Now the Unreal SIM sale is over... 
Next 30 days is gonna be interesting, mass exodus of Sprint Free users looking for a new home.
Just some info: When my one month of Visible service expired on the ZTE Blade 10 Prime a few days ago, I set it up on the $15-- 3 month 3 GB "Unreal" GSM AT&T cellular plan I got during the Memorial Day sale, which does have hotspot, VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling (I think, haven't tried it). Nice the ZTE phone works well on GSM.
Hey I would like to know more about your experience with this sequence specifically. I had a Visible line that went into inactive status around May 2. Yesterday, I decided to port that line into Unreal, with one of the SIM cards I bought during their Memorial Day sale. I am now having a problem where Unreal shows the line to be active but I can only make outgoing calls. Incoming calls, however, receive the standard message from Visible saying that there are calling restrictions one the line (due to non-payment). Unreal can't help me, and Visible told me that the only way to release the line fully is to make a payment to reactivate the line.
I'm not too wedded to saving the number. I'm willing to have Unreal just replace the number with a new one. But have you or anyone else had this kind of experience porting out of Visible to Unreal?
I didn't port my number from Visible, so I may not be of much help. But perhaps your problems wouldn't have arisen if you had ported to Unreal when your Visible account was still active. Edit: Can one actually port out a number from an inactive account? It sounds like what Visible said is correct. Anyway, my process was to switch the phone settings to GSM before inserting the Unreal sim, and all went well, save for when I got a text from Unreal saying a text with APN settings would arrive shortly, which never did. So I entered the APN setting manually and all was well until later that day the phone was looping every 10 seconds while getting over and over again the same text message stating APN settings would be sent soon. Had to power off the phone to stop the nonsense. Turned back on and the looping started again until I responded to the text by typing in APN, which stopped the texts and all has been fine since.
What number is displayed on your outgoing calls as well as incoming calls? I'm not sure how you're getting the Visible message without the Visible sim active. Perhaps, if you haven't done so, just rebooting the phone might help.
Maybe the following "Unreal" review, specifically the porting part, from Bestmnvo's Joe Paonessa will help with your Unreal problem.
I've never had a problem previously with porting over inactive lines onto a new carrier. In fact, the number originated on Lycamobile, and I specifically recall porting it to Xfinity at some point in time when my service had run out at Lycamobile.
When I make outgoing calls, it shows a 571 area code number, which is correct.
Incoming just doesn't work. I get bumped to the standard Visible-generated message saying that my line has a calling restriction. My online account access with Visible is still active. Normally, when a line is fully ported out from Visible, I get an email thanking me and I would no longer see anything associated with my account when I log in.
In sum, I have a line that's only partially ported over to Unreal.
I did get a commitment from Unreal saying that they are willing to assign me a new randomly generated number, so I have that to fall back on. It's not my main number so the loss wouldn't be too big. It just happens to be a sequence that I really like.
It does sound like the problem is with Visible and, from some posts I have seen, Visible's CS can be a problem. However, there are some Visible employees on the Visible reddit forum who maybe able to help you out. Also, IDK, maybe checking out Visible via Twitter may help. And maybe someone on this forum with experience with Visible porting will chime in.
I just got back on a chat with Visible. But this time I also told them that I will be filing an official complaint with the FCC, so as to hold their feet to the fire. Visible said they'd get back to me in 24 hours.
My understanding: your line must be 'active' to port out. Some providers nearly immediately terminate a line (and forfeit the number). Some providers, but not all, keep a line technically 'active' (a plan, attached to a number), for some period of time after payment has lapsed-- ostensibly as a customer service. Whichever way they do it, it's going to irritate some customers. (We saw a bunch of FreedomPop CDMA customers migrated to Ting who were PO'd because Ting did the same thing in 'hibernating' a line instead of expiring it, and offering users the chance to port out with no cost from those hibernated lines).
I suspect that providers who choose to keep a line in stasis are creating their own quagmire. Some providers, like Mint, seem friendly about allowing one to port out from a line that's in stasis after a plan ends. Some, possibly most, providers want you to pay to get the line out of stasis before they'll cooperate with a port.
There-in lies the bog. I think a provider isn't allowed to prevent you from porting out just because you owe them money, as long as the line is active. These lines held in stasis are not quite active, not quite 'not active'. My guess is the FCC would say they're 'suspended pending payment', but still active.
Unreal Mobile premium service is good as long as you don't have to contact support. They are completely useless.
I was on Red Pocket GSMA Unlimited with 3GB LTE monthly but they were changing it to 1000 min and 1GB data so I ordered the 1 year Unlimited plan with 3GB LTE from Unreal.
3 days before my Red Pocket plan expired I tried to activate the Unreal SIM and transfer my number. I got an error saying my number cannot be ported. I contacted Unreal via chat and after a couple of hours they finally figured out that they couldn't port my number because it was already active in their system. So Unreal and Red Pocket GSMA are using the same backend.
Well I thought same system, basically same company this should be easy for them to resolve. They created an online ticket for me and escalated the ticket. On the ticket they asked for my existing Red Pocket details, SIM, Plan, etc. Then they stopped responding.
My plan was expiring and the weekend was coming up and still no response from Unreal support. I was looking on Red Pocket's website to see what I could do to extend my service and noticed that I could do a SIM swap. So I typed in my new Unreal SIM number and it actually swapped to the new SIM, however it kept my old Red Pocket plan on it that was expiring.
