Check Out Our New Verizon MIFI Benefit!

[chindog]

23 hours ago, manholt said:

You don't get additional add on for Tax's & service charge?  Amazing, I'll get one tomorrow and I use less than 5 MB a month, with my Verizon 5 MB, I pay almost $12 above in Taxes!

My total monthly bill is $50.07, including all taxes.  Of course, the location of the subscriber has a lot to do with that.  We are residents of Florida.

[manholt]

OK, Texas=$12 in Tax, zero State income tax...FL has a 4% State tax?  or am I confused about another State.

[chindog]

No state taxes listed on the bill, just a $.02 regulatory charge and a $.06 "administrative charge" .

 

[kaupasetic]

I just went through the registration process as an existing Jetpack customer (with the $85/mo for 16Gb). The phone rep had to put me on hold to apply the rate plan, and her only quandry was that the plan couldn't be back-dated nor started immediately. It's supposed to switch over next month at the end of my current billing period.

[sun914]

The sign up for the FMCA Verizon plan went fairly smooth. I was able to go to my local Verizon store and pick up my Jetpack that day. It was activated and I called Verizon to make sure I was on the FMCA plan and would only be charged the $.01. Since my current Verizon plan was mid month into my billing cycle and the new month would not be until June 2 I was told I would incur data charges on top of the $49.99 if I used the Jetpack before June 2. So I just didn't use it as I had enough data left on my smart phones. Got my bill June 2 and my Jetpack was charged at the FMCA plan rate of $49.99 BUT I was also charged $10.00 per month for "Jetpack Line Access". Nothing that I read said there would be a line access charge for the Jetpack, only surcharges (regulatory and administrative) and taxes.  Now this thing that is NOT unlimited is costing me $59.99 per month instead of $49.99. 

I have had an 8 GB family plan and hardly ever went over 8 GB. Used my Jetpack the past 4 days not streaming at all just surfing the internet and already used over 4 GB, how can that be? Do the Jetpacks consume more data that hot spotting an iPad on my smartphone? 

Is this correct that I should be charged a $10.00 Jetpack line access charge?

I think I have made a big mistake going with this FMCA Verizon deal.

I am thinking very seriously that I will return the Jetpack and incur the $175.00 early termination fee and be done with it. Since the new family plans have just come out I think I will be better off going to one of the new plans since I really don't use that much data anyway.

[hermanmullins]

sun914,

Welcome to the FMCA Forum, 

I sent you a Personal Message with a number to contact. This should get this taken care of for you.

Herman

 

[dball]

Thanks, Herman.  I have been in contact with sun914 and we will get this squared away!

Dan

[sun914]

Thanks, Dan. 

Steve Garrett with Verizon called and assured me that the pro rated amount charged for the Jetpack Access Fee  for June would be credited and it was. He confirmed that my account is now set up correctly and I should not see the access fee on my bill. 

Great service from FMCA and Verizon.

Thanks to all.

[F442384]

I have spent two hours on the phone with Verizon Wireless and made two separate visits to corporate stores regarding this new benefit.

The Verizon corporate people I have talked with are not aware of this plan and do not know about this opportunity for FMCA members.

Nobody has been able to tell me the actual monthly costs that I will be paying for using 25GB of data on a new hotspot, after line access fees, taxes, surcharges, etc.....

I currently have a Verizon hotspot on 5GB plan and know exactly how much each monthly bill to budget for, but would love to change to a 25GB plan if only someone could tell me how much it would be?

 

Is there a personal contact I can reach out to to discuss my concerns?   I hate to lose my current plan only to find the new plan is 3 or 4 times the cost of my current plan.

 

Thank you,

DMD

[frankierobert]

I am SO afraid of Verizon's ability to dodge the bullet...especially mine!  Last week, I contacted a local Verizon store and was told that the JetPack would cost $19.99 and the plan would cost $20.00 per month.  Trotted my butt down and signed up after learning the JetPack was $1.06.  While waiting for hubby to get his hair cut, I received a Verizon notification that my next $121/mo bill would be $287! Trotted my "now on fire butt" back to the store to face a myriad of lies and explanations....they changed my 55+ Unlimited plan ($40/mo/phone) to GoUnlimited ($65/mo/phone), added  insurance on 2 phones and the JetPack at $10/device, plus an activation fee of $40, plus, plus plus, and all delivered by a woman who must have learned customer service from the devil and a store manager who could care less that this information HE provided never mentioned changing our plan without our permission and knowledge......It took me two days and hours on the phone to reverse all the changes and return the JetPack.  So I ask any FMCA and  Verizon existing customers, have all the kinks in this offer been corrected?

[riverman]

I am well pleased with the plan in every way.

It did take some effort to get it set up (one day), but absolutely no issues since.

$49 a month for 25GB... what a deal. That's $2 a GB.... dirt cheap internet.

I can type up the info of what I had to do to get setup, if anyone needs it.  

[frankierobert]

riverman, were you an existing Verizon customer?

 

[smithy]

On 7/26/2018 at 8:37 AM, riverman said:

I am well pleased with the plan in every way.

It did take some effort to get it set up (one day), but absolutely no issues since.

$49 a month for 25GB... what a deal. That's $2 a GB.... dirt cheap internet.

I can type up the info of what I had to do to get setup, if anyone needs it.  

Glad to hear members are having a much easier time getting enrolled in the plan. And I agree, if 25 GB is enough for your needs, it is an excellent plan.

