Venn Mobile charged my credit card two days before going bust, so I have resigned myself to losing that money.
But I don't want to compromise the post-paid Sprint phone that I had on Venn, so I will be porting out the number.
Any suggestions on where I should port out to? I would love to be able to recoup the money that I lost to Venn, so thought I'd ask you folks for the best port-out deals. Looking for the lowest out-of-pocket cost. (And Prepaid, so that I don't have to stick around with them).
I would suggest that you check out Tello's "unlimited" plan for $39/mo, which includes talk, text, and 25 GB of LTE data (throttled to 2G speeds of about 64 kbps after you use up your LTE). They are currently still on the Sprint network, but according to the info on their FAQ page they are not expecting any negative changes for the foreseeable future due to the T-Mobile merger.
If you decide to give them a try, please consider yourself invited to PM me so I can provide you with my referral code that will earn each of us a $10 Tello Reward (credit). Thanks and good luck!
After you port out. You can contact your CC company and ask them to reverse the charge since you paid for a service your never received.
They will investigate ECT.
Porting out quickly is of the essence. Get your number somewhere safe, and take your time to find where you want to be long term.
Ting/Sprint and Tello should be quick & reliable, and cost under $10 for the security. (For what it's worth, there are odd issues here with the way the lines are set up-- you can't port to Sprint Postpaid from Venn, and you can't port to most Sprint MVNOs & use the same phone in the process-- but Ting and Tello can do it.)
If you haven't read through the Reddit thread
you need to use these porting credentials:
Acct Number:775889920
Password/Pin:334455
Current carrier: Sprint
Account holder's name (if required) Venn Movile
Billing Zip Code: 08816 (You can use your address if it's needed, but replace your zip code with 08816.)
I agree with LexusL21's advice about doing a chargeback after you're ported out safely. Should be a slam-dunk to dispute the recent charge.
I'll third the charge back suggestion. There is NO reason that you need to consider the money they charged you 2 days prior to losing service a loss. The charge back initiation process in my experience is pretty quick and painless.
As mentioned, port first, charge back as soon as the port is done.
The lowest-cost port-out deal might be Visible. The free swap phone now requires porting in a number, I believe.
Personally, I would not go direct to Visible from Venn. They do deliver phones or SIMs quickly, in my limited experience-- but they also have a history of problematic ports, and more importantly, minimal assistance if anything should go wrong.
If you want to keep your Venn #, you do not want to deal with potential porting issues. I would suggest getting the number safe, and then porting somewhere else when time isn't so critical. If you port to Ting/Sprint or Tello/Sprint, any porting deal you would qualify for now should also be available to you next week.
Thank you, everyone! I started the port-out to Tello with a referral from my existing Tello account to a new account. Amazingly, the port was completed this morning - took less than 12 hours. I am impressed!
BTW, Venn sent an e-mail saying the company-wide outage continues, and that they will issue refunds as soon as service is restored. I wonder if they expect people to trust them!
There is always more to it. I hate it when these companies purposely try to fool you into thinking all is well to extract the last $ from unsuspecting customers. Thank goodness for credit card protection.
Probably reselling business lines without authorisation or failed to do something sprint asked.
They seem to have underestimated the risk to their other brands as well. Teltik is going to suffer even though it seems stable and legitimate.