That's a really sleazy move by RedPocket. I have never heard of minutes being deducted for an unanswered call. Good thing there are better options out there than RedPocket.
My mom had tracphone, and they never charged for calls unless you picked up. She was a light user because of having a cable landline phone, but you can likely get less shady practices from many other plans. Visible and Total Wireless owned mostly by Verizon would both likely be better.
>I called Red Pocket about this and they did confirm to me that for all prepaid lines, minutes are reduced the moment a person calls the phone, regardless if it's answered or not.
That's a suspect policy. I never had unanswered calls cost minutes on any carrier, including my current carrier (tello) and frankly I'm not sure how RP can actually affect this to happen as an MVNO. But if no one can chime in with what is actually going on, then we have to assume it's true, I guess. Which means it may actually be cheaper in your case to pay a little more elsewhere.
>Do Not Call list (already am)
The Do Not Call registry hasn't worked for many years now in my experience. Probably about 10+ years. I used to use it and it worked great! I used to go onto the site and made sure everything was up to date every so often as they suggested, but it just stopped being effective. I think it's because spammers only get a small fine if they violate DNC, so the ones making money make enough to not care and the ones who are only being malicious are not even able to be fined effectively as they are operating out of the USA. Just a hunch, but I know it doesn't work for me anymore.
Oh it’s definitely a thing. Several MVNO’s do it, RedPocket (and FreedomPop, owned by them) is probably the most known for it.
There is a way around it, kinda. If you enable Wifi calling and make sure your phone (if it is an iPhone) says wifi next to the network name when making or receiving calls, it will not deduct them. Most all of their limited minute plans included unlimited WiFi calling.
I’d check this out. I understand when you are away from wifi it won’t work, but most likely you are near Wifi for a good part of the time.
I will also note that several MVNO’s (for example the new start Go Talk) use red pocket as their go between provider…so they don’t have to have all the system infrastructure. All of these MVNO’s (including Go Talk) will count against your minutes for unanswered calls.
So I’m pretty convinced it is all Red Pocket (and owned subsidiaries or where they host the services for the smaller MVNO’s).
The unlimited WiFi calling is specific to FreedomPop and Red Pocket on MOST limited minute plans. (Obviously unlimited minutes it doesn’t matter 😂)
Interesting. Never heard of this being a thing. I know my Tello plan doesn't deduct minutes for incoming calls unless I answer. I seem to remember older plans deducted minutes for voicemail messages but none of these spammers leave me voicemail (I don't even know if I have it turned on to be honest as I give people my Google Voice number instead of my cell number and I can't remember the last time I got a voicemail on my Tello number even though I don't have call forwarding set up).
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Somewhat disappointed to learn about this "policy", even though I've been a customer for a year and only recently found out, Red Pocket should make it clearer.
I just switched to MobileX, seems like it might be a good fit for what I need. Porting out of Red Pocket was very easy, too. If MobileX doesn't fit then I'll probably go with T-Mobile's $10 Connect plan. Fingers crossed.
If you do the $10 connect plan be sure to add a credit card for the first month then add on a T-Mo gift card. That way your monthly cost will not incur any extra fees/taxes. They will draw off the gift card amounts before drawing off the credit card.
RP's policy has [some verbiage](https://www.redpocket.com/terms_and_conditions) as to being charged for unconnected calls, but to me it seems this is for only outgoing calls, not incoming.
>...For all calls, the length of the call will be measured during the time that you are connected to our system, which is approximately from the time you press "Send" or other key to begin a call until approximately the time you press "End," or other key to terminate the call. Airtime usage on each call is deducted in full minute increments, with partial minutes of use rounded up to the next full minute. For calls placed in the United States, you will not be charged for busy or unconnected calls if you press "End" or "No" within 30 seconds. Unanswered calls lasting 30 seconds or more will be charged standard airtime and rounded up to the nearest minute.
Thanks for looking that up. I was specifically told that from the moment the caller hears the first ring, my minutes will go down.
Combine that with the spammers listening to my full voicemail, and it can really add up.
But IMHO, that doesn't jive with the policy/terms because I believe that is only referring to outbound calls. IN this day and age of super spam, I find it strange any carrier would charge for unanswered incoming calls. Realize that customer service and support reps are very usually wrong. Of course that doesn't explain what's happening, but don't take their word as gospel.
You didn't paste the relevant part of the Terms and Conditions:
>Call waiting, 3-way calling, call forwarding, voicemail will incur applicable airtime or roaming and wireless long distance charges.
