PicCell Wireless reviews and complaints
Overseas celphone service
My daughter studied in Italy this Summer. The trip co-ordinator insisted that each participant have a cell phone that worked in Europe, and that this service be purchased from Piccell Wireless in Seattle, Washington. That company`s only payment policy was direct withdrawl from a bank checking account; an arrangement I knew would lead to abuses. My daughter had to provide the co-ordinator with a working phone number, or be booted from the program.We complied. Upon return (August 1st), we mailed the nearly unused phone back to the supplier, as directed, terminating the contract. Since the, we have been billed for an additional month ($25), and for a number of random uses (?), totalling another few dollars. When you call the number listed on their website, you hear "please enter the phone number you wish to call". When you contact directory assistance in Seattle, no company by that name is listed under the heading "wireless providers". How can I be guaranteed that these charges will not continue, short of closing our bank account?
Country of complaint: United States
Address: 918 South Horton Street, Seattle, Washington
international rate plans
This company is just out to make money off of you. If you have a student studying abroad- they don't need a full package plan and only need wifi internet service and that's it. I was a parent of a first time traveling student and bought one of their top packages for $70/month - thinking that my daughter would need service for local calls/texts/etc and when I realized that she didn't need any of that and only needed a wifi internet service plan. I called Piccell to see if I could downgrade to a cheaper package and they said that they could not downgrade and could only upgrade packages. That would have been nice to know in the beginning and they should have suggested that when I called them numerous time trying to figure out which plan would be the best to start out with. Then at the end of my contract term, I returned the sim card on time and they tried to charge me for another month's service two months later. I called them and they said it was a late fee charge and asked me if I had tracking proof (which I did) that the sim card was returned. MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THIS TRACKING NUMBER! I think that if I did not have the tracking number, they would continue to charge me and try to get away with it. Overall I had a bad experience with them from the start. I requested that they start the plan at a specific date and they started charging me frm the date that they shipped the sim card to me. They are all about just getting money from you.
Company Business Name: Piccell Wireless
Country of complaint: United States
Website: piccellwireless.com
Undisclosed Charges
I used PicCell at the advice of my university for my 4 weeks studying abroad in Italy. I chose a plan that included a lot, such as international incoming calls and SMS, 1 GB of data, and free PicCell to PicCell calls and SMS. All of which I was charged for. What should have been maybe a $200 bill turned into an $800 bill. Do not use this company for any reason. Their billing is confusing, their customer service is the worst I have ever experienced, and they are rude. They refuse to explain anything to me with my confusion of my bill and in turn threatened to send me to a collection agency. They also have charged two of my credit cards multiple times and they keep telling me that my cards are failing when I know there is no reason they should be. They charged me without my knowledge, and I even had two charges on a card on the same day from them. They are trying to take advantage of college students and it is absolutely ridiculous.
Country of complaint: United States
We agree! Our daughter was advised by her internship provider to use this as an inexpensive way to connect from Costa Rica (something about a virtual US number). Upon her arrival there in late June 2014 I began looking into complaints online and saw many red flags, and in fact the internship company was now advising against using them. Too late for us. Our daughter stopped using it and only used it for local texts (which she had been told verbally were at no cost). Sadly, should have checked the fine print as still incurred over $200 in charges for only text messages plus 2 short phone calls to states. I just spent 60 minutes on hold to complain to them and finally gave up. Our credit card bill has been paid, unfortunately. Let me know if anyone has advice. Very very frustrating and never again!
Sorry to hear that I'm not the only one frustrated with this company! Our daughter returned from Italy on June 26th and they tried to bill us for calls made from her phone on June 28th-30th - neither she nor the phone was in Italy on these dates! Our contract ended with them on June 30th and I just received a bill from them for September! Went online to check the new charges and they CHANGED our contract date from June 30th to September 4th! No one answers their phones! I will be disputing these new charges with the credit card company (good thing I have saved all receipts/original contracts)! Terribly frustrating and annoying having to spend so much time on email and the phone trying to fix their billing mistakes!
undisclosed international calling charges
We rented a cell phone from this company for my son to take to Italy for 6 weeks. The billing system was so complicated, you could not understand it. We were over-charged many times. I was told I would receive a refund but never did. What was supposed to cost about $100 ended up costing $400 or so. It was a ridiculous ripoff. They are ripping off students and unsuspecting parents. Do not use them if anyone is going overseas.
