A Positive Google Fi Experience (or two)
Good morning from EDT!
I know that subs like this one tend to be full of negative posts because overall people are happy with their experience and it's only the ones who aren't who generally post. But I thought I would throw some positivity in.
When I got my son his first phone 7 years ago, I had no clue what I was doing with Fi. i just needed something cheap and at that time, I think they only had the "pay for what you use" $25 base + $10/G after, which seemed great for where he was at that time. So I went to sign him up for it and somehow managed to screw it up on two Google accounts so I created a third account just for Fi to put him on.
Then, when my daughter needed a phone I added her to that Fi account. I didn't think much of it, until I managed to see the bill one month. Having grown up a bit and doing more online I realized that the "cheap" plan wasn't so cheap anymore. I looked and realized that they now did "unlimited" plans which was a far better deal. I moved them to that.
My wife and I remained on our legacy Verizon plan that we got back in the day when providers would give you free calls/text to people within that network, so everyone in our family was on Verizon for that reason.
Last year I realized that there was no reason for me to remain on Verizon. So I moved my own number over to the same Fi group that the kids were on. I also had an old Pixel 7 Pro lying around that I decided to put a number on for emergencies/hotspot since it ended up only being $10 more when I went from 3 -> 4 lines. Had no issues with doing any of this and the actual service has been solid. No regrets.
But, that's not where it gets complicated. I decided that I hated having my son as the Owner and I also wanted to move his number over to his primary account that I screwed up so many years back. I found out the steps which required moving everyone out of the group into an individual then adding them to the plan that I was now on. This made me incredibly nervous because I had nightmares of moving them to individual plans and being billed for them even though it was a quick move back into a group. Thankfully that didn't happen. Part one complete -- I was the owner of the plan now. No hiccups.
The hard part was moving my son's number to his primary account. I had to call Fi support for this and was very nervous about it because I didn't want something to go wrong and lose his number. It took a couple of hours to complete, but the support person was there the entire time, was knowledgeable, polite and helpful and he got it completed. Again, with no issues. I now owned the plan, had 4 lines and everyone on the right Google account.
Everything's coming up Milhouse
But wait, there's more
My family is on the Pixel 'a' series, so when the 10a released, I noticed that there was a deal for Fi customers. So I decide to upgrade the kids' phones. I start with my son's account and, I don't remember why, but I got to a point where I needed to cancel it and start over. I did, but when I came back I realized that the discount was no longer available for that account, even through I never actually used it. I went ahead and completed the purchase for my daughter with no problems, then contacted support about my son. They told me to give it 24 hours and it should be back.
It was not.
I reached out to support again. Again, the person was polite and helpful and told me to go ahead and get the phone and they would credit me the money back to give me the discount I would have gotten. Again, this made me nervous, but I figured if they didn't I could just return the phone.
The phone arrived and, as promised, they credited me the money back.
I'm incredibly happy with my decision to move to Fi. $25/line is nice with plenty of data and tethering. As someone who sits at a computer all day, being able to make calls from my computer is huge (though I used GV for that as well....). And I've found support to be helpful when I needed it.