Join Cricket Wireless Family Plan for $20/month, Unlimited talk & text, 3GB LTE

If you are interested in joining Cricket Wireless Family Plan 5 lines for $100, or $20/month each line, unlimited talk and text, 4GB LTE data then unlimited 2g data, you can find a free platform to form a 5 line group with friends and enjoy the $20/month rate. If you are porting your number from non-AT&T system into Cricket, you also get free phone, free shipping and $25 referral credit after 3 months in services.

I use WeChat to help friends forming Cricket groups.

Or you can try joining existing Cricket groups that still have openings at reddit.com.

To be "Cricket Family Plan Ready", you need to order a free phone or discounted phone from www.cricketwireless.com with $40 plan if you are porting-in your number. Do not activate the phone until you are admitted to a group. Then you can activate the phone, provide your phone number and PIN to the group admin, and the admin will chat with customer services and merge your account into the group. You will receive a $20 bill credit upon your merging into the family plan.

Edit: Starting 11/05/2017, Cricket reduced group save discount from $100 to $70. So 5 lines will be $130. However, each line will have 5GB LTE data.

Is there a benefit to having this group on the mostly mainland China based WeChat rather than WhatsApp or Telegram?

WeChat is not just a messaging service, it is a platform that integrates well with Google docs and forms which will be needed to register and form Cricket groups.

Cricket is having a promotion starting 05/26/2017 (may last 2 weeks as last time) and will issue a $50 bill credit in the 3rd month if you port-in your number from a non-AT&T network. If you also consider getting $25 referral credit, the total cost will be $160 - $50 - $25 = $85 for the first 8 months services. You also get a decent new phone (free 5-inch screen LG Fortune or $19.99 VoLTE capable LG Escape 3) when you join.

You need exactly five lines, no more and no less, for that pricing math to work.

Just follow this instruction and you will be able to join a family plan and get $20 rate:

  1. Go to http://www.cricketwireless.com and order a free LG Fortune or $19.99 LG Escape 3 (if you want VoLTE), select $40/month basic plan, enter your porting information from your current carrier and create a new Cricket account with PIN 1234.
  2. Wait for 3 days to receive the phone and DO NOT ACTIVATE.
  3. Go to Reddit and ask to join a family plan, clearly state that you have the phone and is ready to activate. You can also specify your preference of west coast or east coast and request that bill credits not to be shared within the group. Pretty soon many people will ask you to join.
  4. Once you decide which group to join, activate your phone online and email your group admin the phone number and Cricket PIN.
  5. The group admin will online chat with customer services and merge your line into the group. Your $40 prepayment will cover $20 the 1st month service and $20 security deposit within the group.
  6. Wait for 3 days after joining the group, then find a referral code or link and sign up for Cricket Rewards program, make sure you click the update your phone number in the app and enter your Cricket phone number to complete the registration.

After about 3 months, your $50 port-in credit and $25 referral credit will be deposited into the group account and that will pay for close to 4 months of services.

After 6 months, request Cricket to unlock your phone.

Overall, for 8 months, you only pay $160 - $75 = $85 for unlimited calls and texts, 4GB LTE data and then unlimited 2g data per month, and an unlocked phone. Where else can you get such a deal?

Sure but you have to trust a bunch of strangers.

I think that the risk is slightly lower than signing up with RingPlus :-).

You are not handing over $40 in cash, and the admin can not use the bill credit to buy drugs or liquor. It is a win-win situation for everyone in the group to stay with the group to lower the phone bill and pay $20 on time so that the phone services will not be suspended. The $20 security deposit (also in the form of bill credit) will also be a nice buffer in case someone needs to be replaced.

You can also ask people you know to switch to Cricket and form a family plan. If AT&T coverage is good in your area, everyone will say thank you to you for taking the initiative and saving them money every month.

I think you are making a good point about the risk issue.

There is could be a wrinkle, however, (assuming Cricket will, in fact, give you all the benefits of the promo even though you are joining as a single subscriber initially). If for any reason, the group does not pay its bill the second month--it could happen for a variety of reasons-you might be denied eligibility for the promo benefits. So mmfacemm is, I think, making a valid observation.

More generally, in thinking about the risks of going with a group of strangers, I would guess the obvious one would be that a payment you make to the admin is not in fact used for its intended purpose. However, the exposure is not enormous and you would certainly become aware of a problem fairly quickly as the account would be suspended. Some people would also be reluctant to share account information with complete strangers.

That being said, if one is comfortable with these risks and likes the carrier, your idea, for which you have provided excellent step-by-step instructions looks really attractive. As you say, the price appears very much better than the competition.

(of course, that fact alone, makes people like me rather leery:( ) In a cut-throat industry, one should not be able to find "super" deals.