Visible Wireless tips

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve referred a good handful of my clients over to Visible since their inception and I’ve made many observations as things changed with them during this time period.

I’m going to share these observations in hopes that they may alleviate your frustrations or help you get a problem resolved if you’re having any issues.

Visible has always had some pretty lucrative offers associated with buying a new device, or even bringing your own device. The nice part of this was that it was all automated based upon your meeting the criteria. For the most part, anyway. I did have one instance where it was painful to get the offer fulfilled, but otherwise it’s been pretty straightforward. You would choose your carrier during the ordering process, enter your account number, PIN, and ZIP code as needed for the port process. It worked pretty well, as when you went through activation your number transfer was initiated immediately. Anytime there were problems, your service was just inactive while the issues were resolved.

I had the pleasure of placing an order for someone just as they removed the ability to port your number during the ordering process. When I asked a customer service rep about this via chat, they told me, “Yes, that’s strange. I’ve had a few other people mention this as well. I would just go ahead with getting a new phone number, then get back with us when you receive the device and we can start the transfer for you. Oh, and we’ll also need documentation from your previous carrier to submit for manual processing of your rebate claim.”

When reviewing the pros and cons of their having the number transfer option during the order process, it becomes clear that they have all of the advantage by doing so.

#1) You’re much less likely to get your rebate offers fulfilled by going through the manual processing steps required, gathering bills and submitting them, etc. after the fact.

#2) You’re left on the hook paying for service when you can’t use it, if they are busy or anything goes wrong during the port. This has happened all three times that I’ve activated someone using this new process. The first time, their support was so busy that they didn’t respond to me for 3 days. I couldn’t even get into the queue for support via the website, so I had to use social media.

#3) If it turns out you can’t port your number for whatever reason, they’ll have gotten you for a month of service at least. You might be able to return the phone and get a refund for the service if you wanted to.

#4) It’s frustrating as can be to have to communicate with them via chat when they are so busy. Now they claim to have transfers set up in a “Do-it-yourself” fashion within the app.

Why the need for such shenanigans anyway? Why not just have the information in-place ahead of time, like you originally did? My guess is that they get to boost their carrier numbers by activating all of these numbers that only get used for a short period of time. Whatever the reason, it surely isn’t to make things easier for the customer.

Another irritation I’ve found is that Visible’s website refuses the majority of payment methods without any reason. American Express cards don’t work at all on their site, always an error. Other cards very often don’t work unless you go through Venmo or PayPal. But they have their PayPal connection set up such that American Express is excluded from the options within PayPal. Oh, they’ll take AmEx with no issue for service payments. But when it comes to paying for a device, that extra 0.5% is just too much for them so they make up a random error to keep people at bay.

So at the end of the day, Visible works pretty well most of the time. But here are some of my recommendations to keep headaches away:

#1: Don’t bother trying to use American Express on their site

#2: If at all possible, link your credit/debit card to PayPal and pay using PayPal. If you’ve set up a new account for this purpose, make sure you verify your email address.

#3: Be careful with your eSIM. If you accidentally delete it, you’ll likely have to chat with support to ask them to send it to you again.

#4: Verify your email address with Visible. You won’t be able to activate until you do this step. Don’t open the Visible app on your new phone until you’ve done it. If you did open it, uninstall and reinstall it.

#5: First, try chatting with Visible on their website using the chat icon in the bottom, right. If you get into the queue and see that there are 30+ people waiting, then I’d suggest you send them a Direct Message on Twitter instead. Make sure to message the correct account, @VisibleCare. Or use the links I included below.

Here’s a few direct links to send them a Twitter DM, with a template for the information they need from you. Click for either General Problems or Number Transfer

P.S. If you want to get $20.00 off your first month with Visible, you can enter this code within the Promo code box during checkout. Make sure to use the same capitalization that I’ve used:

3tvGfF

Visible’s roadmap and frustrations along the way

So, I’ve been a fan of Visible since they first started. It worked exceptionally well for the price. However, it seems that they have a very well planned roadmap that is still in progress.

