed if you use a Google Voice number and the
Hangouts app.
Please note that AT&T PrePaid phones are locked and only work
with AT&T prepaid, but also work with the FreedomPop LTE sim (because
the LTE sim uses AT&T service). If you decide
to stop using the LTE sim, the phone will be locked unless you have it on an
AT&T PrePaid plan for at least six months, and then you can get an unlock
code for it. If you get one of these phones and use it, please leave me a
comment with your thoughts on the particular phone and I'll post it here.
The way I see it, for $29 bucks, the Maven 3 is a heck of a deal.
AT&T PrePaid ZTE Maven 3 "mini-review" -
November 29, 2017
BestBuy had the Maven 3 as a Thanksgiving Black Friday DoorBuster on sale
for $7.99 (regularly $29.99) so even though I don't need another phone, I
bought one. Who can resist for $7.99? Here's my experience so far after just
a few days days...
* I unboxed the Maven 3. It has a removable battery that you will need to
install. I took out the AT&T prepaid sim and put in the battery, and turned
the phone on. It started up fine. I skipped all the AT&T set-up prompts, and
played around a little bit to confirm the phone works (on wifi only,
no sim card). It's a decent phone.
* I then installed Hangouts and the Hangouts Dialer app, and confirmed I
could call and text with my Google Voice phone number using Hangouts on wifi
only (again, no sim card). I confirmed that if you want, the Maven 3 can
work as a totally free wifi-only phone with no sim card.
* I then installed a FreedomPop LTE sim and set the APN to "fp.com.attz". I
confirmed the cellular data worked, and set a cellular data monthly limit of
500mb and set the monthly cycle dates to match the LTE sim account billing
cycle. I never installed the FP app, because I am using Hangouts with a
Google Voice number. I now have a cheap smartphone with wifi and cellular
data that I can use for calling and texting with Hangouts.
The biggest limitation of the Maven 3 is the limited storage (memory). It
has 8GB memory. When I first turned the phone on, I checked "storage" under
"settings" and 5.46GB of 8.00GB was used. However, after the phone finished
all its updating over wifi, the storage used was about 7.5GB out of 8GB. If
you are only going to use the phone for calling, texting, and internet
surfing, you should be ok, but otherwise, there is not enough storage.
However, there is a simple solution - add a MicroSD card and set it up
(format) as Internal Storage. I had a cheap "freebie" 8GB MicroSD card from
a previous FreedomPop Global sim order, and installed it and under settings
then formatted it as internal storage. The phone now has 7.5GB used out of
16GB. The Maven 3 can take up to a 32GB MicroSD card (for 40GB total). I
don't think I would get the Maven 3 unless I was going to also put a MicroSD
memory card to put in it. Also, although the Maven 3 works with the FP LTE
sim even though it is locked, one supposedly can buy an unlocking code for
under $2 on ebay, which I might do.
TIP#2: Use Twitter direct messaging to get FreedomPop support help...
https://twitter.com/FreedomPopHelp
✔ I find that the easiest way to get FreedomPop support is via
their twitter account at [https://twitter.com/FreedomPopHelp]. You will need
a Twitter account. If you don't already have an account, you just need to
use your email address and select a unique username and password to set up a
new Twitter account. Log into your Twitter account and then go to the
FreedomPop Support page. Find the "Message" button and click it to send a
direct message to them. Make sure you send a message, not a tweet (a message
is private, a tweet is public). Do not click "Tweet to", unless you want
what you type to be posted publicly as a tweet on their support page.
I've contacted FreedomPop a handful of times via Twitter and they've
always gotten back to me in under 24 hours. I'd much rather send a message
with my account info and issue, and then wait to receive a message back,
instead of waiting on hold on a telephone. The key is to be patient and give
them a day to get back to you.
Alternatively, you can call them, but I've heard that they charge free
accounts for phone support. If you're calling about a billing problem, I
don't think you should have to pay for support, whether or not you're on a
free plan. One way around this phone support charge, I think, is call them
from a non-FreedomPop number and then press the correct buttons to get
through to billing.
TIP#3: If you get an unexpected or incorrect charge...
✔ I have several LTE sims, several Global sims, and even a FreedomPop
Sprint-based Moto E2 phone, and I've never gotten an incorrect or
"unexpected" charge, although I do now sometimes get a "penny charge" ($.01
account maintenance fee) which can be annoying. However, I have read of
plenty of people complaining of getting "unexpected" charges. I don't know
how many of these charges are "user error" (eg. forgetting to downgrade a
service, or clicking a link in an email and signing up for a temporary trial
that turns into a new paid service), or how many of the charges are actually
FreedomPop charging something they shouldn't. I suspect that many of the
charges are "user error", because FreedomPop make it pretty easy for that to
happen to inexperienced new customers. In any event, if you get a charge
that you feel you shouldn't have received, I think the best thing to do is
send them a message via Twitter (see the tip above) with your account
details and the charge information. From everything I've read, FreedomPop
always refunds the money, as long as the charge is incorrect, and often even
when the charge is not incorrect.
I would not recommend doing a "charge-back" with your credit card
company, unless you've already tried to communicate with FreedomPop billing
and you're not happy with the results. Doing a credit card chargeback is the
"nuclear option". Be aware that per FreedomPop's terms, if you do a
chargeback, they will close your account (including all accounts associated
with the credit card in question... this happened to one of my readers).
This is probably because they both lose the money and also pay a penalty fee
to their credit card processor, and it can increase the processing rate that
they have to pay for their merchant account. Merchants do not like to get
chargebacks, and FreedomPop is no exception. So if you get an incorrect
charge (which you shouldn't), send them a message on Twitter first. Only
resort to a chargeback as a last resort, and understand that your account
will be closed.
TIP#4: If the LTE sim offer includes a 1GB bonus data, here's what to
expect...
✔ Sometimes a FreedomPop offer will include a 1 GB bonus data (i.e.
"1GB of Bonus Data ($20 Value) FREE") in addition to the paid plan data. If
this is included in the offer, the 1GB bonus data will remain on your
account even after you downgrade to the 200mb free plan, so after
downgrading you'll have ~ 1.7GB of data (assuming you add ten friends).
Then, even though you cancel the paid premium service, at the end of the
free trial (you first billing cycle), 500mb of unused data will roll forward
one-time. This is because the paid service trial included rollover, and even
though your cancel it, it still works on the first cycle. Thus, assuming you
have at least 500mb of data left, and assuming you added ten friends, your
second cycle will have ~ 1.2GB of data (200mb plan + 500mb friends + 500mb
one-time-rollover). After that, each cycle will start with 700mb of data.

Example of offer that includes 1GB bonus data
TIP#5: How to cancel and/or close a FreedomPop account...
✔ If you want to cancel or close your FreedomPop account, you can
do it online in less than a minute. I've closed a few of my older Global sim
accounts that I don't use, and the process was easy. I just closed a Global
sim account on January 23, 2018. Here's how to close your account.

TO CANCEL YOUR FREEDOMPOP ACCOUNT
1. Log into your my.freedompop account and go to "settings" (click the
gear cog icon, upper right corner)
2. Scroll down and click on "Account Status" (on the left side)
(or you can just go to my.freedompop.com/settings/account-status
)
3. Now click on "Cancel Account"
4. You will get a pop-up message that says: "Account Cancellation.
Warning. Cancelling your account will immediately deactivate your data
connection and you will immediately lose your phone number. You will not be
able to port out your telephone number once you cancel your account. The
account cannot be re-activated after cancellation. All rollover data, bonus
data and referral data will be permanently set to ZERO and you will not be
able to retrieve any lost data. This includes all phones, SIMs, and hotspot
devices. CANCEL ACCOUNT?"
5. Click "CANCEL ACCOUNT" on the above message.
6. You will next get a pop-up message asking you to indicate the reason
you are closing the account. You have to pick a reason, and then click
"Next".
7. You will now get a final pop-up message saying that you need to enter
your account password. Enter your password and click "CANCEL ACCOUNT".
8. The pop-up box will show the message "processing" for a short while,
and then you will get a confirmation message saying "Account
Cancellation. Your account has been cancelled. CLOSE"
9. You should receive an email from FreedomPop confirming that your
account has been closed and you will receive no further charges.
10. You will still be able to log into the account using your email
address and and password, but the account will be empty.
10. FAQs (Frequently Asked
Questions)
FAQ#1: How is the cellular data coverage? Is is reliable, and what sort of
data speeds do you get?
A: I've been using the LTE sim since January, and have been very impressed
with the coverage and reliability. Around town and when traveling,
I've almost always had coverage, as I would expect because it is AT&T
service. The data speeds are great, and are more than sufficient for what I
do (talking via Hangouts, texting, checking emails, watching youtube, etc.)
The one weakness of the service is that it uses the old Jasper network on
AT&T, which seems to sometimes have higher latencies (ping times) than the
newer AT&T server/network. This means that sometimes when you are using the
data to talk to someone (i.e. on hangouts), there may be a slight delay of
about a second when you talk back and forth with someone that isn't present
on a landline or wifi connect, but I don't mind it because the service is
free. Suffice it to say, you are getting AT&T cellular data (with slightly
higher pings) for FREE. I'll also mention that I'm pretty sure that I almost always have
an LTE connection, but if not it falls back to 4G or 3G.

Sample FreedomPop LTE sim SpeedTest results from when I received my first
LTE sim in January 2017, and again on two different phones in October 2017.
I am in Santa Barbara, California. The download speeds are blazing fast and
range from 76Mbps to 87Mbps. The pings range from 76ms to 87ms.
FAQ#2: How long does shipping take? When will I get my new FreedomPop sim
card?
A: FreedomPop used to ship sim kits from Indiana via FedEX SmartPost, but
now sends them via regular US First Class mail from California. I just
ordered another LTE sim in September (2017) on a Tuesday and received my sim
two days later on Thursday (I'm in California). I would expect most people
will receive their sim kits in 2-4 business days, and they will come in the
mail in a regular size white envelope with a shipping label/address on the
envelope. The FreedomPop website still generates a message when the sim
ships and provides a tracking number, but the tracking number does not work.