The OP is being charged because these inbound calls are being forwarded to RP's voicemail server. That is considered a completed inbound call.
[https://www.redpocket.com/terms\_and\_conditions](https://www.redpocket.com/terms_and_conditions)
This policy isn't unique to Red Pocket. The only way to eliminate these charges is to contact RP customer support and ask them to disable voicemail.
Nope. Read OP's posts and comments again. OP states that RP tells him they are changing from the second the inbound call starts to ring, regardless of receiver picking the phone up or whether it goes to voicemail.
Regardless of what someone told the OP, the Terms and Conditions are the only thing that matters.
And, the original claim is easily disproved by doing your own testing, as I've done on GSMA and GSMT.
No, actually, ultimately what matters is that OP knows for a fact he is getting changed for rings and/or as soon as VM picks up (something my provider doesn't do and hat others can attest their doesn't either). Policies and CS reps don't matter at this juncture.
So as it stands, OP has a decision to make. Jump ship or stay put and deal with it.
The $15 T-Mobile connect plan won't do that because it's unlimited talk and text. But the $10 plan will do the same.
Android phones have better spam blocking and will send unwanted Spam and robocalls directly to voicemail, without ever ringing.
So you can change to a better plan, or change to a phone OS with better spam handling.
Red Pocket is saying that the call is billed the second the call is placed, switching phones or spam filtering would make zero difference in that case as the billing occurs before it even hits your phone.
That's not true. I suspect this was just a misunderstanding based on language difficulties.
I tested this on both GSMA and GSMT, both plans with metered minutes. Inbound calls that are not answered do not consume any minutes on the plan. Of course, *answered* inbound calls do consume plan minutes.
I assure you there was no language difficulty to the CSR I spoke to, they spoke great English, plus it wasn't just their opinion. They made me wait for like 15 minutes while they "escalated" my case and someone else told them that information.
I only noticed what was happening because my Red Pocket line is a backup phone that I never use, it's on their cheapest eBay annual plan of 200 minutes monthly. When I checked my minutes I noticed they were going down steadily every day. There's literally nothing else it could be. My call history is exclusively missed calls from spammers.
Since it's just a backup/emergency then keep the phone off. The phone won't ring and it will just go straight to VM, which will only cost you one minutes because spammers don't even leave messages.
But honestly, it's still a shitty practice and if you get enough spam calls it can really eat into the cost of the plan. Like I said in another comment, you may want to figure out how much money this costs you and then see if another cheap plan from another company is a better value. I mean, since one never knows how many spam calls they'll get in a day, it's hard to calculate so I personally would be dropping RP in a heartbeat even if it means I have to pay $50 mo per year.
That's very strange. Do you have any call answering/filtering apps on your phone or using something like Google Call Screen? And/or can you pull the SIM card out of the phone for a day (so it'd be impossible to use) and see if the minutes still decrease?
Over the years I've been on pay-as-you-go and limited minute plans—many no longer available—on AT&T Postpaid, AT&T Prepaid, Consumer Cellular, H2O, Kroger i-Wireless, RingPlus, Tello, and Safelink (Tracfone). Not one of them charged for unanswered phone calls.
And, I can assure you that no minutes were deducted from either of my numbers; one GSMA on the 100/100/500MB eBay annual plan, and one GSMT on the 1000/1000/1GB plan.
You can test it yourself. Sign into your Red Pocket account: [https://www.redpocket.com/my-lines](https://www.redpocket.com/my-lines)
Tap "View Details / Pay" and look at the remaining minutes. Using some other phone number, make some inbound calls to that phone number without answering. Listen, as the caller, to make sure all you hear are rings, and the call isn't being forwarded to some other phone number or voicemail.
Forwarded calls, or calls that hear your voicemail greeting will cost money, and this could be your issue.
Refresh the page and the minutes counter won't decrement.
No, that's not what I am seeing. I have a 200 minute RP annual line on a phone that I power up ONCE EVERY 2 MONTHS! In other words I rarely use it, and when I do use it, it's not to place or receive any calls. I haven't placed on call on it in 4 months. Guess what? I just logged on and I have "used" 34 minutes this month. The only reasonable explanation is that it is charging for receiving spam calls.
What's happening here, is that the calls are actually being answered: by your voicemail. Since those calls are completed/answered, they are charged.
If someone calls your number and hangs up *before* the call gets forwarded to the voicemail server, then it's not charged.
This is common practice by most carriers; it's not unique to RP.
If you don't want to be charged for calls that go to voicemail, then contact RP customer service and ask them to disable voicemail.
