FreedomPop changed renewal dates arbitrarily and without warning or notification.
This has happened to all my LTE SIMs.
They seem to be trying any trick to get overages.
A side effect of this latest scheme is they don't give you the previously automatic and reliable Friends bonus so most users will have 50 MBs less and potentially go over and when you think you have renewed your allotment(by passing your original renewal date) you are actually only adding to the previous usage.
I looked at a few FP lines, and none of them seem to have the renewal date change-- but that's far from conclusive.
Those lines also still show the 50mb friends bonus.
johnsmith, is there a chance that your FP lines had gone dormant and needed to be waked up? That would account for the missing friend's bonus if the account was dormant at the renewal date. (The friend's bonus would return during the next billing cycle.) I don't recall awakening a line changing the renewal date, but it's been a while since I've needed to do that.
Might be a new "feature" of fraud protection. Walmart randomly freezes people's gift card and demand to see their purchase receipt of the gift card... effectively preventing you from using your card, which equates to an interest free loan... eternal if you are unable to produce a receipt. Not much different from insurance companies whose standard policy is to reject 20% of the claims for no reason whatsoever hoping the clinic/hospital would or too busy or forget to re-process. One word... SCAM!
The missing friend's bonus during a "dormant renewal" is a previously known mechanic of the FP system. My point was this mechanic in conjunction with the renewal date shift would cause an overage if you thought 1) your plan renewed @ correct date 2) your plan has 50MB less to begin with.
Perhaps they are either staggering this date change or randomly or I am just unlucky lately.
I used to be a big fan of FP but they have been pretty much awful lately- between unannounced/unsubstantiated charges, changes of policy with no warning (if they can send marketing emails to every account why not an informative one?), they put your account to sleep if you use too much, too fast, not enough or too slow with no clear consistent guidelines. I have been pleasantly surprised to get "bonus" data for no reason but I have had phantom usage on devices and SIMs that were not powered on for weeks.
I agree that FP has been awful lately! The frequency of unannounced changes has really accelerated. Even though I use them, I'm not really dependent on my FP accounts; if I were I would most definitely keep my eyes open for a viable backup plan.
When your renewal date changed, did they move to some likely incremental marker (like the first of the month), or did the new renewal date seem random?
Seems random as far as the actual date- the 7th .... but only for all the LTE SIM accounts and no renewal date changes for my ancient Sprint BYOD accounts.
I keep all of my SIMs active, every month, without fail.
My renewal dates are all now changed and all of my accounts are being charged $6.99/month. There are NO more free accounts. That includes my LTE SIMs and my Sprint devices.
Merry Christmas, from FreedomPop.
I looked into freedom Pop before I found r+. I called them 2 times. It felt wrong so I never joined them.
Then found cellnuvo.
I just went back into my accounts for a second time and the fee has been removed from some and not from others. Some of my accounts now have this additional charge, though:
"FreedomPop Administrative Fee Admin fee helps defray costs related fraud prevention, customer support and payment processing 1 US$2.99 US$2.99"
Something very strange is going on.
I tried to cancel an account and it wouldn't let me. When I went to billing info it said I didn't have a card on file. When I refreshed the page my card info was there. When I refreshed, again, it was gone again.
They're definitely having problems on their end.
On my accts, the ones with expiry dates changes are changed to:
1/3/19
1/5/19
1/13/19
1/23/19
One acct had 1gb data bonus
No sign on Admin charge aside from the customary 1 cent charges. Hopefully just a glitch.
Thanks, johnsmith, for posting about this, and to everyone following up. It will be interesting to see what shakes out.....
... adding another set of data points.....
I checked 4 lines, previous renewal dates ranging from the 6th to the 28th, and each now currently shows a renewal date of 1/1. (Included are 2 Sprint devices, and 2 LTE SIMs). This is a change from when I looked at them yesterday.
None currently shows any change in 'next billing amount' or 'recurring billing amount' from the anticipated $0.00. None gives me a warning about needing to update payment source, although I didn't specifically investigate that page.
As for my FreedomPop data points, 7 LTE GSM SIMs & 2 Sprint phones, all on the Basic free lines, the next billing date has changed to 1/4, even though the usage cycle date for each line has not changed.
So far, no spurious charges, except for the 1 cent account maintenance once every few months on a few of the lines.
jamielih, not sure what you mean by the billing date changed, but not the usage cycle date?
I thought perhaps I'd spot what you were referring to if I looked at one of my dashboards. I did not spot the reference, but did notice that my renewal/billing date on 2 of the lines I checked earlier (changed to 1/1 at that point), have now changed back to their original renewal date. (I didn't check the other 2 lines tonight.)
Thought id chime in to inform that my accounts (1 Sprint phone, 1 Sprint hotspot, and one GSM AT&T SIM) have not experienced the change in renewal dates or anything strange for that matter. Crossing my fingers for now!