[riverman]

no

[jaysigel]

In life, you meet some very nice people and some very bad people.  We have T-Mobile and their network is sub-par.  But they have great plans, reasonable phones and excellent customer service.  Then, there's Verizon.  Without a doubt, they have the best network.  Most campgrounds are located in under-populated areas that are often at a considerable distance from cell towers.  That means very limited or no phone or internet access when we are camping and, often, when traveling in the RV (or car).  So we looked into the FMCA Verizon "unlimited" 25 GB plan.  When Verizon says "unlimited", it's the same as my telling you that you can get from Beaumont to El Paso on one tank of gas.  It's true, you can.  You'll just have to walk from San Antonio!  If you look on Amazon for reviews of the Verizon MiFi Jetpacks, you get 20-35% one-star reviews that mention getting refurbished in place of new devices, no access, dropped connections, frequent rebooting, swelling batteries, billing issues and the data rate throttling to unusable (without any warnings) as mentioned in the above posts.  Some reviews mentioned that the older MiFi devices worked better than the newer ones.  So, I looked to see what model of Jetpack was being offered.  On the FMCA website, the Verizon FAQ section says that they'll state what model we will get after we sign up!!!  Shades of Nancy Pelosi -- they've got to be kidding!  Who in their right mind will buy anything without knowing what it is first?

Other options included just switching from T-Mobile to Verizon.  T-Mobile phones only work on their network.  So, we went to a Retail Verizon store.  It was not a "company" store, but it looked like one and I guess that we just didn't know any better.  They offered us $300 each for our Samsung Note 3 phones because we were switching cell phone carriers, while joining our son's family plan for just an additional $40/month/phone for our 2 phones.  It sounded great.  But by the time we got the printed statement for all of this, we had to buy 2 new phones ($750 each) for "only" $25/month fro 2 years, no trade-in savings (kissing the $300 x2 away), $40/phone to transfer the apps/data/pictures from our old phones, activation fees, line fees, outrageous charges for screen protectors, cases and car chargers with tax that added up to $524 at the time of purchase and then $100/month for 2 years that included my son's 22% corporate discount (to which we could not apply my 15% veteran's discount).  I said to the Verizon guy to forget it.  He tried to talk me out of it.  Our phone numbers had already been ported to the Verizon phones.  After much arguing, we got the ordered cancelled, but our phones were unusable.  The entire experience reminded me of a line from My Cousin Vinny - "OMG, it's a (expletive deleted) nightmare!"  Well, the experience was worse than buying an RV, if you know what I mean.  Verizon messes with you so badly...

Back home, I called T-Mobile (on our land line) on a Saturday night and they immediately re-activated our T-Mobile phones, costing us nothing, told us that since we had cancelled them (although it was only for an hour), that we would have to get a different plan because they no longer offered our old plan that had an 8 GB data limit (still, no contract) and instead of that, it would now be unlimited (which is really unlimited) and at a lower price than we were paying on our old plan!  She asked me at the end, "Can I do anything else for you?" and I replied, "Can I give you hug over the telephone?"  What a difference!  Who could dump a cell phone carrier like that, even if their network was not the best?  I won't do it.

So what are my options (besides doing nothing)?  Looking at other hospot devices, Sprint's network is no better than T-Mobile's (when they finally combine, I anticipate improved network access, but will older phones benefit?).  AT&T might work in some areas not served by T-Mobile.  We have a new GM car with OnStar, which has WiFi through AT&T, but it requires the ignition to be on, which is a no-go while towing it or when it is parked, plus it costs $30/month for just 3 GB.  The AT&T Mobley, as mentioned in the above posts, is out-dated and no longer available.  There are cell signal boosters but they have extremely poor performance and many complaints that they don't work as intended on Amazon.  There are the Nighthawk and Unite Explore mobile hotspot devices from AT&T and I will look into those at an AT&T store.  But Verizon?  You meet some very nice people and some very bad people.

[jaysigel]

On a slightly different subject but responding to an above post that quoted download speeds of "20 GB/sec".  It's Gb, not GB, bits, not bytes.  One character is one byte, consists of 8 bits on your computer.  But over the internet, your data is sent with 8 bits followed by 2 confirmation bits.  So an internet byte (one character) is 10 bits.  Average 4G LTE speeds in a major city are about 35-50 gigabits/sec, not gigabytes.  So 20 Gb/sec is really 2 GB/sec, still pretty fast.  The Xfinity speed test on my home's cable modem shows a 180 Gb/sec download speed and an upload speed of 6 (ethernet cable).  WiFi speed is much less.

[dball]

Jay,

As I mentioned in my email to you, thank you for pointing this out in the FAQ.  The answer to "which device will I receive?" is undoubtedly vague and we are already in the process of updating the FAQ to provide more detail.

To answer your question, the current device being offered through the FMCA-Verizon deal is the Verizon Jetpack MiFi 7730L.  You can see more about the device itself by visiting: 

https://www.verizonwireless.com/internet-devices/verizon-jetpack-mifi-7730l/

I also would be remiss if I didn't mention our Tech Connect benefit, which is a mobile hotspot offer on the Sprint network.  You are correct that their coverage is not as good as Verizon's, however Sprint does offer a Magic Box free to Sprint customers and, in my opinion, is worth looking into.  The Tech Connect offer is truly unlimited and does not require a 2-year commitment like the Verizon offer.

https://site.fmca.com/index.php?option=com_fmcatechconnect&view=home

Sincerely,

Dan Ball

Director of Membership & Marketing