Again, the sim ships via the US Postal Service in the first class mail with
NO tracking. Also remember that your 30 day free trial period starts the day your order ships,
not when you get it.
FAQ#3: I got something during my order that said, "PURCHASE
CONFIRMATION - YOUR FREE GIFT WITH TODAY'S PURCHASE. One-time activation
only $0.01" What the heck is this?
A:
Although it can be confusing, this is an offer for SECOND pre-activated
sim card for a penny ($0.01). You can skip it if you want, but
it's legit, and it's a good deal. If you accept it, you should be able to
pick a second phone number for it, and you'll get a second sim card. The
second sim card will have it's own "free trials" and you'll need to downgrade
it just like your first sim card (plan and service). The great thing is that
if you add at least 10 friends to your email account, both your first sim
card and this second penny sim card will both get the 50mb bonus, so you'll
have two sim cards, each with 250mb of data. Note: the second sim will probably not
show the 50mb Friends bonus until the second billing cycle starts. Read the next FAQ to see what can go
wrong and why you might not get the second penny sim card...

This is an offer to get a SECOND sim for a penny.
FAQ#4: I thought I ordered the second $.01 sim card, but I never got it.
What happened?
A: I have heard that if
you have a pop-up blocker (especially on Chrome) it can cause the second
offer to not work, so I'd recommend turning off any pop-up blockers before
ordering.
FAQ#5: If I get the second sim, is there anything I need to do?
A:
If you get the second sim, the only thing you need to make sure you do is
understand that it will have its own free trials (plan and service), and
you'll need to downgrade both. To access the settings for your second sim
(or multiple sims or devices on your account), log into your account on the
FreedomPop website. Then click on your name in the upper right hand corner,
and you should get a drop down menu with your devices (sim #1 and sim #2)
listed. You can select either on and downgrade the plan and service. You can
also monitor your data usage.

FAQ#6: I downgraded my second $.01 "penny" sim and it only has 200mb? Why
didn't it get the 50mb Friends bonus?
A: The second $.01 sim will often not get the 50mb Friends bonus until it
starts the second cycle. So if you only see 200mb, don't panic. Just wait
until the start of the second cycle and you'll get the 50mb bonus data on
it.

FAQ#7:. What kind of phone do I need for this LTE sim?
A: You will need an unlocked GSM-capable smartphone running Android 4.0 or higher or
an Apple iPhone running OS 7.0 or higher. The phone must be GSM-capable. GSM is what
AT&T and T-Mobile use, or you can buy a generic unlocked GSM smartphone. If
you have an AT&T or T-Mobile phone, it will need to have been unlocked,
although I've seen some reports that this LTE sim works on AT&T phones
that are still locked to AT&T. I don't have a locked AT&T phone to
verify this. Verizon and
Sprint use CDMA instead of GSM, and this sim will not work in their CDMA
phones, though some newer Sprint and Verizon phones have GSM capability, and
work. If you have a Sprint or Verizon phone, you will need to determine if
it has GSM capability and if it is unlocked. This sim will not work in a flip phone, it has to be in a smartphone.
FAQ#8: Do I need an "LTE" phone? Does the LTE sim also have 3G?
A: You can use a 3G phone with the LTE sim. You don't have to have an LTE
phone, but you will need an LTE-capable phone if you want to get LTE data speeds.
This LTE sim also supports 3G and 4G data. I verified this by settting my phone to only use 3G data, and the sim still worked. So
if you have a 3G phone, this sim will work, you just won't get the faster
LTE data speed.
FAQ#9: How long can a sim be dormant or inactive? How often do I have to use
it? Are there inactivity fees?
A: You don't have to use the LTE sim, but you do want to make sure you
downgrade to the free plan and cancel the service trial after you order, or
you will be charged for the plan and/or service after the 30 day free trial
ends. There are no dormancy charges, but starting earlier this year (2017)
FreedomPop started occasionally charging inactive accounts a $0.01 "maintenance fee" to confirm the account
still has a valid payment form on file. This penny charge could be as often
as once a month, but I have several FreedomPop accounts that I don't use,
and I've only occasionally been charged the penny charge.
FAQ#10: Can I only use this sim in one phone? What if I want to switch
it to a different phone?
A: You can use this LTE sim in as many different (GSM) phones as you
want, but of course, only in one phone at a time. The great thing about GSM
sims is that they are not tied to a phone (unlike CDMA sims). With the LTE
GSM sim, you can switch it between phones, or if your phone runs out of
data, you can switch to a different LTE sim that still has some data on it.
Just remember that the FreedomPop number is attached to the sim, so if you
switch sims, you will also switch FreedomPop phone numbers (which is why I
use a Google Voice phone number with Hangouts).
FAQ#11: Can I use the FreedomPop LTE sim for tethering and/or to make
my phone a hotspot?
A: Maybe. If you pay, FreedomPop offers a $10.99 Premium monthly service
that includes tethering, but I have not tried it. On the free plan,
tethering is not supposed to work, but tethering does work on some of my
phones. Note that if your smartphone is an AT&T branded phone, even if it is
unlocked, the AT&T software may block tethering (because you aren't
subscribing to a paid AT&T tethering plan). My experience with tethering
the FreedomPop LTE sim on the free plan is as follows:
* My Amazon Prime BLU R1
HD dual sim phone (works easily) - I am able to easily turn either LTE
sim (#1 or #2) into a hotspot using the stock Android Marshmallow hotspot
function (settings > wireless & networks > more > tethering & portable
hotspot > wi-fi hotspot). I just enable the hotspot function and it works.
* My unlocked AT&T ZTE ZMax2 GoPhone
(works with 3rd party app) - the stock Android hotspot does not to work
(settings > Mobile hotspot). When I try to turn it on, I get an error
message saying "There is a temporary network problem that prevents the
enablement of the Mobile hotspot function. Please retry later." However,
I downloaded and installed an app called "Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot" and the
app works for tethering and make the ZMax2 phone a hotspot.
* My refurbished Moto G4 (works but only with a lot of effort using a
slightly unorthodox "hack") - the stock Android Marshmallow hotspot does not
work. When I try to turn it on, I get a message saying "Checking
subscription status. Please Wait...", and then eventually an error
saying "Network connection error. Your phone cannot currently connect to
AT&T's server. Please try again later." I tried the Portable Wi-Fi
Hotspot app, but it did not work either. I did discover an interesting way
to make the stock hotspot function work, but it's not easy. If you remove
the sim card (you have to take off the phone back), then turn on the hotspot
and almost immediately slide the sim card back in, the phone will skip the
subscription status check and the hotspot function will turn on and work.
Removing the back cover and temporarily removing the sim card is obviously a
bit of a pain, so I can only see using this method in an emergency if you
really need tethering. It is a cool "hack" though, and is worth try once
just to see if it works for you.
* I also want to thank reader Rick for providing the
following information about his own experience with tethering the FreedomPop
LTE sim. He reported that tethering is working for him with the FreedomPop LTE sim
on the free plan on four BLU R1 HD phones, a Nexus 5, a Nexus 6, and a Moto G4.
Rick also has an unlocked AT&T S5, unlocked AT&T S6, and unlocked AT&T S6
Edge+, and tethering did NOT work on those phones, but it did work on an
international-version S5. Rick said that he didn't do anything special to
get tethering working on his phones. He just set up and enabled the phone's
hotspot function. But he also reported that tethering did NOT work on his
AT&T-version phones, though he probably didn't try the 3rd party hotspot app
I found or the hack of removing and sliding back in the sim card. If you have any
tips or other information on tethering with the FreedomPop LTE sim, please
leave a comment below!
FAQ#12: My phone needs a nano size sim. Can I use the
FreedomPop LTE sim?
A: Yes. The great thing about the FreedomPop LTE sim is that it is a
3-in-1 sim, and can be used as a regular size sim, a micro size sim, or a
nano size sim. If you look closely at my picture above where I show how to
remove the sim from the sim card, you'll see that it has three different
sized perforated shapes for the nano size, the micro size, and the regular
size. You just decide what size sim you need, and then pop the correct size
sim out of the card.
FAQ#13: FreedomPop LTE Sim Activation: How do I activate my sim?
When is it activated? Do I need to activate my sim?
A: The FreedomPop sim is activated on the day it is shipped to you, so
it will already be activated when you receive it. You do not need to
activate it. It is already activated. You also don't have to use it right
away, or use it to activate it. You can let it sit in a drawer for several
months before you use it. Whenever you're ready to start using it, the sim
is ready to use. All you have to do is put the sim in your phone and set the
APN to "fp.com.attz" and your cellular data should work. If you want the
free talk & text, you need to install the FP app. Remember that your 30 day
free trials start on the day the sim ships, so you need to downgrade your
plan and service within 30 days of the ship date, whether or not you ever
open the sim kit and/or use it.
FAQ#14: What if I get a wrong charge on my credit card? How do I
contact billing?
A: Some people recommend contacting FreedomPop through their Twitter or
Facebook accounts, but I think it's easier to just call them. Call
888-743-8107 and then press 4 for billing. I called to verify the number
worked, and got a real person within less than a minute. If you are on the
free plan and call from your FreedomPop phone number, you may get a message
that you need to contact support through their website. The simple solution
to this is to just call from a non-FreedomPop number and then it's easy to
get through to billing. If you downgrade your plan and service (and check
your account overview page to make sure you're downgraded), you shouldn't
need to contact billing, but if for any reason you do, it's not that hard. A reader named Nick
who got hit by the
second version of the "service downgrade bug" (which has since
been fixed) told me that when
he called FreedomPop to get it fixed (he called 888-743-8107 and pressed
4 for billing), he got a representative right away and got the problem fixed
in 3 or 4 minutes. From what I have read, every person who has ever contacted
them about an incorrect charge has always received a refund. In fact, Brad
wrote this in a comment on my original LTE sim review:
[Brad on Monday, March 13,
2017] "I
forgot to mention how good FreedomPop's customer service is. When I
ordered the global sim's a few months ago, I meant to downgrade them,
but forgot ( I hadn't started using the cards at the time). When I saw
the credit card charge, I called FreedomPop's customer service,
explained the situation, and received a full refund on both sims! I
don't know if they commonly do something like this, but needless to say I
was very impressed."