Still not having heard from Unreal support and it being the weekend and my Red Pocket plan expiring I was looking around Unreal's website and noticed I could add my MDN to my account. I did that and it worked. It still showed my plan as the expiring Red Pocket plan however.
At this point my Red Pocket plan had expired and I had no phone service. I had my Phone Number, Unreal SIM, and Red Pocket plan showing under both Red Pocket and Unreal's website.
I then was able to use the Pay button on Unreal's website to “upgrade” my account and had options for all of the plans Unreal offers. I chose the 1 year Unlimited with 3GB LTE and payed for it again thinking if I could get my service working then getting a refund on one of these orders should be easy. The “upgrade” worked and I now had full service.
The new Unreal plan shows up under my account at Red Pocket as well.
I updated my Unreal ticket saying I got everything working but that I had to make another order and that I needed a refund on my original order. After a week they finally responded and said that could not issue a refund because both the SIM's I had had been activated even though one of them was the Red Pocket SIM.
I am currently on hold with Unreal's phone support for 45min so far....
Moral of the story is that their support so far has been completely useless to me. I bet that if I had never ordered a SIM and just added my MDN to Unreal's website I could have “upgraded” my Red Pocket GSMA plan to Unreal's plan using my Red Pocket GSMA SIM. No port needed.
edit: After an hour on the phone they said they are working on the refund and will contact me by the end of the day. Odds are not good that they call me back today and less that they actually fix anything.
... that's unreal!!!
Support never contacted me, not surprised at all. I initiated a chargeback with my credit card company. This could get even messier if they deactivate my service.
Wow, this is getting Unreal!
My partial port hasn't been fixed yet. I was promised by Visible that they would refund me the $40 for re-activating the service solely for completing the port out. So I paid on Saturday. Now the ball is back in Unreal's court. They couldn't help me during the weekend because the personnel who handle ports for Unreal apparently don't work on weekends. I chatted this morning with them online and was told that the matter has been escalated to a "developer team" (whatever that means).
Moral of the story is that it's probably a bad idea to port numbers into Unreal.
canon, thanks for your report on porting from Red Pocket to Unreal. Really interesting, and I admire your persistence in trying different routes!
Even knowing they're under the same ownership, it would not have occurred to me that 'porting' between the 2 might be problematic (or seriously problematic, or impossible.....). You can't be the only user thinking of moving between Red Pocket's various subsidiaries, so I'm sure this will be a useful reference in the future..
I suspect the issue exists only when staying with the same carrier. I think, with a properly set up backend, moving between the 2 shouldn't cause problems. If they share backends, it's more of an internal re-assignment instead of a true port.
Update on my Unreal nightmare.
After filing a dispute with my Credit Card company I got a temporary credit pending the investigation then a few day later I also got a refund from Unreal. Neither company contacted me as to what I should do so I did nothing.
Then the next week I got an email from Unreal's billing department asking me to cancel my dispute. Since they had already given me a refund I withdrew the dispute. Later that day they shut off my service.
It was Friday evening but I was able to get a hold of their support. The agent had no idea what was going on and said that the back end technicians were needed to fix my service. They were already off work and wouldn't be in until Monday and that they would work on it then and update me.
Monday rolls around and no update. I contact support again and they say that my account was canceled due to fraud. I explained the situation again and provided them with proof that the dispute had been withdrawn. Not at any point had they said that this was due to the dispute, but then suddenly they started acting like that this is the reason.
I suspected that nobody at Unreal has any idea what is going on and that my number was still held by Red Pocket. I contacted Red Pocket and they said that indeed my number was still with them. I asked for my port out information and they said that the account was terminated due to fraud and that my number is unrecoverable.
I contacted Unreal again asking if they could even get my number back and that I just wanted to port it out. They replied yesterday that they are working on restoring the number. Haven't heard from them today at all.
I filed a complaint with the FCC but they aren't competent either. I filed a complaint for a slow port out a few months ago and it took them two months to respond.
Moral of the story. Stay as far away from Unreal as possible! They have never once helped me and only made things worse when they actually did anything at all.
Ouch! Your nightmare experience motivated me to get on chat immediately and obtain my port out information.
I hope you get your service back, with your same number, refund for double payment, apologies and and all issues resolved to your satisfaction.
Good Luck and may the Force be with You !
Thanks, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I bet that they can't get my number restored and that they won't cancel and refund my order. I'll have to do another chargeback.
I finally had my port-in to Unreal fully executed. But for 10 days I did not have incoming phone service. I had to contact Unreal about 5 different times. Each time they promised that I would get an email to update me on their progress, which never came. On the 5th call, I threatened to not only initiate a chargeback but also a complaint with the FCC. They resolved the issue within 36 hours of that call, but I still never got an email from them to the effect of "your issue has been resolved."
Thanks, canon & bingyee for reporting on your very different, yet strikingly similar issues with Unreal.
I have a 3 month SIM waiting here, hoping that I'll have a reason to be out somewhere to use mobile data before I need to activate it. Although I prefer to port 'known' numbers around for 3-month or longer deals, I'll probably stick with a new number. (Plus the number I'd most likely port to Unreal is currently at Red Pocket/CDMAS-- my theory that the different carrier would avoid the porting issue isn't strong enough to make me take that chance.)
Well, after reading the last few posts concerning bad experiences with Unreal, I suppose the Unreal 4th of July deals posted below are for risk takers. FWIW—I was unable log in to my 3 month Unreal account today no matter what I tried, and I’m now awaiting a response from CS. Yet I’ve been happy with the AT&T service and data speeds.