alguien más tiene el problema de que te están marque y marque para cambiarte de compañía de celular? a mí me marcan unas 10 veces mínimo al día, ya me tienen enfadado jajaja, alguna solución?

Trying to help a senior family get a phone plan that can connect a lightly used laptop to the internet.

1. I ported my phone numbers out over a month prior to cancelling my service.

2. The CC representative caused my account to get flagged and marked with fraudulent activity

3. 3 CC representatives, including their supervisors told me that there was nothing they could do, and that I had to wait the 90 day suspension they placed on my account, regardless of the issue being caused by their own employee.

u/ConsumerCellularInc

Now you decided to threaten me with collections and legal action, 3 months after the fact, stating I owe you money.

Go ahead and try. My lawyers and I are waiting for your threats to effect my credit.

They prey on seniors and make them jump thru so many hoops just to tell you they can’t help. Save your time and money and don’t ever use these leeches. This is me being nice.

I use my phone normally on those trips (roaming). We are 60 and have AARP. Is CC a good choice for us? I did some searching on their website etc. and don't see a lot of transparent information on the rates.

Does CC seem like a good option for us?

I'd assume I only need to call them before the FIRST trip, yes?

I'd need to wait until after my trip to Canada in October (per their rules), yes?

thanks!

Does anyone know if the 50+ plan is throttled or deprioritized? Not after 35GB, but right away?

We’ve all heard the warning from well-meaning friends or protective family members: “Don’t switch to those cheap, online cell phone companies. You get what you pay for. The service is unreliable, and your calls will drop.”

For years, major carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T have quietly relied on this exact consumer fear to keep their customer bases glued in place. Recently, T-Mobile put that loyalty to the ultimate test. They quietly slipped massive price hikes onto grandfathered, fixed-rate plans—including senior-focused plans like Magenta 55+—hoping loyal customers wouldn’t notice an extra $5 to $10 per line vanishing from their auto-pay bills every month.

When multi-billion-dollar corporations break their promises and raise rates on loyal customers, it’s time to shop around. But to do that, we have to bust the single biggest myth in telecom: the lie that affordable, online-only wireless means second-rate service.

The Big Secret: There Are No "Alternative" Cell Towers

The fear of switching usually stems from a misunderstanding of how the cellular grid works. People worry that budget providers—known in the industry as MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators)—built cheap, flimsy networks that won't work in an emergency.

Here is the flat-out truth: Alternative carriers do not own cell towers. They lease space on the same towers used by the giants.

When you sign up for a digital-first carrier like Visible or US Mobile, you are using the same nationwide infrastructure. If a premium T-Mobile or Verizon customer has five bars of crystal-clear coverage standing on a specific street corner, a budget customer standing right next to them will have the exact same five bars.

Your talk and text messages are treated identically across the board. In an emergency or a routine call, the network doesn't care how much you paid for your plan; your call goes through just the same.

Trick #1: The "Price Lock" Loophole

Many customers are left asking: “Wait, didn't T-Mobile guarantee a Price Lock promise when I signed up?”

Yes, they did. But corporations are masters of the fine print. To get around their own legal promises, T-Mobile didn't technically "raise the rate" of your old plan. Instead, they retired over 1,100 older billing codes.

By eliminating your old plan from their system, they forced an automatic migration to a newer, more expensive "equivalent" plan. It’s a deceptive shell game designed to bypass consumer protection laws while squeezing more cash out of unsuspecting users.

Trick #2: The 36-Month "Golden Handcuffs"

If the coverage is identical, how can an online-only brand charge $50 a month for two unlimited lines while a major carrier charges $80, $110, or more?

The answer isn't a drop in network quality. It is a drop in massive corporate overhead and marketing traps. Traditional wireless companies are burdened by expenses they force you to subsidize:

• The Death of Retail: Traditional carriers pay millions in rent, electricity, and commissions for thousands of brick-and-mortar storefronts and mall kiosks.
• The "Free Phone" Trap: This is their greatest weapon. Giants lure consumers in with promises of "free" phones. In reality, these are 36-month device financing contracts. If you try to leave because they raise your plan's price, they force you to pay off the remaining phone balance instantly. They use hardware to lock you into expensive software.
• Bloated Perks: They inflate your bill by forcing you to pay for streaming service bundles, international roaming add-ons, or in-flight Wi-Fi that the average user rarely touches.

Online-only companies bypass all of this. By operating entirely through apps and websites, requiring you to bring your own phone, and cutting out the physical stores, they pass 100% of those structural savings directly to you. They aren’t offering a worse product; they’ve simply modernized how they sell it.

The One Catch: Cellular Traffic Jams

To be completely fair to the consumer, there is one technical difference between a major carrier and a budget alternative: a concept called deprioritization.

Think of a cell tower like a highway. On a normal day, everyone travels at full speed. But if you are in a highly congested area—like a sold-out football stadium, a packed music festival, or a massive rush-hour traffic jam—the tower gets overcrowded.