The first step, we now realize, is to get the “Party” join feature to go viral, to get tons of interest in the product and the “discount” from being in a party.

After getting plenty of people hooked, they announced they were all but doing away with the party feature and at the same time they announced a new “premium” network tier that you could pay additional for. Strangely this coincided with my personally having all kinds of network issues, requiring regular network settings resets and phone restarts to fix the problems. Mind you, this is on an iPhone 13 Pro that I purchased from Visible.

So now they want people to pay a higher price to basically get what was promised from the beginning. 5G Ultra-Wideband is not necessary by any means to have a “premium” network experience. I’ve readily been able to demonstrate since having network issues, that by going through a VPN provider I would oftentimes get 10 times faster performance when downloading content. This was repeatable at various locations around the USA. My primary tests were done by downloading Audiobooks from the Audible app, and tested during peak times and off-peak times. I was well aware they would be “deprioritizing” the prepaid customers, that’s a given… However, mangling the traffic based upon the content wasn’t expected and definitely wasn’t appreciated. But, even when maintaining a VPN connection, I would lose service at regular intervals.

So, I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the “premium” network for the additional cost so I could evaluate it before deciding whether to move elsewhere. Immediately after submitting payment, my service stopped working. I luckily had a secondary eSIM active which allowed me to make calls and use data during this period, but in working with support, it took nearly 48 hours before my phone was operational again. There was no explanation given for this, and no compensation for it either. It’s the second time that my Visible service has been down for multiple days at a time.

I’m going to make another post about their “new customer” practices, particularly the number transfer aspect. Because I still refer customers to Visible, as it does work relatively well for most people the majority of the time, I’ve seen their onboarding process evolve and made some definitive observations about it over time.

If you’re interested, keep an eye out as I’ll be making this second post pretty soon after this one. If you have any experiences to share, please do make a comment as I’d like to hear it.

~Josh

Credit Freeze for recently deceased loved one

I’m writing this because a close friend of someone that I know recently deceased, and I’m going to recommend to them that they may want to take these steps to prevent any unauthorized use of the decedent’s credit.

All three credit bureaus offer a service now called a “Credit Freeze”, which means what you probably think it does. It means that if someone tries to obtain credit using that file, the lender will quickly be made aware that no new credit should be extended to the named individual. This is often important to do because it can take years in some cases for news of someone’s passing to reach some creditors.

And, if there are existing credit lines it is very important that these lines of credit are not used for new purchases, as this can have legal repercussions. Obviously, automatic payments sourced from a credit card aren’t viewed as malicious, but if you go and buy a new TV with the card then it’s likely to be scrutinized at some point.

If you have the cardholder’s personal information, you can probably call the card issuers and ask them to cancel the card. But typically, if you tell the bank that you’re not the cardholder then they are going to want you to fax them a copy of the death certificate. Additionally, they will want a document that grants you power of attorney or legal rights to this individual’s estate. How they handle outstanding balances is a little outside of what I’m writing about here, but typically this is handled during probate or settlement of a trust, if applicable.

Things can get messy if preventative steps aren’t taken, and a family member gets ahold of the decedent’s credit card. Too often, abuse of this kind isn’t realized until it’s way too late and many times becomes criminal.

Here’s what you’ll need to place a freeze on the credit file, generally:
Social Security Number.
Date of birth.
Address at time of death

With this information, you can call or use the links to visit each of the three credit bureaus in order to apply the freeze to the file:

Equifax: 800-349-9960 or click here for the Equifax credit freeze page.

