I argued with my mom for like an hour straight about switching from Cricket to Verizon, or T-Mobile. My friend and I got frustrated and so I bought this kick-butt Q9 Phone. (love love love!!!) I had it flashed, to cricket. BAD IDEA! Not only am I paying for features I no longer get because of this "non-compatible phone" is it's a fully loaded phone and I can only call text and video and take pictures. I cannot send pictures, receive them, I can't send or get video. I no longer get mobile web and roaming will cost now. So I'm paying 60$ a month for 2 features!! UGH! I went to shut down my service from 60$ to 45$. In reality, I have the 45$ service, I forgot why it ends up being 60$ a month. But when I went to do that, they said I would lose my voice messages. >.< I cannot win here!  It sucks being 17. Well, in this case it does. My mom or step-dad refuses to co-sign for me. In the 2 years I have had cricket, I've not once been late on a payment. I have gone through close to 7 phones. I had the Candid 2. I hate hate hate cricket phones, they break so easily. My last one would turn on and restart immediately. So I couldn't do anything. Basically I was fed up with the service. So, I got my phone flashed. And finally got my friends dad to co-sign for me. But you can't unflash a phone unless you send it back to the maker. So I'm hoping I can get my $250 back and go do the 79.99 (with mail in rebate) and first months bill (59.99) And get my same phone, with fully loaded feature, with 450 minutes, (I never really talk on the phone) All this would cost 180.00 total. I'm just *hoping* it will work. This is one big mega frustration. I can't do anything because I'm not 18. 

Oh well. I'm done ranting. If anyone has any advice that'd be great. How do you guys like verizon, so far I'm in love with my Q9 phone. My gawd it's so pretty  

Part of why anyone under 18 can't 'do anything' is because they tend to not think things through before acting on an impulse.  I'm sorry you flashed your phone and now it's not working, but did you talk to someone first, to find out what features would be disabled?  Unfortunately, experience can be a cruel teacher.  I, too, hope you can get a new phone, but ultimately it's not the company's fault that you did what you did ...  perhaps it can be reflashed, or something, but maybe next time you'll do a bit more research before jumping in feet first.

That being said, I've had Verizon for 4.5 years now, and am overall satisfied. Most of the people my daughter and I chat with have Verizon, so it's nice to not use all of our minutes. 

I'm honestly in shock at how much this costs!  I used to get all free phones but finally decided I wanted a razor because it was small (and my first flip phone and camera phone) and paid $30 or $40 for it.  My bill is $45 a month altogether though I never use all my minutes but its the cheapest plan there is.  I just can't imagine paying so much!

Switch to AT&T...they rule

I guess my experience is that for some reason, certain individuals seem to have a disproportionate amount of these "technical" failures.  Some people go through 3-4 phones a year, others have the same phone for 3-4 years with no issues.  I don't know if it's just dumb luck, how much it gets used, habits for carrying/storing/charging the phone or what.  My hubby has had WAY more issues with his phones over the past 3 years than I have.  Even the phones we have now that we got at the same time -- he has more issues.  No way of knowing if it's the particular model or something about the way he uses/handles his phone or just dumb luck. 

In the last 10 years, I have NEVER had a technical problem with a cell phone except for when the store fried one trying to upgrade the software.  They gave me a replacement, refurbished phone that worked fine for years until I decided to get a new one that supported text messaging.  I am on my 4th phone since 1998.  Hubby is on his 4th phone since October 2005, although only one was actually a technical problem with the phone (throwing the phone doesn't count as a technical problem).  The phones we have now we got new last summer because we switched carriers, so that doesn't really count against either of us as "going through" a phone (although his old phone had taken a dunk in the toilet, but continued to work).   Now, part of my "luck" is simply my lifestyle -- I work from home and use very few minutes so I'm not trying to use my phone all over the place and may not notice signal problems as much as somebody that uses it all the time all over town.  My phone doesn't get left in the car while I go to the gym or work on a job site.

That said, even with the extra warranty, if you file 2 claims within 12 months, they cancel your insurance until you have less than one in the last year.  And then I'm not sure if you can add the warranty since it's usually only available when you first get a new phone.

