Since our Pay as You Go product got people confused and made everybody remember a song from 1996, “No Mercy - Where do you go?”, we just wanted to apologize for all the inconveniences and fuss created.
Even with Halloween season coming up, we’re not planning to trick customers into anything or close our doors to people who have been using this product. We will come up with new features in the near future, and in the meantime, no Tello number is expired without prior notification by email - don’t believe anything else you hear. The changes were supposed to clarify some of the questions from customers.
Sorry for not being here all the time, on forums threads, but we truly believe this is a place for free thoughts, opinions and discussions and, just like you, we intend to keep it like that. We are jotting down suggestions (thanks!) and kindly ask that any inquiries you might have to be addressed on our Social Channels, or directly to our Customer Support Team.
I appreciate you taking the time to post on the forum but it leaves many questions unanswered.
Is the new policy about needing one "order" every 90 days correct and no longer will it be enough to make a call/text every 90 days to keep the paygo active?
Will this apply to all customers or just new customers? Some agents have said new only.
When will the 90 days begin? eg If my last order was over 90 days already will I be getting an email soon saying I need to top up? Or will you start checking 90 days after the policy was enacted ie 8th Dec.
Why did you make this change? I was told, "We made the change to make things easier for people to remember they still have service and not forget about it and lose a number they would want to keep." That makes no sense since making a call/text every 90 days serves the same purpose. Believe me when I said no one wants to be forced to top up $80 a year just to remember we have service.
When you send out an email to warn of expiration how long after that email will we have until the paygo credit is lost?
Will you please reconsider! And if not at least drop the minimum top up to $5. Or even better require a top up once a year rather than 90 days.
Tello said: " We will come up with new features in the near future, and in the meantime, no Tello number is expired without prior notification by email - don’t believe anything else you hear. The changes were supposed to clarify some of the questions from customers."
Forgive me, but I was born in Missoura and you got to show me clarity. Throwing things out of both sides of your mouth don't cut it. So you're trying to come up with some new features, but you don't have any idea what they might be yet? And how far away is the near future, as well as how long does the meantime last? Nice to know we'll get an email telling us that our accounts are going to be terminated, but if you would talk straight and tell us what has to be done to prevent an account from being terminated, we'd greatly appreciate that info.
I reached out to customer service with my question this morning as Georgiana requested, asking Tello to confirm that customers with existing paygo balances prior to September 1 2019 will be able to keep their PAYGO service active with a call text or data session every 90 days.
I AM NOW MORE CONFUSED THAN BEFORE DUE TO THE USE OF THE TERM, IN THE RESPONSE FROM THE TELLO CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE, " PURCHASED A PLAN."
I AM POSTING THIS RESPONSE FOR DISCUSSION to see if;
anyone CAN CONFIRM that this response verifies that those of us with balances in paygo prior to September 1 2019 will remain active if used for a call text or data session once every 90 days.
Or has received a clearer response since Georgianas post this morning.
"Dear ....
Thank you for choosing Tello.
We are so sorry for any confusion; if you purchased a plan ( bold italics mine) before the change, then yes you can still make a call, text or use data and you service will still be activate.
It appears that Tello is cherry-picking the customers it wants to keep based on criteria not publicly disclosed to customers in anything resembling a fair and transparent manner
Thanks, als. Yeah, I agree--that's clear as mud because of the word "plan" in their answer.
By Tello's standard usage, PayGo isn't "a plan", while monthly recurring charge items are 'plans'.
(Buying Paygo credit only is 'no plan'.)
I think they're trying to say that PayGo credits purchased before Sept 10, 2019, are exempt. But that's only my thought. And I also suspect that they may mean that only credit purchased before that day is exempt, rather than PayGo lines started before that date. (i.e., PayGo credit added now may not be exempt, even if the line pre-existed.)
Re: cherrypicking. I don't think Tello particularly wants to keep older PayGo accounts. They're just (now) sensitive to ticking off customers, PayGo or not, by retroactively applying the change to pre-existing customer lines.
My honest opinion: I think Tello has worked long and hard to earn the trust and respect of customers. It's hard to find anyone across the forums who had bad things to say about Tello between the time they changed the intermittent use requirement from 6 months to 90 days, and this change to the Paygo system. (Other than Sprint coverage limitations.) It's like they didn't think it through, or like the various changes were done by different departments without coordination, or ???