Experian: 888‑397‑3742 or click here to view the page online

TransUnion: 888-909-8872 or click here to do this online

It may also be prudent, prior to placing the freeze on the files, to obtain a free copy of all three credit bureau reports. With this information, you’ll be able to see what lines of credit are outstanding/open in the person’s name. Included also will be the most recent balance, credit line total, and other information. You are entitled to a free copy of all three bureau reports annually — available by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com. Please know that you will not need a credit card for this service, and you must be very careful not to opt in to any “monitoring” services or other “add-ons”. They try very hard to get you to do this. Your best bet is to visit this website on a desktop or laptop so you can see the whole page more easily.

As a side note, the AnnualCreditReport service above does offer the reports mailed to you in Braille, large print or audio format. Here’s the information they provide for persons in that category:
For the Deaf or hard of hearing: Call 7-1-1, refer TDD Relay Operator to 1-800-821-7232
For the blind: Call 877-322-8228

This was intended to be a quick post including just the phone numbers for the credit bureaus, but I ended up typing a little more than I expected. Hopefully this is helpful to others! And if you have comments then send them my way!

Forcing users to use a specific Authenticator app?

How disappointing it is every time I see a web site that’s intended for use by otherwise intelligent adults, yet they want to force users to use a specific authenticator app. The latest one I’ve encountered is Authy on BigCommerce. I guess we aren’t intelligent enough to scan the QR code or copy the source.

Oh, and they offer the ability to enable this forceful authentication in your own store! How thoughtful.

Google Workspace ACH Payment Nightmare

Sorry for yet another rant, but I feel obliged to share these kind of experiences so others out there don’t feel alone.

Another customer of mine that I set up long ago on the “Google Apps” free edition and they must be transitioned over to a paid account. Single user, pretty straightforward — or so I thought. I recommended they use the ACH payment option, as it would remove a potential point of failure where renewals go. (As the banking details don’t expire) I knew from experience that Google supported using the account details as a payment source.

So, I log in to this customer’s computer, and open up the appropriate page, using an Incognito instance of Chrome. I go through the setup process, all of the accurate business information, etc. and then I come to the payment source.

When selecting ‘Bank account’ as a payment source, the sub-options presented are ‘Checking’, ‘Savings’, and ‘Business’. I selected Business and filled in the account and routing numbers. I was then presented with options to either provide Google with my bank login, or verify the account via test deposits. This customer was particularly old-school, so I didn’t even ask if he wanted to give Google his bank’s login details. (Yes, I know, it’s a secure third party and all that, but still…)

Selected the test deposit route, and that’s when I was presented with the message shown in the attached image. I clicked to acknowledge this message, and then clicked to Finalize the order.

Received an error message:

“An unexpected error has occurred. Please try again later. [OR-CAC-01]”.

My only option there is to dismiss the message. Attempting to re-submit the order provides a different error message:

“You cannot add this bank account as it already exists in your account. [OR-BSBBF-70]”

Clicking any additional times results in the most recent error message repeating itself.

So, I disconnect from the client’s computer and carry on from one of my own. I initially attempted the steps again on my own isolated computer and had the same result. Then I went the Google support route, thinking that surely they’ll have a dedicated, cheery team just for helping customers get payment details set up properly.

Nope. I couldn’t make up some of the stuff I encountered during my chat sessions (yes, plural) over several days.

The first representative insisted that I needed to wait for the deposits to appear. He said that he thought I just needed to enter the amounts once I saw the deposits. When I asked him where I would enter the amounts, he pasted some info from a support page that didn’t apply. Ultimately he agreed with my joking that a magical box would appear as soon as the deposits are cleared.

A few days later, after there were indeed no deposits, I opened a new chat. This guy was a real wizard. After sending him a video of the whole process, including the deposit notification, errors, etc. (just like the first rep), the second one proceeded to ask me where the deposits were coming from. (what?)

Then, he insisted I needed to verify that the account had sufficient funds to cover the deposit. And also he was reaching for reasons to let me go, asking how long I had waited after the first attempt, etc.

