Republic Wireless Reviews 4,320

After Dish took over Republic Wireless, they "upgraded" their service and I suddenly couldn't receive phone calls and texts took roughly 24 hours to send and receive. So, basically, they were forcing all legacy customers to switch to their "upgraded" plans. I checked my phone for compatibility and thought it was compatible. When I called to upgrade, the person I spoke to never checked to verify compatibility. Turns out my phone wasn't compatible and I couldn't activate my phone on their new service. I'd been told I would receive a refund for the unused days on my old service plan when I upgraded. In addition, I was required to pay for the new service before they would send my new SIM card. When I could not activate my phone on the new service plan I was told I would get a refund for the service I couldn't use. Note that the new plan was never even activated.
So I was suddenly without a phone and had to get a new plan with a different company. I was given two different tickets numbers for each amount I was owed. That was ten days ago. I never got my money back so I called today and was told both that they credited my account - the account I no longer have with them - and that when I cancelled my account after porting my number to my new carrier the amount credited to me was FORFEITED! What?! I was specifically told to cancel the account by the person who gave me the information to port out my number. Also, the tickets I opened were never to ask for a credit to an account I was closing (which would be stupid and pointless). The tickets were asking for refunds. They owe me $66.41. I demanded to speak to a manager today when I was told they are keeping my money and was given to a supposed supervisor named Anthony who tried to get me to open yet another worthless ticket. I refused and asked to speak to someone who could give me my money back today. He put me on hold and then hung up on me. They've stolen my money and given me no service for it. I don't want a credit to buy things from them that I don't want or need. I want my money back. I'm on disability during cancer treatment right now and I really need that money to live. I am going to contact my bank and dispute the charges. I'm also going to contact the Better Business Bureau. I would recommend no one do business with this company. They are scammers and thieves.

Response to their reply: I don't use Facebook or Twitter. If you want to help, put the phone number here of the person who I can call to get my money refunded to me.

I fell for the "great service, cheaper rates and overall coverage" when I got Dish Network. My phone worked for two days. Now I have a "no service" message on my I phone, no calls, no texts, absolutely nothing. After several hours on the phone with customer service using my husband's phone, I was told to put my SIM card in another iPhone and call them back. Needless to say, problem not solved and no refund. DON'T FALL FOR THIS BS!
UNBELIEVABLE

I called Support today and the tech was able to help me reset some settings that fixed my connection issues. All's good now!

I'm primarily connected to Wifi all day. Occasionally I see the voicemail icon. When I try to check it, I receive a message on screen that no Cellular network is connected. I have 0 bars unless I restart my the phone.
I don't ever remember this happening the past 7+ years with Republic. If I make calls over wifi, why do I get this message. Going to give it a little time before I move to another provider.

I can send txt messages to T-mobile, AT&T, Verizon phone numbers. I do not receive text messages back from Verizon. Verizon phone nbr texts do not get received. THIS IS A 2 YR OLD KNOWN ISSUE - FIX IT...

My spouse & I switched from a My Choice plan to an Only What You Need plan in April. His phone worked fine; mine could make calls but not receive them, and no texting. I called Republic's service line four times, and each time was told my phone would be working again in 24-72 hours. It never did.

We switched to a new service provider and had to call Republic three or four times to get the transfer to go through; they kept giving us inaccurate information.

They said our account would automatically close after transferring, but one of our lines didn't and they charged us again, so I had to call again to get a refund and account closure.

Very tiresome experience; their customer service was great before they sold to Dish.

I wish I could leave no stars! I had been a Republic Wireless customer for years, then DISH!!!! Ported out my number in June and continued to get billed. I have called 7 times to get a refund. My latest call on September 7 the supervisor actually credited my account $46.93 help ticket 95404 because she was smart enough to see the time line of me requesting refunds. Today I call in because no activity on the help ticket and again has been denied. The customer service is terrible, they can't even follow the notes on my account to see that I requested the refund within their timeline. So sad, a great company gone.

