There is speculation that only users of paid plans from Freedompop are currently able to login to Red Pocket and take advantage of the deals. The thinking is Redpocket is trying to avoid the perception that they are taking away potential Ting customers. At least for the time being anyway. We shall see if the logins suddenly work after the today's deadline or maybe after the free month's trial on Ting expires.
When I tried using the "Need help signing in" link, the system failed to recognize my email so resetting the password is not possible. If you could login to Redpocket using the credentials from a non-paying Freedompop account, please share how that was done.
Was that account using a gmail address? Perhaps the problem is somehow related to gmail, or maybe those accounts having trouble are those that are not used often enough.
Well, I just activated one line on the RP/FP $3 offer, with a number ported from the Ting transition page. It seems to have gone just fine, the phone just went through provisioning, with the port completing in under 15 minutes.
The account page is almost useless at this point, since it doesn't show the new allotments. At this point it shows 1 unit of each : minutes/sms/mb with a 'refill reqiuired' date of 8/9-- so I'm not likely to do much testing right away.
I did use a spare phone that wasn't on the FP/Ting line, and I did have to go in and edit some of the account fields in the process of signing up, plus entering new CC information. (Those fields were not pre-populated with my old FP CC info.) For those who care, SSN was also required. Checkout including tax was $3.01.
As others have noted, every page after the first page showing the plans lists 500mb rather than 200mb. I don't see either on my account dashboard, though.
I'm a little confused about the CDMA (Sprint) accounts.
If the old Freedompop sold the CDMA (Sprint) accounts to Ting, then why would Red Pocket / new Freedompop have the user account information to allow CDMA (Sprint) customers to sign up with them?
From what I read Ting paid a good deal of money for these accounts, so wouldn't that contract prohibit Freedomp / Red Pocket from using the information which was sold to Ting? At a minimum, isn't there an ethical issue.
I really don't want to see my information compromised due to this. Now I see KentE saying a SSN was also required. I never gave my SSN to any MVNO. I would be concerned to say the least.
Red Pocket seems to have a list of registered FP/CDMA email addresses, FP passwords, and owner names for FP/CDMA accounts, and not much else. (And I'm not sure how complete that is, since 3 of the 5 lines I checked couldn't be matched up.)
No CC info was pre-filled. No phone number was pre-filled. (I had to port from Ting to keep the same #, just like any port.)
The SSN requirement caught me by surprise.
I agree that it sounds unfair to Ting, although I don't know how the contract was written.
My interest in porting that FP/CDMA/Ting # back to Red Pocket/FP was primarily because it's a 'clean' number, and that plan because it's a good fit for the particular user. This one wouldn't have stayed at Ting in any case.
The same Red Pocket/FreedomPop site now seems to include GSM 'upgrades' to the free plan.
I don't have the info with me to get through the steps, but the front page mentions
$3.99 for 200 minutes/500 text/200mb, and mentions 'premier service' value, which I assume is a reference to cellular voice.
I think we can forget about Red Pocket offering cellular voice as a free upgrade... but perhaps an upgrade at a reasonable price.
Although the front page no longer mentions CDMA lines, I'm still seeing the CDMA offer if I go through the steps.
(If you want to look through this, it requires SIM #, and apparently IMEI for gsm lines.)
When I bought the plan yesterday trying to get it on a cdma verizon line it didn't ask me for a ssn though. I didn't transfer over a fp number nor use a device that was already on fp. It was basically a brand new line that I bought after logging in with my fp credentials.
Might be worth seeing if anyone else gets asked for a ssn before writing them off.
Technically, I didn't transfer over a FP number, either (it was currently a Ting #), and the device I activated hadn't ever been on FreedomPop. (Can't transfer an active Sprint device to FP/RP, and the old FP device was still active on Ting.)
So mine was basically a brand new line after logging in with my FP credentials, too.
Strange that I had the SSN request, and you (mmfacemm) didn't. Maybe the difference was just that I was porting in a # (from anywhere), and you weren't? (Actually, I think the SSN request might have been in the form to fill for porting information.... it was one of those that asks for way more info about the port than is typically required.)
On the Red Pocket/FreedomPop GSM offer: I can't get past the device validation step. The form insists on an IMEI, and as soon as I enter a GSM IMEI, it rejects it as not being Sprint compatible..... I think the site isn't working right yet.
I took screenshots of the sign-up process, and looked at them this morning. I can confirm that the SSN requirement was within the port-in submission, where they also asked for the registered address & email address for the losing provider. (This is likely in case the losing provider requests additional information to confirm the account holder, which rarely happens.....)
So... if you're not porting in a number, you shouldn't be asked for SSN. If you are porting in, the field is marked as 'required', although I don't think I tried to submit without it.
I would strongly advise not doing this, since you might inadvertently use someone else's real one, thus committing identity theft. (Either way, please don't use mine! )
And I now retract my earlier statement that the SSN field is required when requesting a port in. Looking at the screenshot, it's nor marked with the * of most of the other fields. If my screenshot matches the 'live' page, you could skip that field.
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