Ultimately, when I put him on the spot and insisted, he transferred me to the Payments team, apparently an escalation department. After all was said and done here, I performed a packet capture on my attempt and submitted it to Google. I asked them from the beginning to have all case information sent to my email, because the account I was using to chat with them was an admin-only user account, with no access to email. With 7 days remaining before suspension, I asked him to extend it so I wasn’t cutting it so close. He said they were unable to do that, and that it would definitely be resolved before that timeframe was elapsed.

So, now there are 2 days remaining, and I’ve yet to receive a single email regarding the case. Opened a new chat with Google, asking this rep to please update the case with my email address so I could receive updates. I then proceeded to modify the email routes to modify the recipient when addressed to my account’s alias.

It’s looking like I’ll be moving this customer over to Microsoft. It’s just another stark reminder of how difficult it is to get ahold of the right people at a big company such as Google. Ideally, I’d have dialed in to Google, pressed the option for the billing department. Possibly I’d have needed a supervisor, but doubtful. I’d have read the routing and account number over the phone, and they would either ask for an image of a canceled check or just bill the $5/month without it.

I have one last idea that might work, which is for me to get a prepaid credit card and use that for the initial billing setup. Then, after that’s set up, I might be able to more easily add the bank account in order to use it for billing. If that does work, I’ll update this post to let you know!

Hope that this might help someone, or save some frustration. The best advice I have would be to insist on the chat being escalated to a Billing specialist. At least you’ll be chatting with someone who doesn’t think you need to check your balance to make sure you have enough to receive a deposit. 🙂 –Josh

UPDATE: I recorded a video and made one last attempt to set up billing with ACH as the source. Still received the same error messages. No word back from Google still either. So, I set up billing by using a prepaid credit card I purchased, and immediately after doing that, I went to the Billing settings and chose to add a new payment source. Entered the bank details, and like magic, now it shows the account as pending and there is a button to click to “verify” the deposit amounts. I have a feeling Google’s onboarding process is just broken, at least for some, so if you encounter this then your best bet is to grab a prepaid card for the initial payment. Hope this saves someone some time, as I certainly wasted enough of it for a few dozen people.

(P.S. Using some new software to post this, so hopefully it’s not too out of whack!)

Evernote going downhill

Well, I’ve always been a big fan of Evernote. I’d made the move from OneNote some years back, and had been mostly happy with the result. I was somewhat forced into the move at the time because my LiveScribe smart pen would not synchronize with OneNote, and would only sync wirelessly to Evernote. So I forced myself to learn it. Have used it for many years, and been a paying customer just to do my part to support the ecosystem.

Lo and behold, about a year ago, I found myself trying to search for notes within a specific timeframe. This tends to happen when you have such an amount of notes. Let me say, I was not thrilled when I learned that I needed to “upgrade” to an even HIGHER tier than I was on already, just to be able to search in-between two dates. Really? </sigh> Then I actually had tried to upgrade to that higher tier, finally just giving in to the fact that my data was being held hostage with no easy “out” in sight. At least none that I’m aware of. I need to look further into that.

Anyhow, the latest “bonus” that I’ve gotten from Evernote is that some of my historical data was purged, likely to save a couple of kilobytes of space on whatever storage medium they’re using. I was just going back through some of my notes, converting old notes into invoiced time. I often use the “note history” function for this, as it shows me when I first created a note, and then how many times I edited it and the timestamps associated with the edits. Evernote decided I didn’t really need the time portion of those stamps, and they just went ahead and changed them all to 12:00:00 AM. No, I’m not kidding. I’m still soaking this in because it’s a HUGE blow to the data I thought was safe. I’ll include a screenshot below, while blurring out any sensitive information.

Actual timestamps discarded, then modified to 12:00:00 AM. Unbelievable.

It’s just truly unbelievable. Maybe I expect too much. But really, how much space does the timestamp really take? 5 bytes maybe? Just think twice before starting a relationship with Evernote, and certainly don’t place them at the core of what you do. You’ll be surprised down the road, and not in a good way. I could be wrong, but thus far — for me — it’s been mostly bad surprises. Not much that I’ve noticed added as far as features along the way, although they have polished the client software a little bit. It’s still very slow when you have a lot of notes, and isn’t as fast as you’d expect something with an offline database to be.