Well another month has past and I am still waiting for my $45.32 refund from Republic Wireless (see previous review of 19 August). I have not responded to their condescending reply because I do not use either Facebook or Twitter. I have turned this over to my credit card company as a fraud case. Consumers should be aware of this company's incompetence.

Before I start, when your phone does not work a person cannot call for help. In order to call for help a person has to borrow a phone. Republic wireless does not provide any means for a person to open a help ticket online!
My problem started a few weeks ago when I lost data on my phone. I was not working so I let it go for about two weeks. Then I lost the ability to call or receive calls with my phone. I borrowed a phone and talked to tech support for almost an hour which ended with getting the help ticket numbered 959855. The person I was talking to told me to allow 24 to 48 hour for the problem to be resolved. I was surprised and pleased when my phone service came back so quickly. But then the same problem came back in a couple of days. This tells me that they can turn my phone service on and off with a flick of a switch. This company has some serious technical problems going on behind the scenes that needs to be resolved!

When the dish network took over, it went to h≪ almost instantly. I couldn't get away from them fast enough.

Agree with every one star review, none are exaggerating. Dish utterly trashed republic wireless, been here for years, so trashed in everyway you can think of. Also was on a year plan, been fighting for months and still haven't got that back. How long was I paying for broken phone hardware, and a broken service? even three months was way too long. Agree with the statement, buyers beware!!!! buy at your own risk, it's 100% a bad risk to consider giving any money to this company, BBB Where are you? Terrible company, terrible service, at least since dish bought republic out. I will never do any business with any dish product ever again!

Severely de-prioritized AT&T MVNO. I'm unable to load simple web pages. The speeds are running at 0.06 mb/sec. Customer service is just terrible. I'm not sure they even understand what cellular service is. I haven't seen a sham like this since FreedomPop. I guess that makes sense since the old FreedomPop guy is running things.

Edit: The reply to contact them on their Facebook and Twitter page is not useful, as I don't have, and do not desire a Facebook or Twitter account.

My story is identical to the many, many on this page: I was a faithful customer for years on the annual plan. Under DISH management, my phones stopped working completely, and they have FAILED to refund the rest of my annual plan after leaving. Today is after FOUR calls over two months to their "CARE" team that they keep telling everyone to call in these meaningless bot replies. Every time it's the same, the rep is nice and happy, PROMISES it's resolved and that the money will be there in 72 hours. But the money never comes. What is the police line for this kind of criminal activity? Any lawyers out there ready to take on an easy class action suit? Any news reporters or influencers out there willing to broadcast these wrongs to a wider audience? Yes, I'm venting, but I'm also genuinely trying to figure out if there is anything I can do as a customer to bring about justice in this situation. I have lost hope that any customer service at DISH will resolve this situation (so please, DISH, don't waste my time with your empty-empathy bot replies), and I am genuinely wondering what, if any, external means of justice can be pursued at this point.

I was an early adopter with Republic and stayed with them until now. I had a Annual plan that cost me $229 and that was perfect for me because I hardly use a few hundred megabytes. Virtually all my calls were on Google Fiber WiFi. I was a happy camper. Then Dish bought them out. That was the start of endless screwups and "screw the customer" service. In May 2022, I paid my $229.00 Annual Renewal and went about my business. Then at the end of August. All sorts of problems began. I had the worst possible service or no service at all. I checked my wyfi and all was well, but when I tried to place a call, nothing happened. The phone just displayed "OUT OF SERVICE AREA" and incoming calls went to voicemail. I couldn't place any calls and if I actuall had an incoming call get through, it was garbled and after a coupe of second disconnected. So I call Reputlic Wireless BY DISH as it's now known and found out that the plan I had a contract on had been dropped weeks after paying the annual fee and there was nothing they can do about because it was my WiFi. Well, the wifi was fine. another 2 hour phone call and all I heard was I need to buy a new phone but they don't refund the 8 months of service remaining but I could pay $25 for a new SIM and that should work. Well, the new SIM they sent me wasn't for my phone and was not refundable. They they said you phone is too old and I'd have to buy a new 5G phone and I have no choice because my problems were they switched everyone to 5G and if I want to use the remaining 8 months of my annual plan, I must throw my 3 year old phone in perfect condition and by a new phone because I'll be disconnected shortly.
Know that Republic Wireless isn't what it was. Now, it a totally mismanaged company with horrible customer sevice and and at the whim of DISH that has turned it into arguably the worst cell provider in the United States.
DONT WALK AWAY FROM REPUBLIC WIRELESS, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND NEVER LOOK BACK.