FAQ#15: What is the new "account maintenance" charge? Why did I get
a $0.01
charge on my credit card?
A: In March 2017, FreedomPop updated their terms of service, and now they
may charge inactive accounts $.01 to verify they still have
a valid payment form on file.
[source freedompop.com/service_plan_terms.htm,
last updated on 3/1/2017] "Notwithstanding anything else in these Terms to
the contrary, if you choose the Free Monthly Broadband Plan or the Free
Monthly Phone Plan and (a) do not make a payment for excess usage, Value
Added Services, or Other Services in any particular month and (b) use less
than 5mb or make fewer then five (5) calls in any given month, FreedomPop
reserves the right to charge you a $0.01 maintenance fee ("Maintenance Fee")
to keep your FreedomPop Account active."
I have multiple FreedomPop accounts (several LTE sim accounts, several
Global sim accounts, and a Sprint-based Moto E2 account). Some of my
accounts that I don't use have gotten a few of these $0.01 "penny" charges,
but not every month. They seem to happen at random, and honestly, not very
often. I think all of the penny charges so far add up to less that ten
cents. Just know that if you aren't actively using an account, it may
occasionally be charged $0.01. So why is FreedomPop doing this? I think
because of credit card processing fees, it actually costs FreedomPop much
more than a penny to charge the penny charge, so ironically FreedomPop
probably loses money when they charge the penny. I think there are two
reasons they are doing this. First, they really do want to make sure people
have a valid form of payment of file for the account, so that if the person
uses a lot of data all of a sudden and runs well over their limit before
FreedomPop knows to cut them off, FreedomPop doesn't want to get stuck with
an unpaid bill. Second, I think FreedomPop would actually like people to
close their unused accounts since the unused accounts still cost FreedomPop
money, and thus the random penny charges are meant to annoy people and get
them to close their inactive accounts. In any event, while it is a little
annoying, I've decided that I don't mind the penny charges very much,
because even if I pay a few pennies a year or even a few pennies a month,
this service is still an incredible deal (at least for me).

FreedomPop has updated their terms to include a new $.01 "Account Maintenance"
fee. You may occasionally be charged $.01 on inactive FreedomPop accounts to verify they still have a valid form of payment on
file.
11. Comments / Questions / Feedback:
Comment by
Chris on Tuesday, October 24, 2017
This "FreedomPop for Dummies" guide is insanely good. Nice to hear I'm
not the only person constantly trolling FP to see what they're doing.
It's very useful to see when you updated the page last - pretty much the
first thing I look for. What's a bit tough to identify is the content that's
been updated.
Like what would be nice is...
Example:
FreedomPop now requires that you pay for and add a $5 credit to your account
before downgrading to the free plan.
Might Be:
FreedomPop now requires that you pay for and add a $5 credit to your account
before downgrading to the free plan. [Oct 23, 2017] They have decided to
discontinue this.
Just a thought (wish they would do as stated above) so I can see what
changed. Or maybe a revision chart.
Anyways, thanks for this - in most cases it validates my findings and in
some cases shows me new things. Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Chris, Thanks for your comment and feedback. I do want to make it as easy
as possible to see what has changed and what is latest and most current
news. I do try to post dates on the parts and sections I update, but based
on your comment, I think I can do a better job. I might add a separate
section on the history of FreedomPop and what their current policies are,
and then post "time-stamped" revisions. There is certainly a lot of
misinformation out there since many people don't know what has changed, or
sometimes something gets changed and some people hear about the change, but
then the change gets changed back. It can be confusing. Anyway, great
comment and much appreciated. I'll work on your suggestion!
PS. For the record, regarding the $5 credit requirement to downgrade to the
free plan, FreedomPop started requiring it in July or August, but then
discontinued it after about a week. Then they started requiring it again in
September (and updated their offer terms to sort of disclose it), and it is
currently a requirement (the credit also allows one to turn off Auto-Top-Up,
which is a good thing to do). So there are people who are unaware of the $5
requirement to downgrade, or who heard about it the first time and think it
was a temporary policy that was discontinued, and thus don't think or know
that it is now required. As I said, FreedomPop can be confusing, but if you
know what to do (which is the point of this guide), it is a (relatively)
easy way to get free (limited) smartphone service. Thanks again for
commenting! Comment by
Terry on Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Great guide! Could you add more information about the "Global Free 100"
international call? It is also free for basic LTE plan. Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Terry, You are correct. The free basic LTE plan includes 200 domestic
minutes (and 500 texts and 200mb). You can add the "Global Free 100"
international plan (under "International") and get 100 international calling
minutes (to Mexico, Canada, UK, India, and over 50 other countries). Just
like the regular 200 (domestic) minutes, you have to use the FP app and the
calls are voip. The Global 100 plan is free, or you can also get 300
international minutes for $4.99/month or 1000 international minutes for
$9.99/month. Per your suggestion, I will add this to my review somewhere
above when I have time. Thanks for commenting and mentioning this! Comment by
Jeff on Friday, November 17, 2017
I'm looking at the
$49 annual LTE sim plan offer. What would need to be 'downgraded' on
that plan or changed to not incur extra charges, $49 a year is a great price
for 1000 min/1000text/1 gig data a month plan for a child. And I assume
after 1 year the plan would change, or go up in price?
PS this site is a fantastic reference point, thanks Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Jeff, I use the basic free plan, but if you are going to use the 1000
monthly minutes and texts, the $49 annual plan does look like a great deal,
and I do know several people who have gotten it. Also, the data would
actually be 1.5GB/month if you add ten friends. I don't see anything in the
offer that needs to be downgraded or removed, but you should double check
your account after you sign up and get the sim. The offer doesn't appear to
include any trial services, just the basic annual plan for $49 per year, and
the offer terms say it will renew annually at that price ($49).
One note about using it as a kids phone - the FP app for talk and texts
shows ads, which I don't think is a big deal. But the app may also sometimes
show a pop-up offer to sign up for a free service trial. There is a bigger
"accept" button and a smaller "X" to cancel. You would want to show your kid
this and tell them not to sign up for any "free" offers. I would also turn
off the data "auto-top-up" feature so your kid doesn't "accidentally" go
over on the free monthly data limit. This may require a $5 credit. If you
have an android phone, you can also set a cellular data limit on the phone.
If you do get the annual plan sim, please let me know what you think of it.
Thanks for commenting! Comment by
tom on Monday, November 20, 2017
I clicked on one of the links you provided for the LTE sim kit and on
the billing screen it refers to the PREMIUM LTE 2GB UNLIMITED QUARTERLY PLAN
@ $41.97(3 mon) and the Freedompop Phone Premier at $26.97 for 3 months. I
want to stay with the 3 month quarterly plan at $41.97 but downgrade the
Service Plan to the $2.49 voicemail option. Do you know if this is possible,
reason asking, this $2.49 is based on the monthly plan so do you think FP
would bill me $7.47 quarterly or would I be forced to pay the $26.97 as this
may be the only allowed Service option. Thank You and what a great site ! Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Tom, As far as I know, sims have either monthly pricing, or quarterly
pricing, or semi-annual pricing, or annual pricing. All of the plans and
services on any sim account will be the same for the same billing time
period (monthly, quarterly, etc), so if you sign up for a sim with quarterly
pricing, you can keep the quarterly plan, remove the quarterly service, and
add (quarterly) voice mail if you want, which should be $7.47 per 3 months.
Comment by Jeff on Wednesday, November 22, 2017
I picked up a ZTE Maven 3, it seems to work fine, you'll need a micro sd
card though, it comes with 7.2 gigs used of the 8 gigs it has, anyway, I got
2 Freedompop LTE sims, they don't say which number is on each card, so I
popped one in and everything worked as you've said, but the first card I put
in was the number I wanted to pass on to my grandson, so after some testing
(freedompop sim gave 33.8mb/sec upload cricket gave 8.9 in a Samsung s7 I
have) I swapped in the other sim, data worked but the phone kept saying that
the number was the same as the first sim and calls couldn't come in. Sending
out a text was still the first sims number also, I just did a reset and
everything was swapped over, number and all. Is there something I could do
to get it to change numbers without a reset, or was something to do with the
phone being lock on att pre-paid? Thanks for the great info in this article
and the freedom friends email list.
Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Jeff, Thanks for your comment! I just got a new ZTE Maven 3 on Best Buys'
Black Friday Sale (I don't need any more phones, but for $7.99, how could I
resist?). You are right that most of the 8GB is taken up by bloatware, so
one should definitely plan on adding a MicroSD card. I'm also going to see
how much of the bloatware can be deleted to free up more of the 8GB. As for
swapping FreedomPop sims in a phone, from my experience, you need to reboot
the phone or clear the FP Messaging app cache to get the new sim's FP phone
number to work. Comment by Artemis on Friday, November 24,
2017
A little FYI or recent update on dealing with LTE sim purchases:
I just purchased one of the LTE sims today (Friday Nov 24) for one cent and
free shipping as part of a Black Friday sale offer I received at one of my
emails. I followed your guide to setup my new account (first time for me, as
my two Global sims were acquired through ebay and already setup) and was
surprised to have to pay $10 and not $5 for the plan downgrade. The auto-top
was disabled at this point for "free" (had $10 balance), and no other fees
were requested of me. Could this be a recent change? I wish I had tried
disabling the top-up first to see how much money they would have asked for,
but I was following the instruction order in your guide, and that step came
last. It sucks I missed the boat on $5 but then again, I will have lots of
credit to eat through with my low monthly use (I still miss RingPlus with
all my heart - RIP) P.S. The only real question I have: any idea when one
could expect the Global sims to stop working completely, if ever?
