Author Topic: Need Help with My Scratch Wireless Badassity, or Is That Dumbassity?  (Read 1772 times)

Ed Mills

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 117
  • Age: 60
  • Location: Merida, Mexico & Statenville, GA
  • Join the FI Revolution Y'all!
    • The Millionaire Educator
Greetings fellow badassers!  I learned of Scratch Wireless from Clark Howard and thought they might fit my cell phone needs.  While checking out their site, I saw that I had a "special" offer to buy their phone for $49.  A few days later I got the phone, a Coolpad Arise, and l was surprised by its capabilities.  Granted, I'm an old fart who's still impressed by running water and electricity, but for the money it seemed great.  Obviously, it's a low end smart phone, but it's the plan that caught my eye.  Here it is:  calls, texts and data are free on the wifi, texts are also free on cell towers, and there are "passes" to buy cell calls and data off the wifi.

Since I'm usually in a wifi area, I thought I might be able to use this phone as my primary phone.  WELL, guess what...the phone works great except for...?  Yeap, the wifi-enable calls!  I can surf the 'net, send texts, but I can't make a call out.  However, I did get 2 cold calls trying to sell me a debt consolidation plan.  I still think I'll keep the phone just to have another device that we can use for Memrise or Duolingo, but I'd be even happier if I could make a phone call.

Do any of your tech-savvy youngsters have any advice as to how to make this super cheap, budget phone work?  I have tried all the trouble shooting recommend by the company, but they are still far behind Republic Wireless when it comes to customer service. 

The problem seems to be:  when I try to dial out, the phone tries to route the calls via cell instead of wifi.  Next, I get a window saying that I need to buy a pass to make cellular calls.  If I click "cancel," the call is over.  If I click "OK," I'm sent to a screen to buy a "pass." 

If you have any thoughts or ideas, I'd love to hear them.  Thanks guys!   
« Last Edit: August 13, 2015, 07:10:35 PM by Ed Mills »

Daley

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4825
  • Location: Cow country. Moo.
  • Still kickin', I guess.
Re: Need Help with My Scratch Wireless Badassity, or Is That Dumbassity?
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2015, 09:15:00 PM »
Biggest bit of advice? Don't trust financial gurus who sell ad space to give you good communications advice, and remember to be willing to pay for what you actually need. Free to overly-underpriced services tend to have quality issues, especially when they're trying to do some mutant hybrid mVoIP that mostly depends on WiFi without adhering to open standards in the process.

As far as I know, you're not going to be able to take the thing to another Sprint MVNO, so it's pretty much...

...do with it what you like, but if you're looking for a reliable mobile phone solution, look elsewhere.

Ed Mills

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 117
  • Age: 60
  • Location: Merida, Mexico & Statenville, GA
  • Join the FI Revolution Y'all!
    • The Millionaire Educator
Re: Need Help with My Scratch Wireless Badassity, or Is That Dumbassity?
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2015, 04:45:37 PM »
I.P.  Thanks for the feedback and the awesome link.  I look forward to digesting it all.  As for now, I'm playing email tag with the customer service guys at Scratch.  Ed