I know a lot of people were asking about any individual's experiences with places like 4GComm, and I wanted to write a quick post about mine.
I ordered their services hoping to save my parents money. At the time, Sprint's website was buggy and not allowing me to see a good map of my parents' address (where we are trying to get internet currently), but we could kind of see we were within 4GLTE range according to Sprint's map.
We emailed them to verify they see this, and they agreed. We ordered everything, and they sent it out to us. We went to a sprint store for assistance setting everything up, and went home--and... No service. At all. touch-and-go on the best day, but for 3-4 days we tried to go back and forth and realized Sprint just REALLY over-estimates their coverage areas (seems to be all companies do.. Looking at you Verizon.. but I digress..) and Sprint was nowhere NEAR our small town. We needed to go 30 min down the road for a signal. Despite Sprint's claims, a drive around town and into the 4gLTE map did not produce signal enough to browse the web, and certainly nothing 4gLTE quality.
While we thought of a signal booster, we figured even that wouldn't work with how far we had to drive to get a real signal. If we were right on the cusp of service this may have worked for us.
We contacted 4gComm and told them about our experience. We only had 7 days to decide if we needed a refund, which I find the window to be too narrow in all honesty. Tried to call, but got no response. Sent an email. They had included a refund slip in the package, and we followed the directions to a T (though, I think it's unnecessary to certify a package that already has a tracking number.. but still..) and when we got email response the next day we sent the package off.
I'm not gonna lie, after sending it off, I read this clause about a restocking fee of 10-15% or something like that (I forget which number) and I got a bit angry. 10% of 400$ is nothing to sneeze at. They assured me that this is a clause for people who return the packages in a wreck with pieces and parts missing and stuff, and not a guaranteed charge on every account. Still, the fact they don't clarify if it's 10% of the device itself or 10% of the entire order made me nervous.
It took a LOT longer than I expected to get the refund. Somewhere around 15-20 days in total. We sent the package, verified it was received, and heard nothing back from the company. It took me emailing them again to get a response. It was almost like someone just forgot about us because the refund was processed and posted in my email the same day I emailed them asking wtf was up. The refund just posted today in the bank, in the full amount I paid.
I believe they are a legitimate company, but they are slow to respond and you do need to be a bit of a squeaky wheel. If you can get sprint reception, chances are you have cheaper internet options in your area because you're near a bigger city, but if you're in the narrow group of people with sprint service yet horrible internet choices, this could be an option for you. Ask around and see if your friends get good reception on a sprint network. Better yet, borrow someone's old sprint/unlocked phone and just buy a pre-paid month on sprint's network and see if it works in your area and how well. This will give you a cheaper/better idea of testing your area without having to go through the whole ordering a $400 service + only having 7 days to play with it scenario.
Anyways, this was my experience, I hope it helps anyone looking at this option. We're currently trying (thanks to a redditor's suggestion) to set up something with Car Connect on AT&T. I'll write a post on that when it all comes together for that too.
July 21, 2017 at 02:11PM