Reply by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Artemis, Thanks for your comment and report! I just got back from
traveling for Thanksgiving, and found out that is appears FreedomPop
increased the credit charge required when downgrading to the free plan from
$5 to $10 on November 21. I'm in the process of updating my FP review(s) to
reflect this latest change. I like your idea of disabling auto-top-up for $5
first, and then seeing if you don't have to pay any more to downgrade to the
free plan. Hopefully another reader will try this and let me know. As for
the FP Global sims, they only works on T-Mobile 3G in the US now, and
T-Mobile is phasing out 3G support. I don't know how long they will continue
to work in Europe. For US service though, the LTE sim is the way to go.
BTW, do you remember if there was a pop-up or other warning about the $10
charge and you got an option to accept it or not? Or was it just automatic
when you downgraded? I'm wondering if FP checks for credit first and if you
had a $5 credit then you would not have to pay the $10, or if the $10 is an
automatic charge? Reply by Artemis
on Sunday, November 26, 2017
Hi Steve, Thank you for the reply and friend accept on FP. I am actually
able to answer your questions today because I decided I really couldn't pass
up the offer for cheap data and free shipping, and purchased two more sims.
:)
Services are still downgraded for free. I disabled auto top up as a second
step. That part still requires the $5 charge. With that credit on the
account, the plan downgrade went smoothly and did not require further
funding. Seems like a sneaky strategy on FP's part to get a bit more money
out of newbies like myself. People should definitely disable topup first or
second from now on, and the plan last, if they don't want to pay more than
$5.
As far as the plan downgrade message, it was one of those web 2.0 pop over
pop up type messages, in the long string of popups you get with all the
offers they give you before they finally downgrade (can't remember if it
comes before or after the password popup -probably after). The message
sounded similar to what they say about auto top ups, that there is a delay
in usage reporting and the credit is for their protection. You have the
options to cancel downgrade or proceed with charge.
My significant other just bought several sims as well, and I can email you a
screenshot of that particular plan charge popup because we haven't
downgraded his yet. Comment by Marty on Thursday, December
07, 2017
Thank you for your excellent guide, and updates. I have both data and
combo sims, and tried both. I have a GV number, so initially I only ordered
the data sim; I tried both sims, but decided to mainly use the data-only sim.
I just downgraded both, cancelling the autoload first, and incurred no extra
charges for the downgrade. So, $10 total. Still a great deal for service
plus sims, and I don't mind helping to support them a little bit.
One thing I don't see in the guide is anything about the interaction between
the two sims, mainly how the FreedomPop Friends works. It looks like my
extra data is applied to the data-only sim, which was one factor pushing me
to that sim for my main use. The friends show up for both, but the data
shows up for only data. If I choose the combo sim, then send out friend
requests, will that apply to the combo sim? Is there a way to differentiate
between the two?
I don't really require a direct answer, as I can ask online if it becomes
necessary, but if you have time and want to do it, it might be a good piece
to add to the article. Reply by
Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Marty, Thanks for your comment. How long have you had the second sim? As
I mention in one of my review FAQs, the primary sim gets the 500mb bonus
right away, but secondary devices for some reason don't get the bonus data
until their second cycle. If it's been longer than that, then there's a
different problem.
By the way, so were you able to downgrade two sims for $5 each by disabling
auto-top-up. If so, when did you do that (what date)? I'd just like to
update my info if it is still working.
Reply by Marty
Hi Steve, I got both Sims together about 3 weeks ago, so I'm still in the
first cycle. Sorry, I must have missed that part about the first Sim. Today
(12/7/17), I first disabled the auto-top-off for both Sims, agreeing to $5
for each. Then I downgraded both, but did not get that message about a $10
deposit. Hope I answered your questions satisfactorily. If not, feel free to
reply. Thanks, Marty Reply by
Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Marty, Thanks for your reply! I'll update my review(s) with your
experience, and that as of today, at least for you, disabling auto-top-up
for $5 first allowed you to then avoid paying the $10 credit to downgrade to
the free plan. Comment by Mike on Saturday, December 09,
2017
Thanks for the great guide. I have two Freedompop accounts. Both
have/had WiMAX hotspots, global Sims and now the new US Only LTE Sims. I
tried downgrading today and had the same experience you mention above of not
being charged $5 to turn off auto-top-up. My experience for both accounts
was: no fee to turn off auto top-up (did that first as suggested by you.)
Was also able to turn off services for free. Then when I tried to downgrade
plan, was forced to buy a $10 credit in order to do so. (No $5 method for
me.) So now I'm on the "Basic 200 Quarterly" "free" plan. But even a
one-time charge $10.99 for 700MB/month (per account) is still a great deal.
Keep up the good work! Reply by
Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Mike, Thanks for your comment and report. You're my third reader to
report that you do NOT get charged to turn off auto-top-up, so then when you
downgrade to the free plan you have to pay for the $10 credit. But other
readers report the "$5 auto-top-up disable first" method still works for
them. Strange, but not un-typical for FreedomPop. However, as you say, even
for $10 bucks (one time), 700mb of free AT&T LTE data every month is still a
good deal. Comment by Nick Misenti on Friday, December
15, 2017
Boy, WHAT A GUIDE!!!! I recently added my name to your Freedompop
friends request list and the next day I had all the extra data that I could
use. I just stumbled on to this guide today and it's terrific. You sure have
spent a lot of time on it and it really is thorough. Huge KUDOS to you!!!
Have a great holiday, Nick Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your comment and feedback. I appreciate it. It's also
good to hear my FreedomPop Friends list is working. Thanks! Comment by Nick
on Saturday, December 16, 2017
I want to thank you for your report and for the timely updates. Today,
December 16th, I downgraded and turned off auto-update for $5 instead of $10
using your work around. As a helpful note, sim card holders can be found
very inexpensively on eBay. Great for those of us swapping sim cards all the
time! Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your report! Very helpful! Comment by
WCF on Friday, December 29, 2017
Thank you for your awesome comprehensive guide! FreedomPop's website is
pretty dismal in terms of information and I was hesitant to try out their
SIMs, and then I came across your site, studied it, and decided to take the
plunge. We ordered two LTE SIMs Christmas Day, and another two on Boxing
Day. The initial SIM as well as the additional SIM per email account cost
only $0.01 each - I think there was a holiday sale. The plan came with 2GB
data for $24.99 per month after the first month, instead of the 1GB $19.99
plan, and there didn't seem to be any way to change to the 1GB plan at
sign-up. We downgraded all four SIMs last night (12/28/17) to the free plan.
We did disable the auto top up first, and ended up getting charged only $5
per SIM. There weren't any additional charges to downgrade the free plan, so
the $5 workaround worked for us, yay! Each SIM took about 2-3 minutes to
downgrade. The process was fairly painless thanks to your detailed
explanation. Next up: signing up for your FreedomPop Friend's list to get
the additional 500MB data. Thank you again for this awesome guide! Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi WCF, Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed comment about your
FreedomPop signup experience for the benefit of other readers considering
trying FreedomPop. I'm glad your experience went so well, which is the way
it should be, but often isn't because as you say, FreedomPop's own website
can be "mildly" confusing. Thanks also for reporting that the $5 downgrade
workaround is still working as of December 28. I checked the penny sale
offer link, and you are correct that it now has a 2GB bonus data, so I've
updated the offer text. Thanks again for commenting! Comment by
Ravi on Sunday, December 31, 2017
Terrific guide, thanks! Just followed all the steps and ordered 2 SIMs
to try out. By the way, thanks for the direct links to downgrade the
services and plans. I went ahead and downgraded everything immediately after
ordering so I don't have anything to worry about going forward.
PS. You may want to add the direct links for (1) disabling auto top-up, and
(2) adding friends. I googled and found them both, and I know they'll be
easily available once my SIMs ship, but I didn't want to wait. For anyone
else that's impatient like me, may be helpful to add direct links for both
into the guide. Thanks so much again, really looking forward to trying out
FreedomPop! Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Ravi, Thanks for commenting and sharing your experience. Per your
suggestion to add the other direct links for readers who after ordering
don't want to wait for their sim to ship so they can access all of the
account menu links, I've added them in the guide above and am also listing
them below:
Access your plan at my.freedompop.com/plan
Access your service at my.freedompop.com/services
Turn off auto-top-up at my.freedompop.com/settings/credit-balance
Send out friend invites at my.freedompop.com/earn-share/friend-invite Comment by
Mark Morgan on Wednesday, January 17, 2018
After reading your 1/17/18 update today I decided to go ahead and turn
off auto top up on the last LTE sim card that did not have top up turned
off. It went thru for $5. This is a sim that has been on the free plan for
at least 6 months. Thought it might be good to get this done before the
price goes up. I now have 4 gsm phones using the FP program and feel like a
$20 deposit plus maybe $10 more buying the sims is a VERY good deal for the
services received in the months (started with LTE program Jan '17) since I
started using. In my area ATT has the very best coverage. Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Mark, Thanks for your comment and report! Comment by
Nick on Monday, January 22, 2018
Thanks for the great guide! On my account, I'm being prompted to pay a
$15 credit to downgrade. I did turn off auto top-off but didn't get prompted
to pay a $5/$10 credit. If I add $10 credit will I still be prompted to pay
$15 to downgrade? Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, If you add a $10 credit, then you should be able to downgrade to
the free plan without paying anything else. Please let us know if this
works. Thanks! Reply
by Nick on Monday, January 22, 2018
I went ahead and added the $10 credit and it worked. It did not prompt me to
pay $15 credit. Again, thanks for the excellent guide. Comment by
James Koh on Thursday, February 01, 2018
Hypothetically, if you lose some friends in the middle of a billing
cycle, will the extra data that you earned be impacted right away or do you
have until the end of the billing cycle? Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi James, Good question, but I don't know the answer. All of my accounts
have plenty of friends, so even if people drop out, I always have more than
10 friends and I always have the full 500mb bonus. I don't know if your
number of friends dropped to 8 friends, for example, if your bonus for the
current month would drop to 400mb, or if it would happen on the next cycle.