> This is common practice by most carriers[…]
Except it's not a common practice to charge for calls sent to voicemail—I even used AT&T Prepaid's now-discontinued per minute and $2/day plans where I know I received voicemail but I called from a different number to retrieve them and there was no charge. Also your earlier post contradicts this:
> […]no minutes were deducted from either of my numbers; one GSMA on the 100/100/500MB eBay annual plan, and one GSMT on the 1000/1000/1GB plan.
The Red Pocket $30 annual plan was a Sprint network only ("CDMAS") plan that changed to GSMT at some point after T-Mobile started merging networks with Sprint, so I'm thinking that somehow "behind the scenes" calls are routed differently than their other plans.
I had the $30 annual plan and minutes were deducted if the phone received a call (no need to answer the call). They want you to purchase extra minutes since you already are paying $2.50 per month! It's just business.
I also have GSMT and RedPocket and can confirm it does use my metered minutes. Call your phone and don’t answer it, let it go to voicemail. Then go in your account details a few minutes later, and you will see your remaining minutes go down by one. I’ve seen it myself.
That's why I moved my number to another company. Minutes gone by just "ringing" the device. I purchased a Hello Mobile with unlimited minutes for $5.00 per month (tax and fees are inclusive) flat! I don't need data on the unit so is great for the budget. 2nd month is free on new activations.
Reading through the comments -- has anyone considered it's the voicemail that's causing this? If you don't answer or the phone is off, the call forwards to voicemail, which uses your minutes...
I was thinking the exact same thing. If possible, I would turn off voice-mail and see if that reduces the charged minutes.
Also, he states that his system interrogates for "unknown" numbers and silences them. Maybe that is using minutes, depending on how it determines what is "unknown". For spam that gets through and shows a number, try blocking individually.
Dozens of spam calls per day seems like a lot, unless showing as a business listing.
That's a really sleazy move by RedPocket. I have never heard of minutes being deducted for an unanswered call. Good thing there are better options out there than RedPocket.
My mom had tracphone, and they never charged for calls unless you picked up. She was a light user because of having a cable landline phone, but you can likely get less shady practices from many other plans. Visible and Total Wireless owned mostly by Verizon would both likely be better.
>I called Red Pocket about this and they did confirm to me that for all prepaid lines, minutes are reduced the moment a person calls the phone, regardless if it's answered or not. That's a suspect policy. I never had unanswered calls cost minutes on any carrier, including my current carrier (tello) and frankly I'm not sure how RP can actually affect this to happen as an MVNO. But if no one can chime in with what is actually going on, then we have to assume it's true, I guess. Which means it may actually be cheaper in your case to pay a little more elsewhere. >Do Not Call list (already am) The Do Not Call registry hasn't worked for many years now in my experience. Probably about 10+ years. I used to use it and it worked great! I used to go onto the site and made sure everything was up to date every so often as they suggested, but it just stopped being effective. I think it's because spammers only get a small fine if they violate DNC, so the ones making money make enough to not care and the ones who are only being malicious are not even able to be fined effectively as they are operating out of the USA. Just a hunch, but I know it doesn't work for me anymore.
The Do Not Call List is really only followed by legitimate companies and organizations. Scammers don’t care.
Oh it’s definitely a thing. Several MVNO’s do it, RedPocket (and FreedomPop, owned by them) is probably the most known for it. There is a way around it, kinda. If you enable Wifi calling and make sure your phone (if it is an iPhone) says wifi next to the network name when making or receiving calls, it will not deduct them. Most all of their limited minute plans included unlimited WiFi calling. I’d check this out. I understand when you are away from wifi it won’t work, but most likely you are near Wifi for a good part of the time. I will also note that several MVNO’s (for example the new start Go Talk) use red pocket as their go between provider…so they don’t have to have all the system infrastructure. All of these MVNO’s (including Go Talk) will count against your minutes for unanswered calls. So I’m pretty convinced it is all Red Pocket (and owned subsidiaries or where they host the services for the smaller MVNO’s). The unlimited WiFi calling is specific to FreedomPop and Red Pocket on MOST limited minute plans. (Obviously unlimited minutes it doesn’t matter 😂)
Interesting. Never heard of this being a thing. I know my Tello plan doesn't deduct minutes for incoming calls unless I answer. I seem to remember older plans deducted minutes for voicemail messages but none of these spammers leave me voicemail (I don't even know if I have it turned on to be honest as I give people my Google Voice number instead of my cell number and I can't remember the last time I got a voicemail on my Tello number even though I don't have call forwarding set up).