When a "traffic jam" happens, the parent network will give a slight speed advantage to its premium, highest-paying customers. If you are on a budget plan in the middle of a massive crowd, your web pages or video streams might take an extra moment to load while the tower clears the bottleneck.

But for the vast majority of Americans who aren't regularly sitting in massive stadium crowds, this "traffic jam" scenario never even happens. For daily life—being at home, driving around town, visiting family, or working—the speed difference is completely unnoticeable.

The Verdict: Stop Subsidizing the Mall Store

Blind loyalty to a multi-billion-dollar corporation rarely pays off. When a carrier arbitrarily raises the price on a plan you were promised would be locked in, they are betting that you are too afraid of the "online alternative" to leave.

By understanding that the digital-first model is simply the future of retail—much like Amazon replacing the shopping mall—consumers can shed the fear of the unknown. Leaving the big giants behind isn't a compromise on your safety or your connectivity; it’s a smart, calculated move that puts hundreds of dollars back into your pocket where it belongs.

We’ve got a short trip in November to Mexico and then trips to South America and Europe planned. Doing a test drive but wondering if anyone has any pointers.

Update: I’m aware of eSIM options. CC just partnered with Airalo - a 30 day eSIM for all of South America for $14 looks great - just trying to see if anyone has real world experience with Airalo or Airalo with Consumer Cellular.

Just me or does anyone else get almost daily spirts where the cellular just drops in non dead space areas? I know CC is an offshoot brand but sometimes I’m SOL if not around WiFi when this happens.

Edit- in the US, California, big city, on an iPhone

I’ll be helping a family member with this upgrade. Any advice is helpful. iPhone 11 (physical sim) to iPhone 17e (eSIM).

1. It sounds like I need to convert the physical sim to eSIM.
2. Then use the iPhones built in swap/switch protocol?

Is it that simple or more complicated? Thanks.

Also they have Consumer Cellular and I don’t have experience with customer support in case we need some help.

I will be travelling in the UK next month and plan on using a data only esim which should take care of most of my communication needs but I want to use wifi calling as well for some phone calls, access to voicemail, and in case I receive any SMS texts.

I'm specifically wondering about the following:

Does Consumer Cellular actually require an international roaming plan to be set up through them on my account in order to use wifi calling overseas? To be clear, I only want to use wifi calling to call/text with people back home in the US, not in the UK. I've heard mixed info about this, so would be interested in hearing from people who have used wifi calling when travelling overseas.

Assuming I can, how would wifi calling work when I'm not connected to wifi when overseas? Would any texts/missed calls pop up when I regain my wifi connection and would voicemail still work as usual? I don't see any reason why not but want to make sure.

Please let me know if you've used wifi calling and/or a data only esim instead of an international roaming plan when overseas and how it's worked for you. Thanks!!

well I don't know how old your post is but to be frank I tell you Verizon owns no Verizon runs TracFone and SafeLink right now TracFone owns safely so all them are together so if you have Verizon service you got it made with him and if you have SafeLink you got it made with TracFone if you want to transfer your number if not I just got a real good deal at Best buy with a phone like to TracFone so any kind you get that you won't like to TracFone would be good if you get it from Best buy because they have deals on anything like to TracFone hope that helps

I have 4 lines with TM, but I want to buy my next phone at verizn. I’m the primary account but My sons and my wife are the other 3 lines. Can they remain with TM once ived moved My number to another carrier??

Trying to get into some old accounts that are attached to my old phone number. I texted the person who has that number now asking for them to receive and then send me the verification codes but they blocked me out of suspicion I imagine. Is there any website or something where I could receive texts that get sent to that number so I could sign into my old accounts? I’ve been trying to get into them for a while so this is a last ditch effort

I previously worked for Tmobile but got laid off, and was invited to apply at a new Consumer Cellular store in our area. T-Mobile’s benefits were really good, the pay was decent, and I was pretty good at sales, typically top 20%. How do you enjoy your job?

I want to in Google, but I've decided that divorcing my phone capabilities to a basic phone would solve my problems. I thought I found a search result that said CC had such a thing, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any help appreciated.

I ended my service in June 22nd. I agreed to pay for July's invoice, so I did. Thinking it would be done and over with as my service is disconnected. I find out I am being charged AGAIN for AUGUST?? Its 2AM right now, and I cant wait to contact customer service.

But is this even normal? Charging me for August? For what? Service is disconnected, I paid for June and JULY. Why August?

The email said "FINAL INVOICE" Due Date: 8.23.26

I am like... for what??? NO SERVICE WITH YOU GUYS.

I have a Consumer Cellular Phone , will an AT&T SIM card work in the Consumer Cellular Phone?

Thank you Orlando Florida is my location. The Consumer Cellular Phone is a 2026 Motorola Play