In any event, I'd play it safe and always have extra friends. Reply
by James Koh on Thursday, February 01, 2018
Hi Steve, good idea! I guess it's true that you cannot have too many
friends. Thanks! Comment by Pat F. on Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Just found out about this service, and will be trying it out. Just want
to say thanks for putting this guide out there.
Comment by Andrew on Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Just bought a SIM and went through the process of downgrading
everything. Safety Mode was only $4.99 semi-annual for me. My plan is "Basic
200 Semi-Annual" ($0.00) if that makes a difference.
Thank you for your great reviews, and this awesome guide!
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Andrew, Thanks for your comment and report. Since you just bought and
downgraded a new LTE sim, can you answer a few questions for the benefit of
other readers interesting in order...
1. Did you pay the $15 credit to downgrade to the free plan, or did you add
a $10 credit first instead?
2. What was your total cost, and did you check your billing page to make
sure? Reply
by Andrew on Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Hi Steve,
1. I added $10 credit first. I was being prompted to pay $15 to downgrade
otherwise, just as stated in your guide.
2. I also agree to the $4.99 semi-annual Safety Mode fee (semi-annual). For
some reason they charged me $0.90 (to activate it, perhaps?), with my first
$4.99 to be billed March 18. I turned off auto-top-up.
3. I was able to downgrade to the free plan (because I had added the $10
credit), and I cancelled the premium service trial.
4. I ended up paying $10.91 TOTAL... Here's a screenshot from my billing
page. I am now on the free plan, and only have the $4.99 semi-annual Safety
Mode service showing now.
 Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Andrew, Thanks for sharing your ordering experience! This is great
information. I think you got charged $.90 for Safety Mode because the
service charge is pro-rated depending on how much time is left in the cycle
(you had about 30 days left because you were still in the trial period, and
the $4.99 is based on a 6 month cycle). Your next charge for it will be
$4.99, but I now think you can cancel it if you want, and Auto-Top-Up will
remain OFF. You only need the Safety Mode service to turn off auto-top-up,
but you don't need to keep paying for it to keep auto-top-up off. Reply
by Andrew on Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Hi Steve, Per your suggestion, I cancelled the Safety Mode service, and
Auto-Top-Up is still off (disabled)! Now I see my next billing cycle is
showing $0. I am on the free plan and have no services. Comment by
Timothy on Saturday, February 17, 2018
Thanks for the guide. I wanted to let you know of two items.
1. The freedompop UK is slightly different and more costly to downgrade. The
minimum amount that can be added as credit is 10 pounds.
2. I recently used 209 MB out of 250 MB with auto top up enabled, but auto
top up never charged me. I understood that auto top up was supposed to add
money when you were within 100MB of the limit, but it didn't seem to work
that way this time.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Timothy, Thanks for your comment! In the past, Freedompop has sometimes
said that the auto-top-up trigger point for LTE sims is 20MB, unlike their
Sprint-based phones which have the 100MB trigger point. But other times they
have said that the trigger point for sims is 100MB, and all of their
official support documents still state that the trigger is 100MB, so that's
what I tell people in my guide just to be safe, though it could be 20MB and
that probably explains why you were ok. By the way, you should add more
friends and get your data limit up to 700mb. :) Comment by
Bryan R on Saturday, February 24, 2018
I really think your guide is great. I do have a tip for other users that
have more than one sim: it is possible to use file folder label stickers to
number your sims (Available at Dollar Tree). Then simply create a text file
you keep secure that corresponds sim number to account information. It makes
it easier to remain on free freedom pop service after following your guide
even if you use a couple of GB of data a month. I use it for a free to use
second device to play Pokemon go.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Thanks for your comment and the tip. I like the label idea, though I
actually just write directly on my sims with a fine point permanent marker
to label them 1, 2, 3, etc. It does make it easier to tell them apart. Comment by
Joe on Tuesday, February 27, 2018
I tried adding $10 to my account and then downgrading to the Free Plan
but it's still asking me to to add $15 in order to downgrade. Please help!!
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Joe, Another reader reported this same issue a few days ago. She added a
$10 credit, but was still prompted to add $15. She said ok, and the plan was
downgraded, and she never got charged the $15. Her billing only showed the
$10. She double checked a few days later, and she still only got charged
$10, so it worked out. Based on her experience, I'd suggest that you go
ahead and accept and see what happens. If you do get charged both, contact
FP via Twitter per my guide and you should get a refund on at least one. Let
me know. Good luck. Reply
by Joe
Hey Steve, Thanks for your advice. I tried that and it looks like they
didn't charge me another $15, at least for now. I'll keep an eye on it and
let you know if anything interesting happens. Thanks for the help. Joe Comment by
Scott Wickham on Tuesday, February 27, 2018
I have been too lazy to get friends for my SIM phone. So I only have 200
MB a month. I used to just leave data off unless I needed to go online. Then
last fall google released Datally (available on the Google Play Store as "Datally:
mobile data-saving & WiFi app by Google")
It's an app that restricts all of the vampire data use from android apps. I
leave google play service, android, google voice, hangouts, and hangout
dialer and firefox focus with access to my data and now I have a fully
functional phone for $0 a month. I receive and make call with google
hangouts, text with google voice and surf with firefox focus. I end up using
less than 100 mb of cell data month.
Before Datally I only used my freedompop to make calls since I couldn't risk
going over my data limit from downloading ads for the games on my phone. The
only downside is Datally needs android 5 and above so it doesn't work with
many of the used phones freedompop sells.
P.S. Thanks for explaining the new safety mode feature. I hope you
appreciate my tip.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Scott, Great tip about the Datally app. I'll have to check it out. Even
if you don't need the data, I'd strongly suggest you get 10 or more
FreedomPop Friends so you'll get the 500mb bonus every month. It really
isn't very much work, and you only have to do it once (but get some extra
friends in case any drop out). Check out my FreedomPop Friends list and invite
some of the people on it. You can't have too many friends, and you want to
always have at least 10. It's better to have 700mb instead of 200mb, even if
you never use it. Thanks again for the tip about the Datally app.
Comment by New Freedom Pop User on Wednesday, February 28, 2018
I added the $10 credit prior to downgrading and it still had me add
another $15 when I downgraded so now had to pay $25. best to just pay the
$15 credit now. This was performed a matter of minutes ago on 2/28/18.
UPDATE> I retract my last comment - it still showed the message that it was
going to charge me $15 but never actually charged me $15. I was only charged
the $10, 1 cent for the activation kit, and 75 cents for the safety mode
service. (already disabled it so it won't bill again) Not sure if it has
something to do with their billing cycle but I signed up for safety mode
service today and disabled it immediately and was billed 75c. so all in all
$10.76 of which I expect to get $10 back if I ever close the account - not
bad!
Comment by Julian Curtis-Zilius on Tuesday, March 06, 2018
Hello, It's a little bit unclear to me what I have to do to downgrade.
Should I add $10 to my account, then ignore the $15 downgrade button and
click it hoping it won't charge me another $15 after the $10? Or should I
wait until the end of the month, activate safety mode, then immediately
inactive it. Thanks!
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Julian, Downgrading to the free plan and removing auto-top-up are two
different things. You need to downgrade to the free plan (and remove your
service trial) or you will be charged at the end of your free 30 day trial.
To downgrade to the free plan, you must have an account credit. If you add a
$10 credit, you might still get the $15 message, but you should be able to
accept it, and you should only be billed the $10 based on other readers.
As for the data auto-top-up feature which is on by default, you don't
have to disable auto-top-up (which requires accepting safety mode
service) as long as you keep your data usage below the auto-top-up trigger.
Please read my guide above which explains auto-top-up and how it works. I
would probably disable it eventually, but you don't have to do it right away
if you are careful with your data usage, and if you do it near the end of a
billing cycle, you can get a lower pro-rated charge. Hope this helps.
Comment by Jeff on Monday, March 12, 2018
Just thought I would confirm that adding safety mode near end of billing
cycle is still working. I was charged 98 cents for adding it and then turned
off auto top ups, canceled safety mode service, and auto tops remained
disabled.
The safety mode service is now $6.99 per month for everyone, BTW. I saw an
Admin post on their forums responding to someone with a longer term plan
that stated: "Your subscription will be renewed very 6 or 12 months
depending on your plan however the charge will be applied every month...".
In my case when I did the downgrade, after first adding $10 credit there was
no pop-up asking for $15. Note that after downgrading, you can go to billing
and see that next payment is now changed to $0, this is now another way to
confirm a downgrade.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Jeff, Thanks for your comment and report!
Comment by cromo on Wednesday, April 04, 2018
I am following the instructions from step no. 6 of your guide.
Specifically, it says: "February 2018 update: You now have to sign up for
"Safety Mode" service in order to disable auto-top-up, but the initial
charge will be pro-rated, and after auto-top-up is disabled, you can then
cancel safety mode if you want, and auto-top-up will remain off (disabled)"
Except it says on my end that "Deactivating Safety Mode will enable Auto
Top-Up", which is contradictory to the above.
Is this something new?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi cromo, Thanks for your question. It worked when I did it on two of my
sims about a month ago. I accepted safety mode which disabled auto-top-up
and paid the pro-rated charge. I then cancelled safety mode, and auto-top-up
stayed off. Since then, some people have reported it still works this way,
but a few just recently have said they get a warning when they start to
cancel safety mode that auto-top-up will turn back on. I don't know what
they did or what happened. In any event, there seem to be conflicting
reports. The FP support documents do not say anything about auto-top-up
turning back on. However, this is typical of FP that they make changes and
don't let us know, or the changes only effect some people.