So I’ve submitted a support ticket to Evernote. Will almost assuredly be working on moving away from Evernote to an alternative over the coming few weeks, so I will share my steps taken to accomplish this.

Sorry if this post seems like overwhelming negativity…. I’m just trying to soak in the fact that this data is lost, think about what to do for mitigation and avoidance in the future. If the support team respond with something positive, or there turns out to be a way to recover the actual timestamps, then I will definitely revise this post to share that information.

P.S. A snippet from their page about their systems security states
…Evernote retains your content unless you take explicit steps to delete notes and/or notebooks. For information on how to delete notes, please see this help center article. For information on our retention policies, please refer to the section of our privacy policy, titled “Information Deletion”.

And they have posted in the past specifically on their contingency plans that were in place to ensure the longevity of their data. So I’ve always felt pretty safe keeping my data with them. In the past, anyway…

Have a great day…

–Josh

Wise — previously known as TransferWise — my experience

I wanted to briefly share my experience with a company called Wise.com. I was helping a client of mine to send some relief funds to a contact in Ukraine during this perilous time. He had tried wiring funds directly with his bank and it failed to go through. I told him that Western Union was offering free transfers to Ukraine that have been extended to the end of May, 2022.

Alas, he had problems with Western Union in the past asking many questions and ultimately not following through on other transfers, so he wanted to avoid them if possible. So, I signed up for a Wise account in my client’s name, and entered all of his personal details, the recipients details, including IBAN code, name, address and email address.

I was then presented with a page showing the various funding source options:

Since he didn’t have a debit card attached to the account he wanted to source the funds from, I suggested to him that the first option looked like a good option. When he was worried about providing them with his bank login credentials, I assured him that the third-party they were using (Plaid) was a reputable firm and it was quite standard of a practice to use such a service.

He got logged in to his bank, a large bank in the area he’s from, and after the SMS verification steps, he was presented with a confirmation window stating that Wise was requesting access to ALL of his bank accounts. There was no option to select just one of the accounts. It was all, or nothing.

So, reluctantly, we proceeded and the next page then showed the same list of accounts (albeit in a different order) and asked which one he wanted to use for sourcing this transaction. He selected the appropriate account, and proceeded to the next step. The next step indicated that the transfer may take longer than originally expected, but he could choose another option if desired. Placing hope in the original estimate, we continued anyway and submitted the final confirmation page.

The site then showed the transfer as “waiting for funds to be received” and the expected transfer date was a Friday. (It was Monday). I told him that we would just hope for the best, that they might be able to stick to their original timetable.

The next day, I opened up a chat with them and found out that they do not transmit any funds until the ACH transaction fully clears your bank and is received at their bank. When I was flabbergasted and asked which bank they used that could clear an ACH transaction in 4 hours, they would not provide any details. They just stated that the estimates provided were the “best case scenario”. I told them I felt that this was a deceptive business practice and misleading at best. If they’re going to state the transaction completion time for a credit card as “32 minutes” then they should at least say “from 4 hours to 7 days” underneath the ACH option. Misleadingly stating the “best case scenario” (which must be that you own Wise and you’re doing an account-to-account transfer) was very wrong in my opinion. When I mentioned I could have gone with Western Union for no fees and probably had a better outcome, then requesting that they provide some sort of discount to the fees, the supervisor stated that they would not provide any concession. They told me that I needed to read through all of their help documents and make sure I look at the fine print.

So much for trusting a company and taking them at their word! As they say, YMMV (your mileage may vary) but I would recommend steering clear of Wise if you have any time-sensitive funds transfers that you need to execute. If they can be misleading about this aspect of things, most certainly the other payment sources probably have many asterisks and terms attached also.

