Shopping for New Mobile Carriers While Getting Republic Wireless Runaround

I'm still getting the runaround from Republic Wireless that is telling me to cancel my service before they'll let me return the phone I bought. I tweeted at them yesterday and they promptly replied and said they would follow up. But when they did, they just said to follow the same nonsensical directions. They said the customer service rep would follow up with me with more information, but she never did.

When I finally clicked on the link using my phone, it evidently doesn't take you to the page to cancel your service anyway: just a page to create more help tickets. And it warns you not to create another help ticket if you already have one. But I filled one out anyway, since that seemed to be what they were telling me to do. Very frustrating.

This morning, I followed the link on my computer and it takes you to a different page that is where you supposedly cancel your service, but the page doesn't match the directions. There is supposed to be "green check" to confirm that isn't visible on my screen. I've sent them a screenshot.

It's particularly frustrating because it's not like I'm a non-technical person. This shouldn't be this complicated. Furthermore, I understand that a business shouldn't require a customer to do things because their business process is broken. If they needed me to affirm something to the federal government, I could understand that: they aren't able to do that. Or if they needed me to enter some particular piece of information that I have and they don't, that could make sense. But to tell me that I need to click around in their lame web software because they can't make it work any other other way, that's just broken.

While I'm getting the runaround, I'm looking at other carriers. I hate Comcast, but since I'm already a Comcast customer, the Xfinity Mobile service looks like a possibility. Unfortunately, you can't bring your own android device to their service. Still, I am in the market for a new phone… Another possibility is Google Fi. They're selling the Moto X4 for $50 cheaper than Republic Wireless. And my colleague George uses their service.

But maybe Republic Wireless can find some way to make this work without me just canceling my account and switching to another carrier. But I'm starting to lose hope.