I'll update my guide when I have better info. It can be tough to keep up
with the changes, especially when there are conflicting reports. Please let
me know if you find out anything concrete. Reply
by cromo on Wednesday, April 04, 2018
I gave it a go and disabled the safety mode despite the warning and by the
looks of it, the auto top-up stayed off. I'll check back in few days to
confirm. If anything changes, I'll let you know. Thanks for getting back to
me! Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi cromo, Thanks for your update and report! Another reader just reported
the same thing, that he got the warning but ignored it and cancelled anyway,
and auto-top-up stayed off. I've updated my guide to mention the possible
warning when cancelling Safety Mode, and that one can probably ignore it...
but with Freedompop one never knows for sure! :)
Comment by Dave on Saturday, April 07, 2018
Have used your excellent guide twice now. Just wanted to confirm that as
of 7 April you can still add just $10 and then downgrade to the free plan.
Thanks for your time in educating the rest of us. Dave
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Dave, Thanks for your comment and report!
Comment by Bhanik on Thursday, April 26, 2018
Hi Steve, Thanks a lot for this article. This is very extensive and
takes you step by step on getting an almost free service. I do however have
a question that if you have 2 Sims (under the same login), do you need to
add $10 for each account to downgrade to free plan?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Bhanik, Thanks for your comment and question. Yes, you have to add a $10
credit for each sim on the account before you can downgrade the sim's plan
to the free plan, so if you have two sims on the account, it would cost
2x$10=$20 in credits. It would be nice if all the sims could share the same
credit, but each needs its own credit. But remember that all of these
credits can be refunded if and when you end or cancel your service, as long
as you remember to ask.
Comment by Peter Fales on Monday, April 30, 2018
Just FYI. On 4/29/2018, I was able to disable Top-up on two of my
accounts. These accounts were near the end of the billing cycle, so it cost
less than one dollar for the pro-rated safety mode service. Then I was able
to cancel the safety mode and top-up remained off.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Peter, Thanks for your comment and report. Good to know Safety Mode is
still pro-rated if done near the end of a billing cycle, and you can then
immediately cancel it and auto-top-up stay off. I've updated my guide with
your data point. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Comment by Dante on Friday, May 11, 2018
Thank you for the guide! I was trying to figure out how to get free
200MB on each SIM by trial and error, and your guide really cleared a lot of
things up. For one, I didn't know you could get 500MB more for adding
friends, and also your tips about enabling "Safety" mode on the last day of
the billing period for a prorated amount and only needing to initially top
up $10 were very helpful! Thanks again!
Comment by Nick on Friday, June 01, 2018
I received the
$9.99 GSM hotspot today (by the way, they did offer a second hotspot for $4.99 when
I got it for the $9.99 price.) When I went to downgrade the paid service I
got "DOWNGRADE ANYWAY, DOWNGRADE AND LOSE DATA" and "DOWNGRADE ANYWAY,
DOWNGRADE and KEEP DATA." My instinct told me to click on the former but out
of curiosity I clicked the latter and got dinged $3.99 for "Freedompop Data
Rollover." I immediately removed that service and sent a message to
Freedompop via Twitter to refund me for that (which they did.) Upon removing
it, I lost all of the additional data from the free trial. It may be just be
due to the particular order of events but something to look out for in
addition to the new second option when downgrading the paid service.
Another thing that I ran into is that when the hotspot arrived, it didn't
work. Thought it initially was an issue with the hotspot itself but decided
to try my other SIM in it and it worked. The hotspot SIM did not come
activated like it should. Messaged Freedompop via Twitter and got the SIM
activated.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your report on the GSM hotspot. Good to know to avoid
the "downgrade and keep data" option. Also good to know that you used the FP
Twitter support option (I explain how to in the Section #9 TIPS above) and
that you got a refund for the rollover service charge, and also that they
activated the SIM card (that should have been activated already and probably
usually is). It's a bummer to need to contact support, but good to know that
their Twitter support fixed both issues quickly. Thanks again for
commenting!
Comment by AYB on Wednesday, June 13, 2018
What are the details on the new LTE (AT&T) annual plans for $15 per
month? Is the calling and texting through the same FP app?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi AYB, As far as I know, any FreedomPop LTE (AT&T) sim plan with talk and
text is going to require the FP app for the talk and text (but not for the
data), and the voice will be voip. FreedomPop has two new paid annual
plans... the $49
annual plan gets you unlimited talk and text (with mms and voicemail)
plus 1GB of data (1.5GB with friends bonus) per month, and the new $149
annual plan gets you unlimited talk and text (with mms and voicemail)
plus 5GB of data (5.5GB with friends bonus) per month.
Comment by DJ on Wednesday, July 11, 2018
The "Friends Bonus Data" has been reduced to 5MB per friend for a
maximum of 50MB monthly. My plan just renewed today and I noticed the
reduced data. I called Freedompop and they confirmed this is their new
policy due to the friend bonus being abused by people.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi DJ, Thanks for the report. Several other readers are reporting the same
thing. Two of my sim accounts renew tomorrow and I expect to see the reduced
friends bonus data change then. I've posted an update at the top of my guide
for now, but will need to go through it and make changes.
Comment by Dante on Friday, August 10, 2018
Just a heads up, I tried to start a new account with a prepaid Vanilla
Visa debit card and FreedomPop does not allow it. It says they do not accept
prepaid cards when you try to purchase any of the offers. So you'll have to
use a real credit card, and not a burner.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Dante, Yes, as far as I know, FreedomPop no longer accepts prepaid cards
or "virtual" credit cards. I think their program is able to spot them and
reject them, so one has to use a normal credit card (Visa, Mastercard, or
Amex). I was able to use a Bank Of American ShopSafe "virtual" visa credit
card last year, but when I tried to use one this year, I got an error
message and it didn't work. All this said, I now use a regular credit card
for all my FP accounts, and I've never gotten any unexpected or unauthorized
charges. I know that if I did, it would be a pain, but I would contact FP
via their twitter support channel, and they'd give me a refund (based on
every reader comment I've ever received). Worst case, one can always
complain to your credit card company and start a chargeback, but if one
does, FP will close your account. In summary, I think it is safe to use a
regular credit card. Just make sure you know what you're doing, and if you
do get any wrong charges, ask for a refund and 99.9% of the time you'll get
it, otherwise as a last resort, you can always do a chargeback. Thanks for
commenting!
Comment by Nick on Wednesday, August 15, 2018
I've also been able to use the full 250MB (it cutoff for me at around
259MB.) An interesting thing to note is that it allowed me to use the full
amount even with my top-off credit "inactive."
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your report! As for your top-off credit, since it was
"inactive", your data got cut off after you hit your limit of 250mb, which
is what is supposed to happen now. If your credit had been active, I think
you would have continued to use data and be charged $.02/mb until your
credit was reduced to $2, and then your data would be suspended. At least,
that is what is supposed to happen if you have an "active" credit amount. In
any event, you confirmed my recent test and experience that if auto-top-up
is disabled (and any credit on your account is inactive) then you can use
the full 250mb (or 259mb) and then your data gets automatically shut off
until the next billing cycle starts. Thanks again for commenting!
Comment by Javi on Thursday, August 30, 2018
Hi. When trying to downgrade, now they want a hefty $20 fee. I want to
try your advice and put $10 in before downgrading, however, I'm not sure I
understand about this "expiration" thing I've experienced last year. On my
first FP phone from exactly a year ago, I remember putting in $5 so I could
turn top-up off, which the credit then expired a month later without me
noticing (until today). Did I get that money refunded or what?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Javi, Downgrading to the free plan, and turning off auto-top up, are two
different things.
It used to be free to downgrade to the free plan. Now you need an account
credit before you can do it. You can either add $10 before you downgrade, or
you'll have to pay $15 (or apparently now $20?).
To turn off auto-top-up, you used to have to pay for a $5 credit. Now you
have to subscribe to "Safety Mode", but I explain in my guide how to do that
at the end of your billing cycle so it doesn't cost much.
And yes, you can get the account credit refunded when you close your account
if you ask for it back, or if you upgrade to a paid plan. If the credit has
become "inactive" then you need to "reactive" the credit before it can be
refunded.
Let me know how it goes. Good luck.
Comment by Javi on Thursday, August 30, 2018
Now I understand the expiration thing! When it expires, you have to
"activate" again in order to reclaim the credits that you had. It had been
inactive for a year now but the credit came back as if time hadn't passed
by! I'm still new to how phone services work, so I was very confused.
Anyway, I'm happy to report that your tip to add the $10 minimum credit
BEFORE downgrading DOES bypass the warning telling me to add $20 instead.
Thanks for the awesome webpage! I'll be checking in again to see in the
future what phones (and maybe tablets too?) you know works with FP. Thanks.
Comment by bradley on Wednesday, September 05, 2018
hi, great stuff - you cover most everything but i am surprised you did
not cover the free FP hotspot - 500 megs of free data a month and this has
not changed. it's great to have a hotspot in your car and have your phone
switch over to it to save phone data even more than in the house, plus you
can pocket it as it's smaller than a phone - 100% free!
Also you may want to revise your comments at the top that say you are using
100% free service because later you admit to occasional 1 cent charges on
your payment method as a test - which is a scam because they can easily
retest the payment method with a authorization which does not charge the
customer - they probably just want to show up on your bill.