Hope this information is helpful to someone. And prayers for all of those affected by the current situation in the Ukraine.

–Josh

Think twice before giving your credit card to Readly!

Now, in all fairness, I thoroughly enjoyed Readly for a time when I was traveling more often. It is a nice service, very visually appealing on an iPad, and works very well. However, I decided several months ago that it wasn’t worth $9.99 a month to me. Not to mention that I already have Apple News which includes a plethora of magazines also.

TL; DR Use a card like a Privacy card when subscribing to Readly, so you can easily cancel.

So, after deciding to cancel I promptly opened up the mobile app on my iPad. Hmm, that’s strange. No cancellation option. No problem, I’ll just use the support email and send them an email from the email account that my Readly service is registered to. This would provide them pretty definitive evidence that I was the one making the request.

I sent my first message to them August 15th of this year, giving them the last digits of the card that was being charged, my full name, told them my account email address, and asked them to please cancel the subscription with immediate effect.

It wasn’t until around November 1, 2021, that I realized I’d not received any reply from them. So I checked my credit card statement, yep the charged me again. Super. So I sent them another email, within which I expressed my frustration that I was needing to send another email in the first place. I also told them that my first inclination was just to dispute the charge, but my credit card company suggested that I make one more attempt as a good-faith gesture.

Fast forward to today, December 2, 2021, and I’m seeing another charge on my credit card statement. I’m just over-the-moon happy when I see this! So, I promptly go to my email to find when I sent the email to them last. There was a Zendesk seemingly canned auto-reply from my prior email that I’d neglected to see because it had been filtered as a newsletter.

Don’t leave yet, the best part is yet to come! So, within this email… well– I’ll just include a screenshot of it below so I don’t misconstrue it.

Screenshot of email response from Readly — Seems innocent enough, until you actually read it.

Okay, so the first time, I sent them the following information using the process in their mobile app, while logged in to my account!

My full name
My account’s email address
The amount that I was charged
The last four digits of the credit card that was debited
Various data embedded by the app into the submission, not visible to me.

The next time, I contacted them by composing an email from the email address on my account, directly to the support email address.

So I’m about to respond to them and ask how exactly they are protecting my information from unauthorized persons by using this process. It seems more like they are protecting Readly from any subscriber loss.

Are they seriously insinuating that they have these protections in place because email account hackers might gain access to my email account, realize that I have a Readly subscription, and then try to masquerade as me in order to cancel my Readly subscription? I mean, surely, if it is on the list of malicious actions taken by email account hackers — it’s gotta be down toward the bottom of the list. And by that I mean, maybe 1 person.

The funny part is that — even IF that scenario took place, and someone tried to maliciously cancel my account, there would be Zero information provided to the malicious party! (Excepting, of course, the confirmation that service was canceled.)

I wouldn’t be writing this blog post right now, save for the fact that Readly has no presence in the United States. Otherwise, I’d be posting a complaint on the Better Business Bureau page for the company. (There is a BBB profile for a Readly, LLC, complete with someone complaining of unauthorized charges, but alas — I don’t believe it’s accurate. There are no other mentions on the Internet of Readly at this address and there is another occupant at their supposed address.)

So, I’m off to dispute these transactions!

–Josh

Switching from Cricket Wireless to Visible

Comparing Visible to Cricket

	Visible	Cricket	Cricket (Plus)
Cost (1 device)	$25 – $40**	$55	$60
Cost (5 devices)	$125 (via Party)	$125	$160
Mobile Hotspot	Yes, Unlimited data, Max 5Mbps for 1 device	No	Yes, 15 GB total
Data Speeds	5G capped at 200Mbps	8 Mbps	No limit
Data Type	5G	LTE	5G
Coverage Map	Verizon	AT&T	AT&T
Apple Watch	Yes, $5/mo	No	No
Customer Service	Online chat, social media	Online chat, social media, toll-free	Online chat, social media, toll-free

Here are the links to the coverage maps for AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Above is a general comparison between the two carriers. I think that Visible is the better choice currently.