Company Business Name: Piccell Wireless
Country of complaint: United States
Address: Texas
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
We had the same issues with my daughter studying abroad in Rome. Her school gave a flyer to all study abroad students promoting piccell. It seemed like a good deal over putting an international plan on our current service. It was NOT! Her phone worked for maybe 2 weeks and then never worked again. I contacted Piccell and was told that everything was fine and she needed to contact them if she was having problems. How is she supposed to do that when her phone isn't working? She emailed them, no response. I kept calling piccell and was told that is was a problem with her phone. It definitely was not because she could put her "american" SIM card in and her phone worked fine as well as the Piccell SIM card worked for 2 weeks and then suddenly stopped working. Of course they kept billing her even though her phone did not work. She received her Piccell phone on January 12 and was billed for a half month. Her contract went through May 6 which is when she returned to the United States and was billed for the full month of May. I called Piccell to complain about being billed for a full month and was told that my daughter signed the contract stating she would be billed for a full month. I asked to see the contract and was told that it was an electronic contract so they couldn't give it to me. Really? You can't give me a copy of the contract but you can tell me she signed one that laid out some pretty unfair billing? They can charge you for a partial month when you pick up the phone but can't charge you a partial month when you return it. And for a phone that never worked for the whole 3 1/2 months she was there? Customer Service for this company is non-existent! If you can't call them to talk to them, they can't help you! You will be told that you never contacted them to say your phone is not working! And they ignore all email you send! This is just a terrible option for anyone going out of the country. I would warn you to explore other options for a phone unless you like just opening a window and throwing your money out of it!
DO NOT EVER USE PICCELL! I AM A STUDENT IN FLORENCE! IT HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE! horrible is the only word to describe it. My pic cell phone has been the most stressful and upsetting part of my entire trip! I would never recommend this phone to anyone! save yourself money and stress, and find a different solution to a phone abroad. Worst decision of my whole trip.
We completely Agree! Our daughter is in Florence and the phone never worked correctly and dropped calls every 8 minutes. Poor customer service with the young ladies in a foreign country no less. Use your current carrier call them first. Plans offered are within the same cost range and no stress or dropped calls ever! In Italy wifi is limited at best. It's better to know that your daughter will always have a phone that works when needed! I hope more people read these reviews!
Awful company avoid using it. They have horrible customer service - i was on wait for over 30 mins and received no useful information. Their bill cycle is complicated and your over charged for everything! just avoid it - if your traveling abroad i recommend to just communicate with others through wifi-apps like whatsapp ect. Honestly just avoid the company because it is crap - i cannot continue repeating that this company is all around horrible and i wish i never invested my money. I study in paris for a month and used the phone yet somehow paid like three times! just ridiculous please save your money.
Because of the problems in billing and the very poor customer service, I filed a complaint with the State of Washington Attorney Generals' Office. The end result was that Piccell Wireless never responded to the letters from the Attorney Generals' office. Then I sent a letter, FedEx, to the Office of the President and never received a response. There seems to be a pattern here. Perhaps, contacting the State of Washington Better Business Bureau may get a response. I will never use this company again nor will any of my friends, co-workers, or future students.
My daughter just got back from study abroad in Rome. At the AUR, Piccell was there promoting their product as the cheapest way to communicate while out of the States. The plan was $50 a month and included 1GB of data. My daughter always used free WIFI provided in her apartment and free WIFI at the AUR and any other stores, restaurants where it was provided. The first 3 months were fine - bills ranged between $50 - $53 per month. December 2 charged $53 for November (apparently - since charges and bills are not available until six weeks later). Then December 12 - as she is leaving Rome to return home - $467.61 hits our credit card. We email and email and finally on December 15th they respond and said that the charges are accurate. When we go online to check the charges for November - she is being charged for 380 something over her 1GB allowance - although she had never gone over any of the previous months - also I Phone to I Phone texting is supposed to be free when using WIFI and she was charged .4GB for every single one. We contacted our credit card company and started a dispute - Piccell said they will charge us $30 every time a dispute or question is started against them regardless of the outcome of the dispute. Luckily our credit card company has placed a block against them so they will not be able to get those charges put on our card. There is no way to know if any of this is legit - my daughter says that it is not because she would never use the phone for random stuff unless the WIFI was available. They give you no forewarning that you are going or have gone over your "allowance" as typical wireless companies in the States do. They claim videos were shown and literature - but my daughter saw nothing. The only impression she was given was that this was the company approved by the Study Abroad program since they were the only company at the American University of Rome. They pressured her into buying the plan and gave her false expectations and "peace of mind" that she was doing the most economical thing for cell service while out of the US. After she got back home and we started dealing with this mess - she found out from friends that had studied abroad before her - that they had encountered similar problems - one was charged over $1200.00.