I have a large list of FP friends if you want a copy of the list let me
know. the recent friends drop has made me look at the $49 a year plan for my
wife as 700 megs was plenty but 250 may not be quite enough for her. also i
would suggest you add a topic and enhance your section on reactivate account
top up credit as you only get a short time to reactivate this credit - 2
months i think - so you may suggest people put a calendar reminder in for
the 1st of each month to check the balance. it seems to me the cost of the 5
cents per year plans is your time checking balances, reactivating credits,
avoiding charges, reversing plans and using twitter for support (way better
than calling IMHO) thanks! brad
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Brad, Thanks for your comment and insights. You covered a lot! You are
correct that FreedomPop regularly offers a $9.99
hotspot, which depending on the offer can either be a 550mb/month Sprint
(CDMA) hotspot or a 250mb/month AT&T (GSM) hotspot. I haven't tried any of
their hotspots, so I hesitate to review them. I just know it's not very much
data for a hotspot, but could be good for occasional use or emergencies. I
know some people really like their hotspots. You are also correct that
because of the occasional random penny charges, the service isn't
technically free, but it's close enough for me, and well worth a few pennies
a year. As for reactivating the credit, I once did it on a credit after 7
months of it being inactive, and it still reactivated, so I'm not sure if
there is any deadline to reactivate, at least based on my experience. Thanks
again for your comment!
Comment by Nick on Wednesday, September 05, 2018
I also had the same issue when I went over the 250MB limit with it not
automatically un-suspending after the start of the next billing cycle.
FYI, FP is currently offering a CMDA hotspot
for $9.99. It comes with 500MB (550MB with FP friends.)
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for reporting you also had the problem of your account not
automatically un-suspending because you exceeded the 250mb cap. Because of
this, I recommend setting a cap on your phone at 245mb, so you don't have to
hassle with contacting support to get the account unsuspended. Yet another
annoyance that we freeloaders must put up with. :)
Comment by Anonymous on Monday, September 10, 2018
I successfully used your "turn off ATU (AutoTopUp) for 21 cents" trick
for about eight of my FP SIMs, until today. Today, with 7 hours left in my
billing cycle, FP charged me $6.99 (verified with my bank) for turning off
ATU.
BTW, your guide is awesome, and I've relied on it for over a year. Without
your guide, FP's benefits wouldn't be worth all the forum reading time
needed to avoid FP's traps.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi, Thanks for the report. You are the third reader to report that
FreedomPop has stopped pro-rating the Safety Mode Service, so now regardless
of when you activate it to turn off auto-top-up, you get charged the full
$6.99. Bummer, but not unexpected. FreedomPop is trying to make money, while
we "freeloaders" are try to save money. I've added a note to my "latest
updates" section about the $6.99 no longer being pro-rated. People will need
to decide whether they want to just set a data limit on their phone to avoid
accidentally going over their data limit and getting hit with the automatic
$15 auto-top-up credit charge, or they can pay the $6.99 for the peace of
mind of having auto-top-up turned off. Thanks again for your report!
Comment by Nick on Tuesday, September 11, 2018
I wanted to give my first impressions on the FP SuperNova CDMA (Sprint)
hotspot.
The good:
The hotspot is considerably smaller than the Unite 770S GSM hotspot, making
it very much pocket-sized. The big selling point is that you get 500MB
(550MB with FP friends) instead of 200MB (250MB with FP friends).
The bad:
Compared with the Unite 770S GSM, the UI (user interface) is terrible.
Freedompop decided to do a custom web UI for the device. There is no
convenient LCD display. Typing in 192.168.1.1 results in a page not
found/404 error. One has to type in 192.168.1.1/index.asp instead, not
exactly intuitive and quite frankly, poor. Unlike the 770S, there is no
option to disable cellular data (other than putting it into standby.) A big
issue is that there is no option to view data used (although the 770S data
meter isn't perfect, it at least gives you an idea how much data you used
for a session.) Not sure if FP intentionally left this out to make it easier
to go over the data limit, or simply didn't bother.
I did decide to go ahead and take the full $6.99 ding to disable auto
top-off, shame that it's no longer pro-rated but I figured it's still
cheaper than triggering an auto top-off.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your report on the SuperNova hotspot. I haven't gotten
any of the FP hotspots, though I know some readers really like them. Your
report that it is hard to track data usage on the SuperNova hotspot was my
major concern about any of the hotspots (though it sounds like the Unite
hotspot has a LCD display which shows data usage). I think you were smart to
disable auto-top-up on the hotspot, even though it now costs the full $6.99.
Thanks again for your report!
Comment by Nick on Tuesday, September 25, 2018
I'm seeing reports about a new $1.88 monthly administrative charge that
Freedompop is starting to add on to accounts. I haven't seen the charge
myself yet but various users are starting to report it and Freedompop has
confirmed the charge on their forum. Looks like this is a subtle way to kill
off the free plan.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your comment! I think I saw the same report, and am
trying to figure out what is going on. I haven't gotten the charge on any of
my accounts (LTE sims, global sims, and/or a CDMA phone). I'm reminded of
the global sim going from free to $4.99 a month which was announced near the
beginning of this year. It was supposed to be all global accounts, but still
hasn't happened to my two global accounts which are both still free almost a
year later. So I don't know if FP is doing this to all accounts or just
some, or which accounts will be targeted. I agree they want to get rid of us
freeloaders, but at the same time, I think they really don't want to lose
their subscription base.
Anyway. Let me know if you hear anything more. At this point, I think it is
just a few random account to spread uncertainty and to encourage people to
close inactive accounts, but I don't know for sure.
September 28 update - Still no new fees for me. One of my LTE sim
accounts just had its monthly renewal, and it is still FREE (like all
my other accounts). Until I get hit with this $1.88 charge myself, or until
I get more reader reports of it happening to them, I'm going to assume it is
just a few isolated accounts. If it does happen to anyone and they weren't
notified by email before being charged, I would recommend they simply
contact FP support via twitter and request a refund for the unauthorized
new charge, and then cancel the account. Although this service is
no-contract, which means FP can change the terms at anytime, I think they
still need to notify you of any changes and give you a chance to accept them
or cancel your account. So I would wait to see if I ever get charged the
$1.88 fee (which I think I won't), and if it happens, just demand a refund
and then close the account.
Comment by Fed on Wednesday, October 03, 2018
Thank you for this guide! Without it, I would've never tried FP service,
because my best friend had a bad experience with them a couple of years ago.
Anyway, I just successfully downgraded from the free trial to the free plan
exactly as per your instructions, 10-3-18. I wanted to alert you, though, I
added the $10 to my credit account just as you said, but when I downgraded,
it just went through without any warning/ notice requiring any credit
balance at all! Is this because I added the $10 prior to downgrading
according to your instructions, or a change in their policy?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Fed, Thanks for your comment and report that adding the $10 credit before
downgrading to the free plan still works to avoid the downgrade default $20
credit charge. Their policy is still the same. You have to have a credit on
your account, or you will be prompted to pay for a default $20 credit before
you are allowed to downgrade. Fortunately, under billing, you can instead
add $10, and then you won't get forced to add $20.
Comment by Fred on Saturday, October 06, 2018
This guide is the only comprehensive and current source I've found to be
able to navigate Freedom Pop's convoluted offerings. Thanks for your
Herculean efforts. Maybe you should point out at the beginning that, today,
the "free" plan is, at a minimum, a 10 + 6.99 = $17 investment. Probably
still a good deal unless they continue restricting the benefits. For
example: I just invested about an hour trying to figure out how to disable
voicemail on the free plan - bottom line is you can't. Here's a quote from
an admin on the FreedomPop forum, "We no longer provide the option to
enable or disable the Voicemail feature. If you wish to be able to listen to
your voice messages simply make sure to subscribe to this option from your
online account and download our Visual Voicemail app. (8/28/18)"
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Fred, Thanks for your comment! You are right that the "free" plan now
requires an initial investment of $10 to downgrade (plus a penny for the sim),
but one can get the $10 refunded if and when they close their account. The
$6.99 to disable auto-top-up is optional but probably a good idea. I left
auto-top-up on for a long time on all my sims and just set a data limit on
my (android) phone, but then turned off auto-top-up when there was the $0.21
"loophole". The bigger issue that you point out is that they keep adding
more restrictions to the free plan. I didn't know that they removed the
ability to turn off voicemail on the free plans. That stinks, and is another
example of how they are trying to make life harder for us "freeloaders".
I actually am testing their new service
called UNREAL Mobile. It isn't free, but it also doesn't have all
restrictions, constantly changing policies, catches, and other the strings
attached that are becoming much too common with FreedomPop. Unreal is a flat
$10 per month, but it includes everything - unlimited talk/text/data (1GB of
LTE data and unlimited slower 2G data), voicemail, data rollover, etc.
Comment by Roger Impey on Thursday, October 25, 2018
I have just noticed a new $0.97 Recurring Bill Amount on my
account. Anyone seen this, or know what it is?
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Roger, I've seen a few people on other forums complain about new "fees"
but I haven't gotten any yet, and I have four LTE GSM sims and an FP
Sprint-based phone. There seems to definitely be a $3.49 fee if you live in
San Francisco, but that is a city tax that I think FP is finally being
forced to collect. I'm not sure about a $.97 fee. What kind of FP device do
you have, and what do you pay if anything? When is this new fee due, and
what will your total bill then be? I'd like to get more details on who is
being hit and then figure out why... Reply
by Roger
I have a Netgear Unite GSM hotspot purchased directly from FreedomPop about
6 months ago. I get 200 mb plus 50 mb from having friends. I am based in
Florida. I don't use all of the data per month. The hotspot is used to
monitor my thermostat at my winter house.. I don't have a phone number
assigned, and, of course, don't make voice calls. I only have the rollover
service option. I have been paying $3.99 for many months, with no problems.
I use PayPal to pay my monthly bill. I originally thought that the monthly
charge for rollover had increased, but, no it has not. I tried cancelling
the rollover, but the $0.97 charge remained. Now, $0.97 is not much, but it
would be good to understand the charge. I don't really mind paying the fee;
I will add back the roll-over service.