Sorry if this isn't the correct definition, but I flashed a Verizon Q9 phone to have cricket service, It's supposed to have verizon, but they reset the software to be compatible with cricket carrier. So I get a cool phone and can have whatever service I want. I just never knew about the draw backs

I have tech difficulties with my land-line work phone.  2 years, and 5 are dead with never heard of before problems.  I have NO idea what I'm doing wrong...

Flashing a cell phone is buying it based on one carriers plan, then having it "flashed" to work with another carrier, AFAIK.  So if I smoke enough illegal substances and decide to take my US Cellular Razr and go over to All-Hell, they'll flash my Razr to work with their programming.  Not the best example, since All-Hell sells Razrs also.  The more real option would be taking the afore mentioned Razr and flashing it over to AT&T.

The place that sold me the phone. Said they would gladly take it back with receipt. Problem is, and I have witnesses, he never gave us one. When I asked yesterday he hung up the phone. I'm at a loss for what to do about that one.


ETA:
I'm just throwing this out here. I don't know if this is true but I head GM, Chevy and Ford ofter sell cars with defects that will show up in months so the owner has to go pay them to fix it. Whereas the Japanese companies are rated to not have many of these defects show up in months because they don't worry about profits? And I guess Chevy Ford and GM will do anything to make a quick buck. Maybe thats how cricket works. My mom had  cricket years back and her phone whacked out on her too. Maybe it is dumb luck. Because I never knowingly did anything that would damage my phone.    Figures though!

You know your really rude right? Only one other person was with me at the time. The phone is in working order and He can check the cameras.

And I did say I didn'tknow for sure ok? I *heard* that from som people.

I would call flashing your phone to work on another company's network knowingly damaging your phone.  My guess is you voided your warranty/exchange privilege by doing that just as much as dropping it in the toilet.  If it were me, I would assume I won't have that money in making the decisions to sign up elsewhere.

However, if you bought the phone at Verizon and you're going to sign up for Verizon, would it make sense to see if Verizon will just restore the phone you already bought instead of trying to get a refund and buy a new one?  If you already own that phone, you also would not HAVE to be on a contract -- the contract is usually only if you get the phone cheap.

Cricket doesn't manufacture the phones -- they buy them from manufacturers just like everyone else does.  The LG phone from cricket is the same as the LG phone from Verizon or Alltel or Sprint or Cingular (if it's the same model).  The difference is the network and the software.  And that falls into the category of "you get what you pay for".  Simply put, Cricket does not invest as much in infrastructure as some of the other cell providers.  They keep their service more affordable by saving on operational costs.   ALL the cell phone companies put their own software on the phone.  A RAZR from Alltel may have different features than a RAZR from Sprint.  The availability of a phone's features depends on the software the service provider installs.  Cricket is a low-end service provider - it makes sense that their software might be less robust and have fewer features than another provider, especially if it's put on a phone that is not one of "their" phones.  Their software has been developed and optimized for the phones they sell.

Cricket also has a much less reliable revenue stream because of the market they target and the high turnover.  In a nutshell, you can't expect the same level of reliability and service from Cricket that you get from the bigger companies that require contracts and credit checks and collect more revenue.

And I'm pretty sure car manufacturers in Japan are interested in making a profit.  If you haven't noticed, a Honda Accord costs quite a bit more than a comparable chevy or ford.  Japanese car makers generally make about $2k more in profit than a similar American car.  SOme of that is the Japanese costs of building the car is lower (largely due to labor issues), and some is due to the higher price they can get because of the perceived better reliability. 

I really don't think the American manufacturers design in defects that will magically fail at a certain time in order to make you pay them to repair it.  They certainly do a cost-benefit analysis based on the mean time to failure and use that information in determining how to price and warranty a car, and whether or not to improve the design or manufacture of a specific part to improve the mean time to failure.  ALL car manufacturers sell vehicles with known imperfections -- they ALL calculate the cost of fixing that defect and decide whether or not it makes sense to do it.  Any manufacturing process is prone to produce individual pieces that are imperfect for whatever reason -- it just happens.

Here is what I got out of it. You know all the fancy phones you see ads for like the Razor or whatever? Well the company that physically makes the Razor only sells that model to a specific phone service provider (like Verizon/ATT/etc) so the phone is programmed only to work for that provider. Flashing a phone is having the programming changed so that it works for a second provider which it was not intended to be used with.

I'd guess it voids a warranty.

I had the same phone for a long time, but we switched to Virgin pay by the minute so I had to get a new one.