Wind Mobile - Kids phone that you will have trouble taking elsewhere. | Canadian Pay As You Go Cell Phone Plans | Forum

This is a company for kids and/or those who only stay centre city or coverage area, never travel to outlying suburbs/areas/even schools within the school district, and never need a good band width or speed to bid on or access anything on the internet or job site. In our case, this out-dated band width and lack of speed repeatedly cost us jobs, employment, and income.

If you are an adult who travels anywhere, city or suburbs, who needs data, who bids on anything jobs/Ebay etc., who needs data, roaming, or even safety with your phone, this is not the company for your. This is not for grown-ups or success anywhere in business, job or employment.

Problems starting appearing very early with Wind. They cut corners everywhere they can - which means you the consumer are getting very inferior, limited service, incompatible band width, slow speed (we found 2 minute delays), and non-disclosing, duplicitous products and services. There's no 4G or LTE!!

The first thing they don't tell you is that they are on a very limited, out-dated band-width sold off by the bigger/other companies. Even if you buy an expensive android or other phone, you will have a very hard time taking it elsewhere. Your best bet is to start with a cheap phone so that when you go elsewhere - and you will! - you will be ready to up-grade. Other companies could provide service but typically won't unless you buy their phones as well as plans. Virgin initially said they would if the phone were unlocked but then would not because we were not prepared to ''upgrade'' our $200.00 HTC android for their $150.00 aHTC android! In the process we found out just how bad the Virgin service is, and how many complaints about lack of customer service and satisfaction there are. They don't even give their employees access to tech support to get your phone up and running with them - nor can you even find their tech support number anywhere. (They call it ''tier 3'' for tech support.

We finally found that Rogers would provide service for our now unlocked android - they were also the ones who sold off the band-width, and the android phone we had (HTC Maple) had been made to Roger specs meaning that it could be used with another provider. However, we are only in day 1 with Rogers - research at your own buyer beware level; currently the only thing that we can say is that they are willing to be very competitive as far as monthly plan (don't take their first offer and they will come back with something more competitive - give them a few runs at it before you accept!), and as far as map/area coverage, there is every indication that they will significantly exceed Wind and Mobilicity.

The next thing that not Wind or any company discloses is their unlock fee - or even that there is one. It was the biggest run-around we have ever encountered - between all three tech supports, it took a lot of back and forth to find an essentially simple answer - your unlock code with Wind is in your account and will cost you $10.00. Virtgin Mobile, for example, will cost you $75.00 and so on. There is also an online service that would hve unlocked our phone for $4.00 more or $13.99 - no recommendations other than that it is available and it lets you check out your IMEI # and price first (you need your IMEI # to unlock your phone - found under our battery in our android - should also be somewhere else like settings or something.)

Lobby for legislation; there has been legislation proposed in Canada to make unlock codes illegal as they are in the U.K. To date, the legislation has not passed in Canada. There is no reason to lock a phone, especially if you have bought it outright at the beginning. What it does is imposes a monopoly and makes it difficult and/or impossible for you to go elsewhere which is essentially against fair competition practices.

THE WORST THING THAT WIND DID is to double charge for a data plan without my knowledge or consent. They simply went in and starting taking $5.00 for Data simply because they could not fix their system when I could no longer access the data on the ''Irresistible Plan'' for which I was already paying. They then promised that if it were a Wind error, that they would reimburse the $30.00. They did not. So they first perform an illegal operation, they then cut my service saying that I need to top up to restore service because they shorted the account by $5.00 over several months, they then promise to refund that because of their error, specifically in a cheque which they ONLY do if it is their error, they then reneged on the verbal contract and promise, never mind making restitution for their illegal operation in double-billing the account. Insult to injury is that even the double-billing did not provide the service for which we were now being double-billed!

Our perceptions are that we lost service at the time Wind expanded into other markets, namely Europe, meaning they most likely lapsed agreements with whatever local carriers were piggy-backing their roaming and\or Wind away. They then failed to inform consumers that due to present circumstances, there would be some changes or interruptions in services and/or ''here are your new options''. As far as we are concerned, these lies of omission are the same as fraud in our belief, never mind the double-billing for services never provided or received as contracted. Every time we phoned in to have service problems rectified, the service steadily declined and quickly went from bad to worse, and finally they just double-billed us and still no service!!!!