Thanks for your help, and I LOVE your "for Dummies" site. It makes owning
the FreedomPop possible. Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Roger, Thanks for all the details. From your experience and the other
reports I've found and read, I think FreedomPop may be adding the
$0.97/month "administrative fee" to accounts that have a paid monthly
service, like the $3.99/mo data rollover service. Maybe FreedomPop is hoping
people who are already paying won't notice the small extra charge. And all
other providers charge taxes and "regulatory fees", so maybe that's what
FreedomPop is starting to do. I understand if FreedomPop needs to try making
more money because they're losing money on "freeloaders" like me, but I
don't like how they sometimes do it, and the lack of any notice (though
because their service is no-contract, they can change terms at any time and
people can cancel at any time). It also stinks that even though you deleted
your paid service, the $0.97 fee was still there. Seems like FreedomPop may
be shooting themselves in the foot one this issue, which wouldn't be the
first time.
Anyway, my theory is that FreedomPop is adding the $0.97/mo
administrative/regulatory fee to accounts that already have a paid service,
but not any of the totally free accounts. As I said, I have five totally
free FreedomPop accounts, and none of them have been charged, though I check
them regularly whenever I see new reports like yours. Thanks again for
sharing your experience, which will help other readers.
Comment by Mark on Friday, October 26, 2018
Like you, I have read about others being charged a $0.97 service fee,
but I myself have not. I have 4 active GSM sim cards, a CDMA phone and hot
spot plus, 2 data sims. So far none of the accounts have been charged. My "FreeLoading"
continues for now.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Mark, Thanks for your comment and report. Like you, all of my free
accounts also continue to be free. I'll be curious to see if anyone on a
totally free plan reports this new "$0.97" fee, or if it is just some
customers who are already paying for a paid plan or paid service.
11/15/18 update: my FreedomPop Sprint-based Moto E2 phone account renewed
on November 13 and is still totally free. One of my LTE sim accounts renewed
today (November 15) and is still totally free. So I continue to think these
fees only apply to people with paid services, and the totally free accounts
are still totally free.
Comment by Nick on Monday, January 21, 2019
An important note if you go significantly over your limit before it gets
reported to FP and FP suspends the SIM/device they may deduct the overage
from the data allotment in the current billing cycle. This is more of an
issue for Sprint devices as there tends to be quite a delay in reporting
data used.
I was using my Sprint SuperNova hotspot and went over by 176MB. After the
new billing cycle started it of course remained suspended. Twitter support
re-enabled the account BUT they deducted 176MB from the data allotment in
the new billing cycle. It would have been nice if they didn't deduct but
it's better than them demanding payment for the overage.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, This is good info to know! Thanks for your comment and report.
Comment by Fed on Wednesday, January 23, 2019
I've made a comment before (Oct. 3, 2018); just wanted to add about a
month ago I got my 2nd SIM, and once again things went smooth as silk!
Thanks!! However, I do have one "dumb" question I couldn't find the answer
to in any of the references. My 1st SIM says under the heading "Billing - My
Subscription" 2 months left. Will this automatically renew when the 2 months
expire, or do I need to do something in order to renew? Thanks again for
your wonderful guide, and making it easy for us to get free phone service!!
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Fed, Thanks for your comment and question. Yes, your sim should renew
automatically. The key is to make sure the next amount to be billed is $0.
If not, you need to check why. For example, this is what one of my monthly
free sims shows under billing...
Billing Overview
23 days Billing Days Left
Next Payment Amount US$0.00
Next Payment Due Date 2/15/19
Recurring Bill Amount US$0.00
As long as your next payment is showing $0, your sim should
automatically renew for free. Reply
by Fed
Got it! Thanks again for all your understandable, detailed, 100%
explanations! Many people don't seem to know that most often it can make or
break success!... reminds me of that old adage, "For the want of a nail, the
war was lost"!
Comment by Robert Ford on Tuesday, March 03, 2020
I have just purchased and activated a FreedomPop LTE sim 2 weeks ago.
When I tried to downgrade my plan, it asked me for permission to add $20
top-up credit to my account in order to proceed with the downgrade. In your
April 24, 2019 update, you indicated that I only need to have $10 top-up
credit to proceed with the downgrade to avoid the $20 charge. Is it still
true as of today Mar 3, 2020. Thanks
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Robert, It probably still works, but I have no way of knowing for sure or
of confirming it. I still have and use my FreedomPop sims, but per my update
at the top of this post, I don't recommend FreedomPop anymore. I don't think
it is worth the initial startup costs and all the games they play. I think
Tello is a much better option, and I have a
review of Tello (we use Tello for most
of our family phones now). Anyway, I just checked one of my FreedomPop
accounts and see that it is still possible to add a $10 credit under billing
> top up settings. In the past, this stopped the $20 credit from being
charged, but this could have changed. If you try it and it doesn't work, I
think you can cancel and request a refund, but I don't know how hard it is
to get the refund now. Also, from what I've heard, FreedomPop will no longer
refund any charge (or credit) that is over 30 days old. Proceed with
caution. Good luck. Reply
by Robert Ford on Thursday, March 05, 2020
Steve, Thanks for the reply. I just tried adding only $10 to the top-up
credit and haven't been charged for the $20 even though I still received the
$20 charge message. It's good to know there are newer and better MVNO
popping up and you're on top of it. I'll certainly check out your review on
Tello. Robert Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Robert, Thanks for reporting back that adding the $10 credit first still
works to avoid paying the $20 charge. Good to know. Also, good luck with
FreedomPop! And do remember to consider Tello in the future if FreedomPop
doesn't work out for you.
Comment by Kim on Thursday, October 22, 2020
This month, FreedomPop is migrating to a cellular voice network whereby
they are transitioning all users to a "Premium Voice" SIM card. They are
telling me that once their migration to the cellular network is complete,
any lines that did not transition will be disconnected so any spare SIM's
you have in the drawer may soon no longer work. Under the new cellular
Premium Voice SIM free plan, users will get 10 minutes of calls, 10 texts,
and 25MB of data. If that isn't designed to trip everyone up, I don't know
what is. Anyway, it's been a good run and you've been very helpful to
maintain this blog so many thanks for keeping us straight during the
FreedomPop era. I want to keep my GSM Android phone, so now I suppose I have
to see if there's such a thing as a data only SIM card that I can use with
Google Voice and similar. Otherwise, it'll just be Wi-Fi for me for the next
while. Thanks again for all you've done! Stay well. Kim
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Kim, Thanks for your comment. I've also gotten the information about the
new "Premium Voice / Freemium" plan, which sounds essentially useless and
designed to end up charging people. I would definitely avoid it. My existing
FreedomPop sims still work, though I don't really use them anymore. I
switched to
Tello
a while ago, and use their $5 per month plan. It's nice to not have to play
all the games that FreedomPop required. Anyway, I'll keep the existing sims
until they stop working, and then they'll go in the trash. FreedomPop was
"fun" while it lasted, but it looks like the "free ride" is almost over...
Comment by Bill on Friday, January 22, 2021
Hi Steve! Thank you so much for your FP guide. Many freeloaders like me
have benefited from your invaluable guide to play and "tolerate" the FP game
to save hundreds of dollars a year. As they all say, all good things must
come to an end and the end of FP actually came. Hope everyone who freeloaded
read your explanation describing FP's business model and how it worked. No
one should be shocked that this came to an end if they read and understood
your explanation as FP's business model became unsustainable with too many
freeloaders like us as its customer base. Although I am sad to see FP
actually come to an end, the timing couldn't have come at a better time as
Tello begins its GSM service with T-Mobile cell towers. I was hesitant at
first to go with Tello due to its use of Sprint/CDMA towers but with its
transition to T-Mobile now it's definitely a no brainer to go with Tello. I
will address my Tello questions with you on your Tello review site.
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Bill, Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I am essentially "closing "
this FreedomPop guide/review now and your comment is a great way to end it!
The FreedomPop free plan was good while it lasted, but as you clearly
understood, it was unsustainable. Fortunately, Tello is a great alternative.
It isn't "free" like FreedomPop was, but it is one of the cheapest options
available now, and it is honest and "catch-free". And now that Tello uses
TMobile for coverage (and TMobile will be adding the old Sprint towers to
expand their coverage), I would agree that
Tello
should be a "no brainer" for most people. Thanks again for your feedback and
comment. I really appreciate it.
Comment by Nick M on Sunday, February 21, 2021
Thanks for all your help over the years. You have done a fabulous job of
keeping everyone informed of the devious zigs and zags on the slippery slope
that Freedompop had everyone riding on. When I was forced to go to Ting,
Freedompop wouldn't reimburse me or forward to Ting the $65 still left on my
prepaid account. I sent in many requests and all I ever got was a canned
response. I went to the Better Business Bureau, but nothing. I filed a
complaint with the CA Attorney General, and nothing. I was lucky because my
credit card company reimbursed me because I was still within their return
period limit. I had a total of 2 paid numbers and 3 free accounts. I
switched the paid accounts over to Red Pocket's $10 a month plan because of
the coverage from AT&T. I am keeping one "freebie plan" with the nuisance of
nags and renewing every month until I can find something else, or when they
pull another switcheroo. I don't want to lose my number yet. Too bad that
Freedompop has completely gone down the drain. I guess all good things come
to an end. Thanks again!!!!
Reply
by Steve (Cranial Borborygmus)
Hi Nick, Thanks for your comment! I enjoyed getting free phone service from
FreedomPop for several years, but never trusted them enough to move the rest
of my family to FreedomPop. I also realized that the free ride would end
eventually, and now it has. I closed my FreedomPop Sprint line rather than
going to Ting because it wasn't worth paying for. I never moved any of the
other lines over to RedPocket. RedPocket pricing seems reasonable enough,
and you get real AT&T service, but I was always a little concerned that they
would buy FreedomPop which always seems a bit "scammy" to me, even though I
played the FreedomPop "games" to get free service. It sounds like RedPocket
is working for you. If you ever want to move, Tello is worth considering and
starts at $5 per month. They were using Sprint for coverage, but now with
the merger, they use TMobile GSM, which I like better. I have a Tello review
with more info. Thanks again for your comment and feedback! * * * * * * * * * *
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