Republic Wireless Reviews 4,320

We are experiencing the same issue as everyone else. First off, it very interesting when republic replies to a bad review. It’s the same answer. The customer has to contact them. Even though republic has our phone number and email address.
We signed up for republic 11 years ago and we’re considered under their “beta” plan. Currently we have 3 phone numbers. Two are connected to 2 different businesses. Those 2 numbers can longer phone out or in. Or receive texts. The only way we can have those services returned is we upgrade to new 5. plans. Which requires a new SIM card. That takes 3 to 5 business days for the card to arrive and another 3 days for activation. Our businesses will be without phone service until July 14th.
My wife’s business needs phone service ASAP. republic says Verizon has to call republic for permission to change to Verizon. While on the phone with republic, I tried ordering a SIM card for my business. republic won’t do that until my wife has changed carriers. With it being a holiday weekend, she won’t be doing that until 7/5. So now the time for my business phone being reactivated is pushed back another day.
In the early days republic had issues but they would try to help. Last week I called for help. Was told they don’t service phones anymore just plans. Even though I bought my phone from republic.
I have had dish tv twice and both times I had to cancel the service because of poor customer service and a terrible system.
republic is cheap. You will be spending a few hours a month on the phone with them fixing issues. You have to ask yourself. The $30 -$40 you may save is that worth time wasted and the frustration you will endure talking with someone that barely speaks English?
Whenever dish puts their name on something it goes to hell. Just another corporate scam!
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION; 7/5/22 republic turned our 2 phones back on and gave us 1week to change and upgrade our plan. EXCEPT, we can no longer have 3 phones on a plan. We would need to have 2 new separate accounts. No problem! EXCEPT, to open the 2 new accounts, we need to have 2 brand new email accounts. That is beyond ridiculous!
Well done W. Erik Carlson, (dish ceo), you lost 3 phones and drove us to your competitor. If we ran our business like dish and republic, we would be no longer in business.
ESCAPE FROM republic and dish. Write as many reviews as you can. Let's put republic out of business!

Finally had it after 9 days of no service after Republic sent us useless SIM cards. This followed with 4.5 accumulated hours with useless customer svc (none of which were in the US, and really difficult to understand) convos. A nightmare of frustrations with tepid responses of putting us through the ringer with this test, these changes, etc., ending with "we're sorry, give it 3 more days", then todays "oops, you need a new SIM card, which you'll receive in 3 days, but may take up to 6 days to port" (it has already been 9 days since we've had no service). Nah. Nope. We hung up, drove to T-Mobile, were connected within 40 minutes, with equivalent plan $12 less expensive than Republic.

Do not consider Republic, and if you are with them now, get out instantly. Bad news, and this is coming from a user of many years who referred many others to them. AWFUL experience, cannot believe I endured 9 days of absolute phone-less and text-less hell with them.

Garbage service totally screwed me over after being on the service for 8 years. Dish did this, abandon now.

I was with Republic for years, through 5 or 6 phones. Service was average and inexpensive. The last 2 years I "Saved" even more until 1 Jun 2022. My service shutdown because I wouldn't upgrade my plan, even though I still had 4 plus months paid for. After hours on the phone with them, during which they somehow put another customers information on my account, they said they would refund the unused balance. This was on 6/16/22. I guess that commitment was about as good as my 1 year contract. There are lots of cheap phone service providers, I would avoid Republic!

Switched to Republic Wireless over 6 years ago. Initially it was a wonderful option to expensive plans offered by the larger companies. Worked great with no issues until a few months ago when Dish bought out the company. Since then I have experienced multiple issues with texts not being sent or received, as well as calls not going through. I realize the transition has caused glitches, however, my phone service has become iffy at best. Switched today to a main carrier. I would definitely discourage anyone from signing up with Republic wireless, unless consistency isn't an issue for you. I may go back in the future if the serious issues are corrected.

I’ve seen Republic representatives reply to the reviews on here saying to call them for support, but calling them gets you nowhere. It actually feels like they are being dishonest and not respecting my time when I call them. I certainly don’t recommend getting a plan from them.

We were latecomers to the smartphone party when signed up with Republic in late 2019. It was pretty good for the basic service we wanted, and later needed. Other than our area of our town being sort of a dead spot for voice when we left the house (something we blame on Verizon), we had no complaints with the service.

Then came Dish. We learned that to keep what we had we'd have to pay a little extra each month *even though we were on an annual plan we'd paid in full at the beginning of 2021*.

And now that we've left, they won't give us a refund. While their Terms and Conditions say annual plans aren't refundable, the tech support told us that we *could* have gotten one if we'd decided to bail in the first month.

