My feedback letter to FreedomPop

The FreedomPop website has a note that says this is all in open Beta, and they want feedback. So here is what I wrote to them:

Hello,

The positive feedback is that I like how small the Overdrive Pro device is. Fits in my pocket nicely. I like that it's a USB connection so I can use the car charger for my phone and keep it powered when I'm in the car. And I like that I can tether it to my laptop via USB. I bought it to use over WiFi with my phone, but this is a nice bonus for PC use. I also like that it has a switch to mute the speaker. The beeps are helpful at times, but it's nice to be able to silence them. And I also think it's cool that the device monitors battery temperature when charging so it doesn't overcook the battery.

My negative feedback is that you supposedly "activate" it when I place the order, so that 3 GB offer for the first month is misleading because I only have 2 week to use all of that. Granted I didn't pay for it, but it's not as good of a deal as it was purported to be because I really only get 2 weeks for free. And then even though it is supposedly activated, the 3G does not work right away. This is annoying because in my home, I only get the 4G signal from one corner of my house. Once I updated the PRL and profile, the 3G works great, but I'm wondering why you can't do that at the factory so it works right out of the box. I don't feel like this was truly "activated" until I did it myself, and I don't think the free month should have begun until after I did so.

Also the lack of communication on the backorder was pretty lame. It would have been nice to have been advised that it would take two weeks to ship. I did not expect to receive it the next day, but since the meter was already running on my first month, this was all pretty disappointing, and the lack of a known ship date made it worse. I think you probably received a lot more orders than you anticipated, and probably were overwhelmed, but I suggest improving communication with your future customers so they know when to expect it.

Overall, I think I like the service. It's only been a few days but it appears to be working effectively. I am being hypercritical because I work in customer service myself, and you asked for the feedback. I think in the future I will recommend this to friends who want to unplug from their cell phone carrier, but I still need to use if for a while and make sure I'm confident in it before I start making recommendations.

Kind regards,

John J. Koenig

Update 5/23, FreedomPop wrote back to say that they are going to give me another 1 GB extra for free next month. So that's pretty cool of them.