We've all seen Cricket's commercials telling us that we can get unlimited talk and text for only…read more$25 a month with no contracts to sign, no commitments, and a full keyboard phone for only $70 with "Respect" blaring in the background. "That's great!" you say enthusiastically. "My current provider charges twice as much, requires a credit check, limits my minutes and texts, made me submit a DNA sample and sign a contract demanding my loyalty until Charles Manson gets paroled. If I sign up at Cricket, my mobile phone problems will be over! Right?" Wrong. Yes, Cricket will show respect for your wallet, but utter contempt for your time, trust, sanity and soul.
In addition to low rates, their big pitch is "no surprises." While I could be a nitpicky Nicholas as to what exactly constitutes as a "surprise" and call a big mountain of bullshit on that claim, I'll keep it at its most narrow meaning and refer to it in terms of your bill. Anyone who has touched a mobile phone in the last ten years will know that it's pretty easy to get slammed by a wireless carrier. Going over your limit in texts and minutes can be pretty costly (especially since you tend to get no warning from your company if it's about to happen); ass dialing your mobile internet can cost you a dollar per day, and unknowingly calling a number outside of your "calling area" can really kick you in the balls when you get your bill. What's great about Cricket is that you cannot physically do anything unless you've paid for it. So if you're driving out to rural Oklahoma to meet up with that girl you found on Myspace, you can call her and let her know that you're right outside her bedroom window watching her without having to worry about whether you're roaming or not. Considering all the things that can go wrong, I think this is probably the strongest plus to having Cricket. Alas, this is where Cricket's happy gold-plated road of rainbows and friendly elves comes to a dismal end.
So why is Cricket so cheap? Have American wireless carriers finally decided to drop the act and admit that it only costs them about five dollars to keep you connected every month? Not quite. The short of it is Cricket doesn't have its own towers; they sort of sponge off other provider towers in an area. This means that coverage is, at best, mediocre. Calling a land line is usually not a problem, but more than likely the bulk of your calls are going to be to other mobile phones, and this is where Cricket starts showing its true colors. If you're showing full bars, then your call will probably have very little interference and be, well . . . audible. Most of the time you're going to be at half or three quarters and your calls will sound like AM radio from your grandpa's golf visor with the built-in headphones. As luck would have it, the worst signal I get is the one in my home. I'll kind of be able to make out what you're saying as long as I stand on top of my T.V. placing one hand on the lamp while wearing tin foil boxer shorts. The best advice I can give anyone wanting to go to Cricket is to keep a landline around. Using Cricket as your only source of communication is how people end up dying in horror movies.
The most infuriating attribute associated with Cricket is its customer service, which is completely ass-backwards in every possible dimension. Fortunately, with the internet, there's a chance that you may never have to experience the tenth circle of Hell that is Cricket's customer service line. But if you do have to use it, you'll probably have better luck explaining your problem to the neighbor's cat. The short of it is that Cricket out-sources its customer service. They don't understand your questions and you don't really understand their responses; and during the parts where you might be able to figure out what they're trying to belch out, you're too busy wondering how the hell this obviously foreign guy had such cosmopolitan parents to name him "Donny". What they tell you on the customer service line is completely different from what you'll hear from the store employees, and they leave it to the customer to figure out the true meaning. It's sort of an existential experience in wireless phone service.
If money is a big issue for you, then I guess Cricket is your only option. If you can afford a more reliable and respectful phone service, I'd say go with them. With Cricket, everything is great until you need them for something. If you think frequent billing errors, charges for things that aren't your fault, and an absurdly illogical return policy for a malfunctioning phone whilst still under warranty is worth saving $20 a month, then not only should you sign up for Cricket, but you should be nominated for sainthood.