This may be OK under their terms, but it's still a terrible way to do business. We've left for Mint Mobile and we won't be back no matter how much they come begging.

Do not switch to them! We have been with Republic wireless for well over 5 years and really liked them. Then Dish bought them out and it went down hill so fast. We upgraded to the 5.0 plan 2 months ago. It took over a month to get our basic service working right. Our voicemail still is not working. I made the mistake of paying for the whole year. I went to cancel and they refused to give a refund because it was over 30 days. I told them it took over 30 days of delays on there side to realized the service was not going to work but they don't care and kept putting me off. On the call today they said to check back in 8 weeks! Dish is not a phone provider and has proven it.

Have been a customer for over 4 years. Never had a problem until the last couple of months. Loved calls and texts over Wi-Fi. Now people on the other end often cannot hear me, calls drop, texts take awhile to send, problems with voicemail. Tried to login into the RW Community to get some answers, but cannot do so. I am looking to switch to another carrier and hope I will be able to use my current phone number.

They were excellent - for over 5 years I was with them. But then their transition to Dish was horrible. I did not receive any service. Worst of all, I could not get them to resolve my problem or provide me a pro-rated refund.

I'm with Republic since 2014 and everything was good. The purchase of Republic by Dish turned out pretty unfortunate, since all the aspects of service became significantly worse, especially technical support. One bright spot: a representative called Carla (XV3) is great! Her phone support was excellent. Therefore, 5 stars for her, one star for everything else. Staying with Republic for now, but if no improvement will consider an alternative.

*** Filed BBB complaint today August 5th after being told the refund was cancelled by a DishNetwork supervisor. I would advise anyone reading this do not waste time calling the number below that was placed here by DishNetwork and just file the BBB complaint. The DishNetwork team at the phone number they provided below just puts you on spin cycle and never plans to refund the changed contracts that no longer work. They will tell you on the phone "YES, you will receive a refund between 7 and 14 days." when you call back after 15 days they tell you: "Sorry your refund has been cancelled for waiting too long to file." THEY ARE The ONEs DELAYING YOUR REFUND.. Trust me just file the BBB complaint and DO NOT call them or trust DishNetwork at all.
»» Update August 5th, 2022: Have not received a refund as of 15 business days. I was told by a supervisor I would receive a refund within 7 to 14 business days... I guess next step is The BBB.
** Update: called customer service and they agreed to a pro rated refund after reviewing the circumstance of my cancellation. I'll update to 5 stars if the refund is received within 14 days as they stated.

Was working fine for 3 years for me then.... I was using the wifi mainly with a phone I bought from Republic Wireless under older contracts and now the phone is not compatible and the wifi won't work and I can't get a refund after cancellation for the annual plan under 4.0 I had just renewed in May. They change the contract and make my phone incompatible with their 5.0 update service and now I'm out $255 with no refund under a non working 4.0 plan. I paid them for a service that they changed and no longer provide under the contract agreed upon. I'm stuck with a phone and plan that does not work.

Beta member leaving as soon as activate new service. They changed services, but did not tell when it would go in effect. I was left without any coverage at a critical time. I cannot access my voice mail. All I get is a busy signal. I used to recommend them to everyone. Now my advice is-stay away. In the middle of our contract, they changed the terms. I’m sure they have a legal out, but, come on, Republic, how about at least giving me some of my money back?

Like most of the recent disgruntled Republic Wireless customers here, I was a happy long-time customer. I liked their phone service, and I was satisfied by their customer service. Then they were acquired by Dish, and everything seemed to start going downhill fast.

After being charged for what I was sure was a billing error in May, I attempted to get this rectified over the next six weeks through many calls to customer service. All of the customer service reps were very friendly, and seemed to genuinely want to help, but the solution to my problem was apparently beyond both their training and level of supervisory support. After six weeks of assurances that the error would be rectified, but seeing no action or communication of any kind from the billing office, I disputed the charge with my credit card company. Now it may be a coincidence, but two days later the phone line associated with the error was suspended with absolutely no warning. After another hour or so on the phone with customer service, I got the line “unsuspended”. At this point I was done with Republic Wireless, and immediately switched service to another provider.

