Cricket Wireless doesn’t offer free cell phones and service, but it does offer a substantial Lifeline Discount on your phone service in 28 states plus the nation’s capital: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, and Wisconsin.
Cricket’s Lifeline Discount doesn’t work like most plans offered by most other free government cell phone companies. That is to say, they don’t have a specific plan designated as a Lifeline plan. Instead, they say you can “step up to a higher-value rate plan, add a feature bolt-on you’ve always wanted or just enjoy the savings each month” on any plan they offer.
Depending on your state, Cricket offers discounts of $10 or $13 per month on all Lifeline Assistance plans (in Oklahoma, the discount is a surprisingly high $35 per month). Since the regular discount offered by the federal government is $9.25 per month, so we assume we should all thank Cricket Communications for adding another $.75 per month out of its own pocket. Thanks, Cricket.
Here’s how Cricket’s website describes the way its program works: “The Cricket Lifeline Credit works with your existing Cricket Wireless CDMA service. You can keep your current rate plan and continue to use your phone as usual, but you’ll get a credit off your monthly amount due. You can also change to any current Cricket Wireless CDMA rate plan if you’d like; there is no charge to make this change. New customers must choose a current Cricket Wireless CDMA rate plan.”
To qualify for the Lifeline discount, you must either participate in any one of a number of government aid programs such as Medicaid, Food Stamps, School Lunch, Energy Assistance and others, or by meeting certain low-income levels. To see the exact eligibility for your state (they all differ a bit), go to our States page and then click on your state.
Contact:
Cricket Communications
Alpharetta, GA
800-CRICKET (274-2538)
CricketWireless.com
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