We are in the same nightmare. We didn't even have the SIM card in the phone and was billed $83.00. What a joke, we returned it in Italy and the PicCell person refused to take it saying we had to mail it back. We took a photo of school agent holding the card then left saying we would not be responsible any longer. I also blocked this on my card and filed a dispute. PicCell responded to the CC company not to me. I am still refusing to pay this bill and filed a follow up dispute requesting that the CC demand actual usage information and tower locations. They are such a SCAM.
DO not use Piccell if you can avoid it! I am studying abroad in Denmark and my bill has come up to $430 in the past 3 months I've been here. They are horrible, they can't even explain the charges and my study abroad program has done NOTHING about this although several students have complained over the past years! If I had known before signing the contract, I'd have never used them! They were at the airport on our arrival day with my study abroad welcome team and they literally made you sign the contract as soon as you got here!
I was smart and gave them a virtual credit number with our last bill. Months after the account was deactivated they tried to bill an additional amount. When I called and questioned them I was told it was a mistake. Luckily the bill was denied by my credit card company otherwise who knows how long it would of taken for the refund! Billing was horrible, we never received the phone before my son left even though I requested it days before his departure. I returned the phone with tracking and they never collected it. Lots of small charges for the time he did use the phone abroad, luckily it only totaled $56 for the four months he was in Spain. We used them because the University said it was the company we had to use. We skyped and messaged and the phone was for emergency contact for the University otherwise we would of never have signed up with them. How they manage to stay in business is because of these demands on study abroad students from the Universities.
Very frustrated with this company. Lots of red flags, no receipt available at the time of order, the layout of the plans kept changing and when I logged in to see the information the dates were incorrect, could not decipher the fees, The phone setup nicely here in the States and when my daughter arrived in the UK, it did not work! No support on the weekends, so the email reply was received two days later. Piccell claimed it was working and my daughter reviewed the setup instructions again, (even had another person verify that each step) No connections, no data plan was working. So, I tried calling only to be on hold for 25 minutes, I then emailed a message if there is no service, we do not have a contract, he phone has been powered off! No response to date and started getting service charges on my credit card, now it's in the hands of their fraud department. Terribly inconvenient and I've advised the student internship agency about this, they too have yet to comment. They should have done a better job vetting this company.
This company is awful... We have paid them $2892.38 and they turned us into a slim bag collection agency "National Service Bureau, Inc. of Bothell, WA - who is trying to collect another $415.39... I have threatened legal action if they do no send us a detailed billing... The phone was turned in on 12/10/13 (their records show this) but are still trying to bill the $415.39. AWFUL COMPANY do not use
I agree with a previous poster: Those who profess to having had a good experience with PicCell must be employees of the company. Our experience was terrible. My daughter studied abroad and hardly ever used the phone. She never used her virtual U.S. number and gave it to no one, yet we still kept getting billed for it. I did a "reverse number" check on some of those calls -- they were people in various parts of the states who were complete strangers to us. We never had a single phone conversation with her while she was abroad; we emailed and skyped. We were not billed huge sums, but what was billed was largely not valid -- I don't think they thought we would notice. When the contract was over we returned the SIM card and received an email from PicCell that her account was duly closed. A few days ago, six months after the account was closed, we received a threatening email saying they were going to send an alleged outstanding balance to collection. I logged into the account and saw dozens of calls billed after the phone had literally been turned off for the last time. I was actually with my daughter in Europe at that time and know the phone was not being used. One writer noted that they stay in business with one-time customers. That is the truth!