I thought this was the end, but it was not to be. When our new provider attempted to port our phone numbers over, my wife’s number was not a problem, and was immediately ported over. My number was not, with Republic saying that I had provided the wrong account number. So back to Republic Wireless’ customer service, where I was informed that my account number had changed (very odd, since my wife’s had apparently NOT changed). I was given the “correct” account number and… back to my new provider. So they tried to port the phone number again, but still with no success. They then connected me with their porting expert who informed me that, according to Republic Wireless, it is still the wrong account number. So with me still on the line, the porting expert called the Republic Wireless porting expert and they proceeded to get into a somewhat heated discussion over why Republic Wireless didn’t seem to know what my account number is. The Republic Wireless expert then asked that the expert from my new provider get off the line so he could speak to me privately. After he did so, the Republic Wireless expert told me that they may have given me the wrong “new” account number and he has another one that I should give to my new provider. But since the expert from my new provider was no longer on the line, I needed to again go through the process of getting back to him. Luckily the “new new” account number worked.

But what about the erroneous charge that started all of this? My credit card company is still investigating. If they end up siding with Republic Wireless, I will consider it a small price pay for never having to deal with Republic Wireless again.

God awful customer service. My voicemail kept changing. I tried to change to a new $20/month plan. The 1st CS rep made it sound like it was easy to do and that I should just go online to do it. It wasn't easy and I'm glad I kept the rep on the phone. Waited for the new sim card. The packet said it was easy. IT WAS NOT. Called customer service. Customer service screwed up my account so now my phone didn't work at all. Was told that I would have to wait 5 days until I get service back. The 1st rep never even mentioned that this was a possibility. 2nd rep was dismissive, distracted, and completely unprofessional. Asked to speak with a supervisor. 2nd rep had another non-supervisor rep pretend to be one to handle my call. Fake supervisor spouted complete and utter nonsense and claimed I would have service back in 4 hours. NOPE. Called back the next day and spoke with an actual supervisor. I would not get service back for about 3-5 days. Also he's going on vacation but he'll call me back on Sunday to check in. How tf is he going to call me back if I don't have service on my phone. Gave my houseline #. No call on Sunday. After 5 days of no service I had to call back. This time the CS rep had to walk me through, step by step, typing in new settings into the phone. After my 5th hour long phone conversation it looked like I was going to have service again. Nope. I could make phone calls. Texts while not on wifi would not send. Apps wouldn't work unless I was on wifi. Absolutely pointless. 1

BUYER BEWARE! You get what you pay for. Republic Wireless used to be a great company. Now that they cashed out and DISH is in charge it's not worth the headache.

CAVEAT UTILITOR: Republic wireless by dish is a sad disappointment. I was with Alltel at the Verizon take over. That seemed nearly seamless in comparison to the DISH face-plant.
. only 2 lines per account
. new account and new email
. new sim cards, wait a while
. wait for number transfers
. marginal to horrible phone service, still waiting
. no adequate non conflictual self help material
. no adequate transitory material
. no adequate transitory personnel
. no effective assistance anywhere
. still waiting...

I'm a patient man. I'll jump through hoops and see how this works out. Maybe Dish will conduct an autonomous cranial-rectal extraction. Its a matter that I wouldn't count on and I don't think anyone has the consumer's back here. This company appears to be particularly stupid as I haven't actually read a single good review about it. Maybe my judgment is a bit off but I'd like to believe or hope for the best.

Been with the original Republic Wireless for years. While responsive human service was rare, the cost of the plan was low enough to compensate.

And then one day there was Republic Wireless by Dish!

The transition was hardly seamless. The single greatest complaint I had in the experience was the TOTAL ABSENSE of timely and qualified support. In a period of 7 days, I called their support line for assistance six times. Never reached them in less than 30 minutes of waiting. And to add insult to injury, all 5 previously contacted support folks were as helpful as a screen door on a submarine! I was given a multitude of excuses why my two lines were not functioning and their resolution that I just needed to wait 1-2days each time.

Finally, on the seventh day of no service I received a representative who not only knew what the problem was but willingly to help immediately. Within 10 minutes I had my phones working perfectly. The lady's name was Raven. I thanked her profusely for assistance. Tried to reach a supervisor to compliment Raven but, naturally, they were busy.

Conclusion: if you call and don't get Raven change phone providers.

This carrier provided the worst service I have ever experienced! Stay far from them!

Can't get refund for phone $477 said it was issued and it wasn't I called5 times supervisor 5 different supervisor. Agree refund didn't go through but still can't get a refund bunch of oh I know call customer care lol Wich i have done 5 times now it's time to call someone else

Sadly my wife and I have the new sim cards, cannot make calls, cannot text, had customer service on phone for 1 hour, their suggestion was buy new phones that are compatible with LTE,5g etc, as soon as I can find a new carrier we will be gone. Help your customers that have been loyal instead of holding us hostage with lies