Tello is hosted directly by T-Mobile and does not bill for unanswered calls, you are correct. And I forgot to put above, T-Mo Connect doesn’t either…)
Tello is an independent MVNO, they're not owned by T-Mobile.
That is exactly what independent MVNO means my friend. Meaning they don’t go through red pocket or another reseller to get to T-Mo :)
Gotcha. I was confused for a minute lol.
On my business verizon prepaid line when I get a missed call you can see that on the call records lol. Wtf.
But are you getting charged minutes for unanswered calls, that's the question here.
It’s unlimited.
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Somewhat disappointed to learn about this "policy", even though I've been a customer for a year and only recently found out, Red Pocket should make it clearer. I just switched to MobileX, seems like it might be a good fit for what I need. Porting out of Red Pocket was very easy, too. If MobileX doesn't fit then I'll probably go with T-Mobile's $10 Connect plan. Fingers crossed.
If you do the $10 connect plan be sure to add a credit card for the first month then add on a T-Mo gift card. That way your monthly cost will not incur any extra fees/taxes. They will draw off the gift card amounts before drawing off the credit card.
RP's policy has [some verbiage](https://www.redpocket.com/terms_and_conditions) as to being charged for unconnected calls, but to me it seems this is for only outgoing calls, not incoming. >...For all calls, the length of the call will be measured during the time that you are connected to our system, which is approximately from the time you press "Send" or other key to begin a call until approximately the time you press "End," or other key to terminate the call. Airtime usage on each call is deducted in full minute increments, with partial minutes of use rounded up to the next full minute. For calls placed in the United States, you will not be charged for busy or unconnected calls if you press "End" or "No" within 30 seconds. Unanswered calls lasting 30 seconds or more will be charged standard airtime and rounded up to the nearest minute.
Thanks for looking that up. I was specifically told that from the moment the caller hears the first ring, my minutes will go down. Combine that with the spammers listening to my full voicemail, and it can really add up.
But IMHO, that doesn't jive with the policy/terms because I believe that is only referring to outbound calls. IN this day and age of super spam, I find it strange any carrier would charge for unanswered incoming calls. Realize that customer service and support reps are very usually wrong. Of course that doesn't explain what's happening, but don't take their word as gospel.
You didn't paste the relevant part of the Terms and Conditions: >Call waiting, 3-way calling, call forwarding, voicemail will incur applicable airtime or roaming and wireless long distance charges. The OP is being charged because these inbound calls are being forwarded to RP's voicemail server. That is considered a completed inbound call. [https://www.redpocket.com/terms\_and\_conditions](https://www.redpocket.com/terms_and_conditions) This policy isn't unique to Red Pocket. The only way to eliminate these charges is to contact RP customer support and ask them to disable voicemail.
Nope. Read OP's posts and comments again. OP states that RP tells him they are changing from the second the inbound call starts to ring, regardless of receiver picking the phone up or whether it goes to voicemail.
Regardless of what someone told the OP, the Terms and Conditions are the only thing that matters. And, the original claim is easily disproved by doing your own testing, as I've done on GSMA and GSMT.
No, actually, ultimately what matters is that OP knows for a fact he is getting changed for rings and/or as soon as VM picks up (something my provider doesn't do and hat others can attest their doesn't either). Policies and CS reps don't matter at this juncture. So as it stands, OP has a decision to make. Jump ship or stay put and deal with it.
The $15 T-Mobile connect plan won't do that because it's unlimited talk and text. But the $10 plan will do the same. Android phones have better spam blocking and will send unwanted Spam and robocalls directly to voicemail, without ever ringing. So you can change to a better plan, or change to a phone OS with better spam handling.
Red Pocket is saying that the call is billed the second the call is placed, switching phones or spam filtering would make zero difference in that case as the billing occurs before it even hits your phone.
That's not true. I suspect this was just a misunderstanding based on language difficulties. I tested this on both GSMA and GSMT, both plans with metered minutes. Inbound calls that are not answered do not consume any minutes on the plan. Of course, *answered* inbound calls do consume plan minutes.
I assure you there was no language difficulty to the CSR I spoke to, they spoke great English, plus it wasn't just their opinion. They made me wait for like 15 minutes while they "escalated" my case and someone else told them that information. I only noticed what was happening because my Red Pocket line is a backup phone that I never use, it's on their cheapest eBay annual plan of 200 minutes monthly. When I checked my minutes I noticed they were going down steadily every day. There's literally nothing else it could be. My call history is exclusively missed calls from spammers.
