While helping a friend sign up, there's a statement during the final signup process that I don't recall earlier.
"To Continue Free Plan you must login and select Renew My Free Plan 1 day prior to your Renewal Date.
A valid card on file is required and there is a limit of one Free Plan per person"
The new statement about one plan/person was mentioned in another thread already-- just including it now to be complete. It's the active step needed for renewal of the free plan that is either new, or I missed earlier.
My plan is currently 7 days from renewal. I logged in to my account summary this morning
and there was a screen overlay asking whether I wanted to upgrade or renew the free plan for the next month. Note that I did not see the same notice when logging in moments earlier to the https://freeup.billaway.com site. (I did click through to the Freeupmobile.com Account Summary page via the Billaway page, though.)
I might guess that FreeUp has some concerns about the large numbers of free plan SIMs they've been sending out, and the possibility that a significant percentage of those new lines may never generate enough income to support the line costs.
The renewal confirmation I saw was a simple click, and having it appear proactively during the last week of my plan was much better than having to remember it on the last day as the signup process made me fear.
There is an option to turn off auto-pay, which should at least keep any automatic upgrade from charging against your CC on file. I guess an auto upgrade could still charge against your accumulated rewards. (Of course, if you have enough accumulated rewards to support that upgrade, you're not really the customer that should be causing fear and trepidation in the minds of the FreeUp accounting department.)
If too many freeloaders is the concern (and it probably should be, from a business viewpoint), maybe they should offer a minimal cost upgrade plan ($2-$5) that does little more than convert a free plan to a free-with-no-need-to-confirm-monthly plan that would charge only against accumulated rewards. Printing 2 coupons once or twice a week would cover that cost, and workable for both a minimal user and FreeUp.
A few days ago I also got the pop up to either renew my plan or upgrade to the paid plan. My plan renews in 3 days, so we'll see. I suspect the change to offering unlimited t&t + 200mbp on the $10 plan was to induce people to get off the free plan. What's more, I don't remember seeing anything in the tos about automatically upgrading people to the $10 paid plan if they had not logged in and elected to stay on the free plan, provided the tos have not been recently changed. I find it peculiar that companies frequently underestimate how many people will sign up for a great deal, which I think was the case with CN, MoviePass, others, and now FreeUp. Then problems arise and the companies must scramble and make changes to deal with the unexpected demand. One other recent thing I noticed is that when one logs into their account there is no longer a "rewards" tab at the top of the page, and one must scroll down to the bottom of the page to gain access to the rewards login page.
I don't have a credit card on my account. I do have to add one. However i did get a popup to renew my free plan or purchase 10.00 plan. I clicked renew free plan to see what would happen with no payment method on file, it went through successfully. It will renew in 6 days from 12/21
I didn't know it was possible to have an account without a credit card on file. My account has stored the credit card I used to order the SIM, and it doesn't let me delete it from the account (unless I first add a new credit card - which means it won't let me have an account without a CC).
I'm in the same situation as you, although I haven't tried to delete it since I am on the free plan. Due to the fact that FreeUP is brand new, I wasn't too sure about how this company might operate, so I used a virtual credit card number that I can lock or unlock at any time instead of providing them one of my "real" ones. Please feel free to PM me if you'd like more info about virtual credit cards, or the name of my credit card company (hint, hint, what's in my wallet ).
Peterquinn I was able to delete the credit card on file with out adding another credit card 1st. On the bottom of account settings page you will see your credit card info. There should be 3 options 1 Make Default 2 Edit 3 Remove. I clicked removed and it removed the credit card. Then a red banner comes up on account summary page asking for a default payment method to be added. I did this using my iPad mini
Has there been any clarification yet whether the free plan is still truly and totally free, where you can signup and throw the phone in a draw for emergency only use without having to use it every month or take any actions to keep the free line alive?
You have to interact with the earnings app (or browser version) once a month (print a coupon, watch a video ad, etc.) , and you have to go to the website to confirm you wish to renew the free plan once a month.
It's possible to do both of these for a phone you manage for someone else, even if you don't have access to the phone.
What are the consequences if you miss renewing the plan once a month or if you don't use the earnings app? And how much interaction is required monthly in the earnings app for the free plan?
Print one coupon, or watch one video, etc., once per month. This should only take a couple of minutes to do.
The allowable consequences of not 'earning' something, or selecting renewal on the free plan, is to cancel the line (at the discretion of Freeup), or to upgrade it automatically to the $10/month plan if you do neither interaction and have autopay enabled. (You can turn off autopay to prevent being charged, and then the line would simply cancel.)
I don't know if anyone has pushed the limits to see if the line would really cancel right away, but I would guess that sooner or later it would cancel. The free plan may be free to the user, but it's definitely not free of cost for FreeUp to provide it.
I was curious and tapped cancel auto pay, now in my account I see words in a red box saying "missing a payment method".... Does this matter? I am too lazy to type in my credit card again.
My assumption was that cancelling auto-pay would do just that & only that-- leaving a credit card on file for use with manual payments, but revoking auto-pay.
I cancelled auto-pay on one of my accounts. It does appear to remove the payment method entirely. I didn't intend to do that, and will enter the card info again. I guess there isn't a way, as of now, to leave a payment method on file without auto-pay enabled. (In a few days, that account should have enough to cover a $10 charge if I forget to renew the free plan, etc.)
I had the same assumption and when I saw that my payment method rather than autopay had been removed I feel that person who wrote the website has a twisted and weirdo mind. In addition, after I clicked renew my free plan I saw a confirmation message saying that my plan has been upgraded. It freaked me out.
I guess freeup does not intend to have the free plan for long and will soon force everybody smooching on it to upgrade or get help.
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