In the beginning, before the dawn of time, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, Virgin was the operator of choice. It worked in places others didn't and for just phone, it couldn't be beaten, not at $20 every 3 months! Later, as the service became increasingly unreliable, I upped the ante and went for a smartphone. That, I have to say was absolutely abysmal and after it lost all my data including the phone directory I'd entered, it ended up as my target on the rifle range. After going through several more Virgin smartphones, each being slightly less dismal than the last, a Blackberry seemed to work. Sadly that committed suicide after about a year. Heaven knows what happened but in the night, placed on the nightstand, it was working and in the morning it was not and never would again.
Given that the connection - particularly right next to the transmitter tower at Christmas - would leave me without a signal all the time I was at work, Virgin became increasingly frustrating to use. The final straw was trying to make a call from home and the signal just vanished. Rebooting the phone (which on a Blackberry took 15 minutes) proved that it was the signal and not the phone. It was probably two days before the signal returned. What on earth was the point of paying for a phone that didn't work at work or at home but only on the journey between the two? Virgin got the boot!
Next up was Family Mobile. That was quite a decent package though it was post pay not pre pay and I'm sure they helped themselves to an extra month's worth of money after I finished with them. They were pretty good and I got what I paid for. The killer for them was that there was no reception where I moved to next. I was also unhappy having post pay. I much prefer scratch off cards and prepay as that makes it so much easier to quit a service when it begins to suck.
Following Family Mobile, Straight Talk was the next option. That was actually quite good though the Straight Talk phones could be abysmal. In my time with Straight Talk I went through several with the worst being the Android things. I recall fighting one phone to make a phone call and it was steadfastly refusing to let me make a call. In the end I had to get my work partner to make the call.
I quite liked the service on Straight Talk. I got 3GB of data for $45 and then subsequently that raised to 4GB and they came out with a cheaper version with 2GB for $35. Well, not being a big data user, that was fine. The 2GB eventually raised to 5GB for $35. The unlimited everything option for $55 was useful a couple of times too.
Roll on to the middle of July and I needed to use my phone as a hotspot - something I'd not done in about 6 months. Up came a message declaring that to use my hotspot I had to contact the phone company. What the Hell? I pay for my data and now have to ask the phone company for permission to use it? It turned out that now the phone company is censoring what their product is used for. How long before it's possible only to view approved websites then only possible to put approved messages on websites? It strikes me as being very Communist. Has Straight Talk been taken over by the People's Republic of China or is our old Friend that runs North Korea behind it all?
So, clearly, Straight Talk is out of the running. This is why I love pre-pay. I can let the service lapse and move on to another provider. Needless to say, after contacting Straight Talk I had the usual template responses that are guaranteed to enrage rather than help. Companies don't realize just how awful template responses are and they're too cheap to hire people with brains to do their customer service. The end result is they alienate their customers and pay minimum wage to do it.
I doubt that my response to the minimum wage oaf at the other end will ever be read by management or by anybody worth a hoot in the company. At this point I'd rather drop my pants and bend over to be rogered up the backside by Satan himself than to spend another penny on Straight Talk. Of course what irks me the most is I bought an iPhone from Straight Talk then the next month (unknown to me) they ruined the service. The whole point of a phone with data is being able to use that data. That means ability to use the phone as a hotspot.
Talking about hotspots, I do have a stand alone Straight Talk hotspot. Now they won't support it. That's money down the drain for nothing. They have truly shafted me twice over. First they stopped my stand-alone hotspot then they blocked the ability to use phones as hotspots. Perhaps Straight Talk is owned by Satan? Perhaps it is Satan?
So now is the end of the month. I need a new phone service. 4GB was fine for me. 5 was incredible. I'm not a massive data hog or an internet dependent. Looking around, the only two providers worth mentioning are Verizon and AT&T. They both have a fairly decent 4-5GB offering at about $35 a month. So, the plan is to get a cheap AT&T phone with a 1 month card - just to see how well the service works and then to get their $99 for 3 months card later which gives 8GB a month. Then I can get a better phone from AliExpress.
Work is likely to start back at the end of the month so I'll need my phone for GPS etc. If it was just for talk then I'd have the absolute cheapest option that would work and a flip phone.
I detest being screwed and Straight Talk has thoroughly screwed me and has been screwing me for a while, it seems. Do not buy Straight Talk. It seems to be nothing but a scam.
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