Problems with support

[mstinso]

I been a member since 2023. I switched to you guys under the basis of Unlimited data, no caps, and no throttling. Recently I started experiencing problems with both my service and support. When I initially signed up and switched, I asked a number of questions to a few people to ensure this was the right service I needed and wanted as the last provider was not abiding by their claims. Switching to you guys meant I had to also by a new phone. 

Recently my service has became extremely unstable. From slowdowns to complete dropouts of service. When i first got the service it was great, but lately its been getting worse and worse. 

So a month or two ago I experienced no service. I also found out I could not login to my account to try to find out what was going on assuming maybe their was a payment issue or something. I had to drive out of the area to see if I could get service. Upon doing so I was. I came back home and noticed it was horrible again, extremely slow and dropping out. So I contacted you guys. The rep was not very helpful. He could not get me into my account and said I had to wait 24 - 48 hours and he would call me back the following day and he set up a timeframe to call me. I never received a call even though I had service were I was at then. He was also not able to address my problem but said he put in a support ticket so they would check it out. Again, no response on anything. My data started improving a little as I was not having complete dropout and a little better service but still very slow. 

A few days ago, my phone started dropping internet and rebooting constantly. I couldn't find the issue. A day or two later that was not so frequent. 

Last night my phone rebooted on its own after dropping service a few times. Upon restarting I had completely lost service again. Turning it off didn't fix it, switching to airplane mode and back didn't fix it, and nothing i seem to do could get service. It said I could only make emergency calls. so again I drove to a local public wi-fi spot. This time, it would not connect anywhere I was at. Once I connected to the wi-fi, maybe a minute later I had bars again. But as soon as I disconnected from the pubic wi-fi no bars again and no service. But when I connected back I would eventually get bars. Sometimes bars were good and sometimes very little but I would get them as if I was connected to a tower. I was able to got on your site and initialize chat support but got a AI. I went as far as I could with its troubleshooting before it would sent be to a agent. My position was 97 at like 12:30 in the mourning. so I had to wait and wait. I kept tried different thing on my phone while I waited with my tablet for a agent. Eventually I was down to position 6. That's when it kicked me out for inactivity. I waited probably over a hour. I was not happy. I had to restart the whole thing all over. This time I was at 36. Sure enough at 6 spot it did the same thing at the same spot !!!! But just then I was able to connect after messing around with my phone some more. At this point I just went home. I just waisted close to around 2-2 /2 hours. In total I think I was out of service for about 3 1/2 hours. 
Today after a dropout of internet again I started researching it more. AI suggested it was the sim card as it can cause the phone to reboot on its own and cause the same problems I was experiencing. So I contacted your support after finding out how to bypass your ai. They then tried telling me "you were deprioritize by our system since you already consumed 201.25 GB on your data". How is this possible and why now? Your service is not supposed to do this. I also explained this to her. I then got the response "It was unlimited but based on your plan you will experience slow internet connection and you will deprioritize by our system once you consumed more than 50GB of data.". I then asked since when was this supposed to do this? I also explained it does not state this and nor was this was what I was told. She claimed she couldn't send me anything as it wasn't available anywhere but again refused to tell me when this came into play. I explained to her a number of times I asked very specifically about this and was assured you do not do this. I also said I was not supposed to be throttled and she tried telling me I'm not but the speed is less. I explained to her this is exactly what throttling was. We went back and forth on this. I told her I even just looked it up on the way back machine, but she kept trying to tell me to google it and see what google say's. Again i had to explain to her, google does not do that and that's exactly what the way back machine does.
Either way we got no where. Eventually she let the system time me out instead of answering my questions. She never addressed the phone restarting, and so forth. I even told her it does this not matter when during the billing cycle. All she cared about was trying to sell me a more expensive plan. I explained to her, first of all why would I pay more for a higher plan and have he same issue and second I cannot afford a higher plan I'm disabled.
I am extremely disappointed with the support team and service lately. Both have been getting much worse, and your claims of unlimited, no capping, no throttling are false. I specifically asked about these things when i made the switch, suddenly now you guys make up some new terms but cannot even point it out in any print. It seems like I have a issue with the service either it be a tower, phone or sim, and all you guys want to do is try to sell me a more expensive plan. How will that fix loosing connection or the phone cutting in and out and restarting on its own? based on what she stated I would have to believe I would have to upgrade my plan because if I hit a cap of 50Mbps, my phone will just randomly loose connection, slow down, and reboot on its own? Is this what I should inform others considering your service? My girlfriend is in the need of a new phone and service. I had her pretty much talked into this service but then these problems started happening. She refuses to switch to you guys when she's ready to get service again, and I don't blame her, especially after todays incident. I'm about ready to shop around. But i defiantly need a service that's not going to cut out after 50 Mbps.

