Consumer Cellular NOT Necessarily the Best Choice

[southcoastCR]

I don't know if there's some financial arrangement between Consumer Cellular and AARP, but we (folks over 50) are clearly targeted by Consumer Cellular.  I WAS one of those people whose monthly bill, as advertised on television, was just under $25...with very a limited data allowance.  Out of town at a hotel I attempted to connect to the hotel's free wi-fi.  Having difficulty (NOT a Consumer Cellular issue), I gave up after about 45 minutes.  I came to discover that I had used ALL of my allowed data trying to connect and I was bumped up to the next higher plan to cover this data usage.  That also was not really a problem for me.  So.....My Point:  I was paying just shy of $25 per month and it was pretty easy to use up my allowed data.  After my hotel experience I dumped Consumer Cellular and I am now with Cricket Wireless.  I pay a total of $30 a month, which includes all taxes and fees, and I have unlimited data...1GB at high speed.  Bottom Line=For only $60 more a year I will never have the hotel experience again. 

[Alvaro16]

Well said, rker321. Your opinion is relevant and you have the right to express it.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

[bluebird1069]

Agreed. I use Tracfone with an Andriod Smart phone. My cost is about $7/month for 90 minutes. My phone came with triple minutes for life voice and data.My phone was $89 for a Samsung Galaxy 3G. That phone can now be purchased for around $50.

[Alvaro16]

Of course there's a great financial arrangement between AARP and consumer cellular or any other advertiser for that matter. Consumer Cellular is not the least expensive phone service nor as good as others. I've been using Tracfone for years now and would not give it up. I pay $11 a month and get more minutes, data and voice than I can use in a month. What I don't use rolls over to the next month and so on ad infinitum. Service and coverage are great just about everywhere and sometimes better than the big companies. I'm in business for myself and use the phone quite a bit.
Don't be fulled by AARP's questionable alliances. I had to investigate insurance companies also. Do your due diligence before signing up with anybody they recommend. Remember AARP is deeply entrenched in the Washington bureaucracy, also.

[es5952]

I totally agree with Alvaro16 about Consumer Cellular. I switched to Tracfone two months ago after wasting a lot of time and money. I hope my Tracfone service works better than Consumer Cellular. It is already a better price even without the AARP discount. As you stated, the minutes rollover so I can use them later.

[ss63925554]

My issue with Consumer Cellular is that periodically, we have issues with texting when not on wifi. I've called about this a few times. They "reboot" on their end and it works a little better, then gets worse. Currently, both my fiance and I can't send texts, emails, or even access the internet when not on wifi. The last 3 weeks have gotten progressively worse, even after talking with them about it. When I went to the Apple Store about it, and this makes sense, if all these things work on wifi but not on CELLULAR network, it's the carrier, meaning CC. The manager there told me that these discounters don't update their connections as quickly as the main brands, like Verizon and AT&T and that's what causes the problem. That makes sense to me. If this next call to CC doesn't resolve the problem, they leave me no choice but to change carriers. Anyone else having this issue? I can perhaps correlate to IOS update to 14.6 version, but not sure. After 3 weeks, shouldn't a carrier have updated their systems???

[ss63925554]

Update:  We gave them AMPLE opportunity to resolve our issues. A manager was supposed to call us after my 3rd call, never did. I tried their Twitter customer support, which was just a collassal waste of time and energy. No matter what proof I sent her, they disputed it. Big runaround and waste of time. Here's the bottom line:

Consumer Cellular only gets access to some AT&T towers, and, when those towers are busy, they bounce these smaller companies and even their own prepaid customers, off. And, now that AT&T is upgrading to 5G, other signals are being degraded. So, we bit the bullet yesterday and switched to ACTUAL AT&T.  CC didn't make it easy, though. When I changed addresses, apparently, they switched my number's address, but not my fiance's, to the new address, so when we tried to migrate, it kept coming up with errors. Even when I figured out the problem (on THEIR end), it still didn't port over. We finally got it resolved this morning. I lost approximately 6 hours on this, but at least we are through with CC!  If you need to communicate with the outside world in a reliable fashion, stay away from CC or any other prepaid or service that uses another carrier's towers. Even if you only use a cell phone for emergencies, you'd better hope that your service works!  Today was the first day in over 2 months that I was able to text away from wifi!! On actual AT&T! HURRAY!

[bs4695]

I thought that consumer cellular would be good for my parents.   What a mistake.  Their phone had an easy simplistic interface, but that’s about it.  The phone will not work with their Wi-Fi network (by design) and so everything goes through the cell network.  Because of that their biils got large quite quickly because they were over their plans data limits.  They advertise low rates, but because they don’t allow wi-fi, rates end up being excessive.   Finally moved them to T-Mobile’s Senior rate plan, and saving $’s

[webenomads]

When Consumer Cellular switched carriers from T-Moble to AT&T I went from 3 bars in my house to 1. Most phone calls are dropped with AT&T. I'm told it's an AT&T cell tower issue. Simple solution - switch to Mint Moble to get back to T-Moble and useable service.