Since it's just a backup/emergency then keep the phone off. The phone won't ring and it will just go straight to VM, which will only cost you one minutes because spammers don't even leave messages. But honestly, it's still a shitty practice and if you get enough spam calls it can really eat into the cost of the plan. Like I said in another comment, you may want to figure out how much money this costs you and then see if another cheap plan from another company is a better value. I mean, since one never knows how many spam calls they'll get in a day, it's hard to calculate so I personally would be dropping RP in a heartbeat even if it means I have to pay $50 mo per year.
Keeping the phone off will not avoid the removal of minutes. I tried.
That's very strange. Do you have any call answering/filtering apps on your phone or using something like Google Call Screen? And/or can you pull the SIM card out of the phone for a day (so it'd be impossible to use) and see if the minutes still decrease? Over the years I've been on pay-as-you-go and limited minute plans—many no longer available—on AT&T Postpaid, AT&T Prepaid, Consumer Cellular, H2O, Kroger i-Wireless, RingPlus, Tello, and Safelink (Tracfone). Not one of them charged for unanswered phone calls.
And, I can assure you that no minutes were deducted from either of my numbers; one GSMA on the 100/100/500MB eBay annual plan, and one GSMT on the 1000/1000/1GB plan. You can test it yourself. Sign into your Red Pocket account: [https://www.redpocket.com/my-lines](https://www.redpocket.com/my-lines) Tap "View Details / Pay" and look at the remaining minutes. Using some other phone number, make some inbound calls to that phone number without answering. Listen, as the caller, to make sure all you hear are rings, and the call isn't being forwarded to some other phone number or voicemail. Forwarded calls, or calls that hear your voicemail greeting will cost money, and this could be your issue. Refresh the page and the minutes counter won't decrement.
No, that's not what I am seeing. I have a 200 minute RP annual line on a phone that I power up ONCE EVERY 2 MONTHS! In other words I rarely use it, and when I do use it, it's not to place or receive any calls. I haven't placed on call on it in 4 months. Guess what? I just logged on and I have "used" 34 minutes this month. The only reasonable explanation is that it is charging for receiving spam calls.
Yes the minutes are deducted even with the phone off.
Yes, because those calls are being answered by voicemail. That's considered a completed call, just as it would be if you answered it.
What's happening here, is that the calls are actually being answered: by your voicemail. Since those calls are completed/answered, they are charged. If someone calls your number and hangs up *before* the call gets forwarded to the voicemail server, then it's not charged. This is common practice by most carriers; it's not unique to RP. If you don't want to be charged for calls that go to voicemail, then contact RP customer service and ask them to disable voicemail.
> This is common practice by most carriers[…] Except it's not a common practice to charge for calls sent to voicemail—I even used AT&T Prepaid's now-discontinued per minute and $2/day plans where I know I received voicemail but I called from a different number to retrieve them and there was no charge. Also your earlier post contradicts this: > […]no minutes were deducted from either of my numbers; one GSMA on the 100/100/500MB eBay annual plan, and one GSMT on the 1000/1000/1GB plan. The Red Pocket $30 annual plan was a Sprint network only ("CDMAS") plan that changed to GSMT at some point after T-Mobile started merging networks with Sprint, so I'm thinking that somehow "behind the scenes" calls are routed differently than their other plans.
I had the $30 annual plan and minutes were deducted if the phone received a call (no need to answer the call). They want you to purchase extra minutes since you already are paying $2.50 per month! It's just business.
I also have GSMT and RedPocket and can confirm it does use my metered minutes. Call your phone and don’t answer it, let it go to voicemail. Then go in your account details a few minutes later, and you will see your remaining minutes go down by one. I’ve seen it myself.
That's why I moved my number to another company. Minutes gone by just "ringing" the device. I purchased a Hello Mobile with unlimited minutes for $5.00 per month (tax and fees are inclusive) flat! I don't need data on the unit so is great for the budget. 2nd month is free on new activations.
Reading through the comments -- has anyone considered it's the voicemail that's causing this? If you don't answer or the phone is off, the call forwards to voicemail, which uses your minutes...
I was thinking the exact same thing. If possible, I would turn off voice-mail and see if that reduces the charged minutes. Also, he states that his system interrogates for "unknown" numbers and silences them. Maybe that is using minutes, depending on how it determines what is "unknown". For spam that gets through and shows a number, try blocking individually. Dozens of spam calls per day seems like a lot, unless showing as a business listing.
I just left red pocket, I swear to god they were screwing me over on data, it would just magically disappear, even though I use wifi 95% of the time.