[DeanKevin64]

Now I didn't read the whole essay you wrote but a quick read through you are on the base plan, you are being deprioritized as you already figured out. There is no 50GB cap on the base plan but Visible does reserve the right to limit data speed, or throttle, if they find you are abusing it such as using it for home internet replacement replacement, it states that in the terms and conditions. Check your speeds at 1 in the morning and see if they improve, if they do then you are just being deprioritized, if not they capped your speeds because of abuse. If it isn't being lifted on the new billing cycle you need to have your SIM provisioned and see if that fixes it. You could also try upgrading to the plus plan, then you are getting priority data but if you use an excessive amount they will likely cap it again.

Looks like you mentioned chat wait times. If you want a quicker way to get a hold of customer service send them a DM on X/Twitter or Facebook, they will send you a link to a direct chat, there is no waiting. That is the way it worked the last time I contacted them a couple months ago.

[mstinso]

Are you a support representative for Visible? And why are you suggesting I did anything wrong? Or that I should be contacting support through someone else s website or service? I explained everything, clearly you missed things just skimming through my post. Your response was not helpful. 

[VisiblyPresent]

This isn't a direct Visible support forum - just customer-to-customer help. You need to contact customer care for direct support: https://www.visible.com/help/contact-us

That being said it does sound like you may be on the older Visible+ plan which did, in fact, have a 50GB priority data cap at which point you would be deprioritized. In some areas, that does yield unusble service. You might want to consider upgrading to the new Visible+ plan which eliminates that 50GB priority data cap.

If you're on the base plan, you'd see similar instability since it's always deprioritized.

Upgrading your plan may be the only viable option which would t least put you on a par priority-wise with other users. Otherwise a switch to a new carrier may be the best choice.

[DeanKevin64]

The person replied in another topic yesterday and said they were on the "Visible" plan and said it is marked legacy. I assume he is on the base by what was said and the person just doesn't realize he is being deprioritized. As you pointed out if it was the legacy plus plan they still don't understand what deprioritized data is after 50GB of data. I had the same issue on the legacy base plan and still have that issue at times during the day on the current plus plan. My area, just like that persons area, is highly congested during the day. 

[DeanKevin64]

No, I am not a representative of Visible.

No, I didn't suggest you did anything wrong. IF you actually read what I wrote and not read between the lines, I was just pointing out Visible's policy and how to contact them about your issue instead of complaining about it here in the "help" section.

If you have issue with your signal and data the maybe try a different carrier or MVNO. 

[mstinso]