P.S. The hispanic customer rep was excellent and the bad service wasn't her fault. It's the fault of DISH's corporate policies for totally ruining what was a once great company that is now totally worthless. After more than a decade with them, the best I can say for Reputlic Wireless is STAY AWAY!!!

Clearly, Dish Republic Wireless doesn't read their reviews. Looks like a bot authors their useless responses. They should try testing their own lack of customer service.

I have been with republic wireless for years. Then they over charged me and would not refund my money. I left Republic wireless and went with a different company.

I have been with Republic wireless since the start and had 5 phones, now down to 4 and I was very happy with the service.

Now we come to the acquisition by dish Network and nothing is the same.

I have spoken to customer service several times but never got any answers to my questions and only scripted responses.

I then started doing more research on it and everything described in the reviews are exactly the same issues that I'm having. I was told by my boss that I need to get a different phone or find another job. These issues have become the norm with all prior users that use to be very happy.

I have been unable to use my phone as it has become unreliable when I have to reset it two or three times a day just to get notifications or calls.

The email that was sent out in March states.

"When your service has been updated, you will receive a notification in the app with a link to instructions on next steps to set up voicemail and enable wifi calling on your phone"

But that email seems to be a misleading statement and really translates to a phone replacement because the phone is not compatible with their new network.

When talking to the supervisor I asked what Republic wireless could do to give me a break on some of the phones since I was not aware of this change. She said that there was promotions in August but she could not provide any discounts now.

As a previous Republic wireless customer I am completely shocked at the way I was treated and the scripted responses that I received.

Another user states, Please do not ask me to contact you on social media as I do not have a social media account and I would prefer a direct communication.

Please let me know who I can talk to at your office to resolve this.

Al

Wow. I was a happy customer for nearly a decade; then as soon as Dish bought Republic, things started going downhill. I switched carriers in June with two and a half months left on my yearly payment plan. It has been MADNESS to get the $ back from the unused portion. First they told me it would be refunded automatically within 3 business days; then they told me it would take up to 8 weeks; THEN they told me "oh, a customer refund request was never put in" (I'd already had 2 conversations about my refund with Republic? but ok) and just now I checked my credit card and the refund they gave me was a TENTH of the proper amount. 10%!! How? Why??

Bail if you are a current customer, and if you aren't a current customer... keep it that way. Absolutely terrible.

Republic Wireless was unable to connect 2 cell phones in March 22. We cancelled the service 6 days afterward. It's August 31,2022. It's taken, at least, 16 hrs on the phone with them + my bank toget Republic Wireless to STOP WITHDRAWING $81.12 every month since then. Acct closed. Bull. Never ever give them a debit card number!

My phone's service stopped working two weeks ago. I am unable to send or receive texts or calls. Since then, I have googled and tried every single solution I can think of to restart my phone's service, to no avail. I called RW customer service and they couldn't help me, so they said they'd open a ticket for me and have some higher tech help look at it. It's been a week and I have emailed and contacted RW on Facebook messenger. They replied a couple times and since then have ignored my messages. Awful service.

Dish has turned republic wireless into a nightmare stay far far away !!!!