When signing up for new service, you’ll find there are many good promotions in place for switching over to Visible. Even Verizon Wireless customers can take advantage of these promotions.

You can complete the signup using your mobile device or the Visible website. If using your mobile device then I’d suggest downloading the Visible app first. Download on Google Play or Apple App Store.

But, when you are going through the signup process, be SURE that you enter in this promotion code and you will receive your first month of service for only $5.00: 3tvGfF. The capitalization must be exact. And if you miss it during signup, there’s no way for them to correct it later. You can also try to use this link if you are signing up using your computer, but I’ve found that it doesn’t copy the promo code properly when using the link on your phone. Just enter it into the Promo code field to be sure during checkout!

If the promotion code has been applied properly, then you will see a summary that looks similar to this, with your first month being listed as $5.00:

My experience with Visible has been okay thus far, with excellent data speeds and coverage. As with all carriers, there are some areas that are better than others in terms of coverage.

**Regarding the “Party Pay” feature that Visible has to allow you to bring your monthly cost down: This is a unique offering where members are joined as a “Party” but they are not financially connected at all. So each member pays their own bill, but by being a member of a group with 4 or more members, you receive the maximum discount that brings your service down to $25 per month. If you don’t have friends or family that you can join with, then you can always join in this public Party Pay group from a Reddit group.

The great offers that Visible has currently is on the iPhone 13 phone line as well as the iPhone 12. They are currently offering a $200.00 gift card when purchasing any of the iPhone 12/13 models. Additionally, you will receive a free Apple HomePod smart speaker when purchasing one of these phones.

If you can’t afford a new iPhone, then there are plenty of other offers to take advantage of. Just bringing your own device will get you a $100.00 gift card! And Visible is also eSIM capable so you may be able to use your own device without waiting for a SIM card in the mail! I’d recommend going with the physical SIM card, however, because the eSIM process is a little tricky at times.

Last, but not least: Make 100% sure that your device is Carrier Unlocked. You can check this on an iPhone by going to Settings > General > About, then look for the lock status as shown in the image below. Unfortunately, on an Android device, generally speaking the only way to check and see if the phone is locked is to insert a SIM from another carrier.

If it is locked, then you have two options:
1) If you purchased the device from Cricket originally, then you should be able to get it unlocked quick and easy with these instructions. Be sure to do this BEFORE you sign up for Visible!

2) If you purchased the device elsewhere, all carriers have different policies. Generally speaking, as long as the device is paid off and isn’t flagged as being lost or stolen, then you shouldn’t have trouble getting it unlocked. But if you don’t do this ahead of time, when you insert the Visible SIM into your phone — it will let you know that it’s not a valid SIM and it won’t function until the phone is unlocked. Unlock commands are passed down from Apple’s secure activation servers.
Verizon: Auto-unlocks 60 days after activation
Sprint: You can request unlock via website if account is active, must call in otherwise.
T-Mobile: You must contact T-Mobile (Sprint) to request an unlock
AT&T: You can request an unlock via this online form. They are pretty quick to respond.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
Other Carriers: If you bought your phone via another MVNO such as Straight Talk, Walmart Family Mobile, etc. then you’ll likely need to contact them directly. Apple won’t be able to help you and will just direct you to the carrier. As a last resort, you can use an online company such as sim-unlock.net where they have reasonably priced unlock services for almost all carriers and phones.

–Josh

Finding Ubiquiti UniFi hardware on eBay

Popular Ubiquiti switches have been difficult to come by because of stock issues direct from the manufacturer. Typically it’s best to buy from the manufacturer if possible, but if you’re in a pinch and need the hardware for an implementation then I’ve included a few links for custom eBay searches that filter things down to what you want to see (for the most part).

48-Port PoE UniFi Switches

24-Port PoE UniFi Switches