- Report: #1141358
Complaint Review: Freedompop - Nationwide
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Freedompop
Nationwide, USA
Web:
freedompop.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good?
Freedompop Stealth overcharges, blatantly misleading signup info. Nationwide
SERVICE: Freedompop. Cellular 4G WIFI service. Buy a $20 (on sale) 4g router and establish either a (1) free plan (500MB of data usage, each month, with no charge, or a (2) Premier Plan for $9.95 per month (more data.)
SERVICES RECEIVED: The device works great. Connection is strong and uninterrupted. Speed is pretty fast. Very satisfactory. However, I am being charged Premier Plan rates for a FREE plan.
PLAN OVERCHARGES AND COMPLAINT: I was skeptical when I bought the $20 device, read the terms of the sign up, and enlisted in the Free Plan. And it worked fine. And when I look online at Freedompop.com and it clearly shows me with a FREE plan, which it has always shown. There is an offer to let me sign up for a Premier Plan. Since there are only two plans, this seems to confirm that I do not have a Premier Plan at $9.95 per month.
But without advising me, they have charged me $9.95 for each of the past several months, and the credit card charge shows it is for a "Premier Plan".
If you read complaints about FreedomPop online, there are hazy references to a "account maintenance fee" if you do not use so much bandwidth eash month. And of course there is a "top off fee" - which is documented and fair - if you go over your alotted bandwidth for the free plan. (Which is 400MB unless you keep a credit card on file to automatically top off your account with extra bandwidth.) And there are many references to just plain charging you for the Premier Plan when you did not sign up for it.
I asked Mastercard - who processed the unwarranted $9.95 charges - if a company is supposed to notify a card holder each time a recurring charge is run through to the credit card company, and the Mastercard agent said "Generally, yes." What I mean by that is that you receive an email before the charge is run through that says "Your monthly account charge of $9.95 will be posted to your credit card account on xxxxx xx, 2014. For more information, please sign into your account online." No such notice was ever sent to me.
If you Google "FreedomPop" you find many search results that include these words: shady, ripoff, misleading, sneaky.
Case and point - Time Magazine: http://techland.time.com/2013/06/05/freedompops-free-wireless-would-be-cool-if-it-wasnt-so-shady/