Neither one of you appear to be Visible representatives.
As I stated I did contact their customer support as I stated. And no, I was never on their Visible+. They offered two plans. Visible and Visible+ Both plans offered UNLIMITED data, talk and hotspot. The visible+ was the one that mentioned anything about slowing data, not the Visible plan I was on. It was the "Premium Network Experience" that was included in the plus where you got 50GB of premium data every month that would slow down only when the network was experiencing heavy traffic on the 5G and 4G LTE networks. And this was only temporarily. Traffic on the 5G Ultraband was not subject to this apparently. Again, that was the Plus plan, not the plan I am on. The visible plan clearly states "All the hotspot usage you can handle" "There are no data limits on your hotspot usage so feel free to stream wherever you are.". Both plans clearly state "Unlimited Mobile Hotspot". Both plans clearly state "Unlimited talk, Text, & Data". I even found a reddit post from someone asking "Does Visible Mobile have a data cap" from 2 years ago. A Visible representative named Larnie responded "There is no data cap on the $25 plan. Your traffic is de-prioritized during peak usage period versus other users of the Verizon network. The Visible+ plan gives you 50 GB/mo of premium data before you'll be de-prioritized. There are a lot of different variables that can impact speed, but for all intents and purposes, Visible provides unlimited data at your prevailing speed which can vary greatly by location.".
Again, NO DATA CAPS. This de-prioritizing is for data, not cell service. It is only during peak times when traffic is high. That's where the plus cam into play, they didn't get deprioritized until they hit a 50 GB data cap.
Where you fanboys are getting your info I do not know. Again, this de-prioritizing nonsense is only mentioned for peak traffic times. Again, these things are left vague in any detail. So i did a quick online search to see when I should expect say this high or peak traffic. The consensus is generally from 6am to 9pm local time Monday through Friday. Again, this is just a general timeframe. Some times during then you will peek very high and usually most of it not so high. But anytime outside of this you should generally to experience no issues. So basically during that time frame you may experience temporary issues with service such as reduced speed. it should not be during that whole time frame, nor should you experience every many slowdowns outside of that time frame if any. But who knows, maybe theirs a major sports game going on in your town at 10 pm and the stadiums full of people, yea, that's a time you may experience congestion outside of the normal time frame. Frankly, I'm not in a major populated area. We have a expressway near. But traffic slows down in the evening. It peaks briefly in the mourning and evening when people are going or coming home from work. Even then, people should not be doing much video streaming as they are driving and we have laws against that. So in reality, our local towers should not be very congested.
Before switching as I mentioned previously, I had multiple convos with multiple Visible Reps about the service and what I can and cannot do and expect. I explained to them the provider I was currently using, about how much data I used a month, and what I used it for to make sure this was the service for me. I even expressed my concerns about Verizon now owning Visible as I had experience with dealing with them through Walmarts Family Mobile plan that was supposed to be "Truly Unlimited". I was assured this service was different and this would not happen here, and Visible while owned by Verizon runs things. So I asked alot of question to multiple people to ensure I wasn't just getting a bad answer from say a misinformed rep. I read through the forums and I believe asked people on their as well.
Visible to this day claims "We’re not here to slow you down. No matter what plan, Visible provides unlimited talk, text, hotspot, and data in the US on Verizon’s 4G LTE and 5G". Again to this day they still claim "Get the unlimited data, messages and minutes you love without hidden fees raising your cost." and "All the hotspot usage you can handle" and "There are no data limits on your hotspot usage so feel free to stream wherever you are.". They still claim "Transparency". I signed up under the "Visible" plan and it is stil called the "Visible" plan. Still claims "Unlimited data". Why is Visble calling my plan a legacy plan I have no clue. Its still called Visible and still seems like the same plan, all they did was change pricing. Under the Visible Network/Coverage page it states "If you need assistance, feel free to reach out to the Care team through the Visible app or chat online." and "Have a question? Ask our Visible experts in Community.".
As I stated, I already contacted them on their online chat, and now i am here in their community that is supposed to have issues address by Visible Experts. Instead of a Visible rep responding I get two fan boys that wish to make assumptions and accusations and do not know the plans very well or what we are and arn't supposed to get and teling me to leave becouse I have a issue. If Visible customers coming to the Visible community where they say to go with issues are a problem for you guys, maybe you guys should be the ones asking yourself why are you here? I am here to try to get my problems resolved with my service. I don't know to many people that that just hang out at their mobile carriers help section everyday unless they themselves are having problems. Even then, genrally they would simply switch carriers.
I did not come here to be attacked and accused, I came here to get resulution from the Visible support team.

[VisiblyPresent]

Nobody's attacking you - as noted this is a customer to customer support forum. No Visible employees participate in this forum. Contact customer care as previously stated.

[chuckbrower]

Is this how you would speak to me in person? I hope not. This is why the internet should be eliminated. Anonymity degrades personalities. Get inspired to choose your words more respectfully.

[DeanKevin64]

There are no experts here in the community forums. We can only give you information from our past experience. My experience is 4 years 4 months experience using the network. I have experienced slow down during "peak times" all the way into the early AM. I am in a rural area living in a town with a population of 300 give or take and in a 4G LTE only area. I am quite far from the towers which is not good for speeds. Since the beginning of the year my speeds had gotten bad to the point I was getting <1Mbps, these speeds ran well into the evening and past midnight even. In April when the new Pro plan come out and the Plus became the mid tier I upgraded just to get 1 to 3Mbps so I had usable data during these hours on my phone. It has nothing to do with throttling that is just how bad the congestion/traffic on the towers here have gotten. 

One thing that you haven't mentioned is how much data you have consumed. Even though Visible is unlimited data, even on hotspot, there has been mention on Visible's Reddit page that 450GB will get you limited to 1.5Mbps because they consider this abuse of the network. There was also someone recently pointed out they got a notice for using 250GB and got slowed down and was told by an agent this was considered abuse. This does fall under Visible's terms and conditions that does state they have the right to limit or even terminate service if they find a person abusing the service.

This has nothing to do with me attacking you, it is just trying to point out what I usually see on Visible. As what has been pointed out already you will not see customer service here, no one from Visible will see this here or respond to your complaint. That is why we are telling you to contact Visible customer service. Maybe try Visible's Reddit page, they do monitor that subreddit but they are only going to reply and tell you to message them so they can try and fix your problem.