Even being willing to cut Tello considerable slack.....this one is a hot mess.
FreedomPop still charges me 1 cent after I closed my account. FreedomPop is losing maybe 30 cents every time they charge me 1 cent due to credit card processing fees. That is a lose-lose situation.
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Freedompop charged me 1 cent each month to ensure I remember I still have service with them.
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Dear friends, sorry for all the confusion, we apologize for the way this was handled.
We just want to make everybody rest assured by saying that absolutely no customer was affected by this change by this date.
It’s only fair to say that this will not affect active customers, that actually use and enjoy our service, from now on.
Please find the answers for some of the above-mentioned questions here:
Will this apply to all customers or just new customers? Everybody is subject to this change, past, present & future customers
When will the 90 days begin? We start counting from your last order with us, or 10 Sept, whichever was last
Will you start checking 90 days after the policy was enacted ie 8th Dec? We will not expire any numbers until 8 December
Do we have to refill with another $20 every 90 days? Yes. I’m sure you all can see that it would be easier & more affordable to get a plan from us, they start at $5/mo - just sayin’.
Are you in trouble financially? When are you going out of business? We’re not! We’re actually growing at a nice pace, thank you! That is why we could afford all the wonderful changes we did this year: massive price drop, new plans, new lowered international calling rates and so on. We’re constantly working on improving the service and you will see new changes brought to the Pay as you Go product at the end of the year (or early 2020).
When you send out an email to warn of expiration how long after that email will we have until the Paygo credit is lost? There is no need to worry about this. When a number is due to expire, we’ll send out a bunch of notifications, smoke signals and what not to assure you have been informed and have plenty of time to do something about it.
Do I get a refund? Yes. Although every account is unique, anything that was paid for will be refunded, no questions asked.
If you will get a refund will you be losing your phone number? Yes. You’ll be asked if you want to port out the number and, if not, your number will be expired, but we are not wiping any numbers off without people knowing about it.
Using remaining PAYG credit to swap to a plan? This is a great suggestion, but it will depend on each case. We still have the most competitive phone plans out there, so these are a great solution for keeping your number and enjoying all of the benefits we have to offer. You’ll still have to contact our Customer Service and have us look into your account to see what can be done.
Last, but not least, we want to thank you for your patience and for keeping your faith in us, even when things get blurry. We’re here to create and maintain a quality service, that makes sense and adapts to our customers, that will never change!
Thanks for the info. So as I understand it, if, for example, an existing customer's whose last Paygo "order" was on June 5th 2019, the customer would have until 12/8/2019 to place a new order to prevent their account from being terminated and thereafter must place an order every ninety days in order to keep the account active. Since it is true "that it would be easier & more affordable to get a plan from us, they start at $5/mo - just sayin’.", it appears the Paygo plan now exists for the few insane people who might opt for it.
Hello, if your last order was on June 5th, your number would expire 90 days from that - 12/9/2019 - give that you wouldn't have any other order until then. But, considering our last message, your 90 days clock will start from September 10 ("We start counting from your last order with us, or 10 Sept, whichever was last").
In terms of "the few insane people who might opt" for PAYGO, as you've said, we wouldn't actually call them that, they're more... wirelessly challenged :)) - joke, we couln't help it!
Hope this clarifies this, thanks!
Thanks for the answers. I appreciate you coming on here to clarify.
It is pretty obvious this is just a way to get people off paygo. Paygo for national use is already hidden on the website and used to be more prominent. Unfortunately paygo was the unique factor with tello that attracted me in the first place.
LOL . Thanks for the chuckle guys. It must be the 'new math'
Is it 'insane' or 'wirelessly challenged' to prefer to pay 1 cent per minute instead of 10 cents per minute?
$15$ will get you 300 minutes over a 3 month. period. Cost per minute $0.10
$20$ will get you 2000 minutes over a 3 month period. Cost per minute $0.01
I'm sad but you can't really blame them for the changes. Between the number parkers, glove box and emergency phones and the free credit promos there must be a lot of lines that are costing them more than they bring in.
They just needed to deliver those changes in a better way. Lessons learned I hope.
For the probably less than one percent of Paygo users who use 2000 minutes in 3 months that math might make sense, but for the overwhelming number of Paygo users who use say 300 minutes or less a month, $20 every three months is not worth it to them. In fact Tello changed the rules on Paygo, I suspect, because Paygo users, on the whole, were likely only using .50 cents worth of minutes a month, which was unprofitable for the company. I suspect if Tello PayGo users were on average using 500 minutes a month then no changes would have been made. Someone who uses a lot of minutes a month could just get the unlimited T&T plan for $8 a month plan ( $1.33 more per month than the Paygo plan ) or the $10 a month unlimited T&T + 1 GB plan.
I've been a fan of -- some-- PayGo plans for years, even with an expiry date. (Tracfone comes immediately to mind, since it's probably the oldest and still largest PayGo provider using this model.)
The potential advantage is rollover, or monthly use averaging. To make it work to your advantage means being able to accurately predict your usage patterns against the expiry date & refill costs.
als' anaylsis is a good one, and points out the users for whom Tello's new scheeme is still a smart buy-- those who use primarily talk, with highly variable monthly usage averaging perhaps 350-500 minutes per month. (It gets harder to predict with some data use, or considerable sms use.......) (But note that this comparison is made against Tello's very low monthly plan costs.)
The problem is that the group for whom Tello pure PayGo makes sense moving forward is a small sliver of potential Tello PayGo users, and approaching 0% of current Tello PayGo users-- and that's a significant issue in my mind.
If we compare Tello PayGo's future cost for people just now getting into it ($80 annually) to other PayGo providers, it's not bad. It offers far more units than SpeedTalk's similarly priced ($100) annual PayGo plan, or Tracfone's annual plan offered through their website at $100. And Tello offers a lower initial buy-in. But both SpeedTalk and Tracfone have discounted rates offered at times through 3rd-party sources like Ebay, Amazon, etc, offer different networks, subsidized phones (Tracfone), etc.
I think Tello's 'hybrid' plans (monthly plan + a PayGo deposit) may still be a good choice for some folks, although the time one plans to stick with Tello becomes more important for this to work with the recent $20 minimum purchase.
What Tello might be losing, beyond the good will of existing customers:
PayGO as a viable 'starter' introduction to Tello..
The big advantage (in my mind) of Tello's 'hybrid' plan + PayGo option as a selling point against the competition, since the recent $20 minimum PayGo deposit will price it out of consideration for many/most customers. I think Tello would be wise to move back to the $10 minimum PayGo purchase for use with hybrid plans.
On a personal level, this is problematic for me. I manage a total of 5 Tello lines, 4 of which are pure PayGo. Economically, I haven't figured a way to make keeping the 4 lines at Tello make sense compared to other options.
(EDIT: sorry for repeating much of what Isamorph posted while I was typing......)
Curious if purchase made using Tello Dollars (eg; earned through referrals) also qualifies. Doing sample check out, looks like no taxes/fees on monthly plan (eg; $5/month) if using Tello Dollars. I have exactly $20 Tello Dollars remaining, so planning to wait until just before December deadline then purchase: $5/month plan 1 month (no renewal) + 2 months PAYG only + $5/month plan 1 month (no renewal) + 2 months PAYG only + $5/month plan 1 month (no renewal) + 2 months PAYG only + $5/month plan 1 month (no renewal) + 2 months PAYG only = ~12 months using only Tello Dollars? Am I on to something? This assumes existing PAYG balance sufficient. Let me guess next update to terms will be to expire Tello Dollars...
ETA: Sorry bad math. Fixed. Only 2 months PAYG for each monthly plan.
I think you're on to something, particularly the probable update to terms that will try to snatch the Tello dollars. I can only speculate, but it seems that whoever was at the helm of Tello USA for the past few years making the final decisions on operations has recently been replaced by someone who hadn't clearly thought things through before instituting the recent changes. To paraphrase a poster at HOFO: How things quickly change! If one asked Tello users a short time ago their opinions about Tello, 99.9% would have been positive, not so much now.
In any event, you've created a nice plan for your Tello dollars and hopefully, things will go according to plan.
Georgiana, can you please clarify for us.
1)If you have paid for a plan in the last 90 days will that keep your paygo service active for 90 days from the last purchase?
2) If you pay for a plan prior to Dec8 will that keep your Paygo service active for a further 90 days?
