Door To Door Free Cell Phone
Today is February 15th, 2024 but this happened yesterday February 14th, 2024. I am more embarrassed by this story than anything… though I don’t know that it was a scam… but there is a possibility that it was. I couldn’t find anything online about free phones given out door to door online, so I wanted to write my story down.
Two people came to the door, both about “just out of high school” or “Junior college” age… one male and the other female. I believe the girl’s name was Ahad (Spelling?) and the boy was named… Steven I think.. After the girl said her name all I remember is that the guy’s name was fairly plain. They also weren’t in any official clothes… just unassuming street clothes… but they had badges on. They also spoke English just fine.
Anyway, they handed me a box from outside, which I did accept and saw that it was a new phone. I was flabbergasted and didn’t understand and then they asked if I had any services like Medicare… or social security… or something like that… those government programs that give you a card to use… and they said they needed to see that and my ID.
For some reason, I got that and didn’t call them out on it… but they seemed to answer my questions… I kept saying I’ve never heard of people just going door to door and she said they just want to get the word out about the service.
They set up the phone for me using my ID and then gave my ID and Medicare card back… it may be Medi-Cal… I don’t really know the difference… and I don’t think it matters. While they were setting up my new phone, they did ask for the last four digits of my Social Security Number which probably should have set off alarms in my head but as it was only the last four numbers… I didn’t think it was a bad thing. Most of the time, the last four digits are just to confirm.
And when they were done, they left me with a new phone… and yeah, it’s not a great phone (It’s called a Cloud) or anything but it’s set up with this TruConnect service which shows me as having unlimited free talk and text minutes. There is Data but it’s limited… although you can top it up… and it replenishes monthly I believe. And yes, the phone came with it’s own phone number.
So they went away and really I don’t know what to think. I didn’t really need a phone and I should have just said ‘No’. I didn’t though, so now I’m unsure of what will happen. Mostly, I want to believe it wasn’t a scam and everything was on the level… but I’ve never heard of it.
I searched online and mostly got no relevant results… the only notable result that keeps popping up is TruConnect which leads me to believe that the phone and service I got are legitimate.
But going to the website doesn’t actually say they come to your door and ask you to sign up.
They might… And hopefully they do… and so far I haven’t noticed any anomalies… but it’s only been a day. So I’ll keep an eye out and update this information if anything happens.
I encourage anyone reading this to add things as well… not so much the whole ‘IT’S A SCAM!’ thing. I mean, if it is and you know it is then tell about your experience and why you know it’s a scam… if you don’t have any evidence, it’s just unhelpful.
Through my nearly 40 years (As of now) on this planet, I have never known anyone to just come to your door and give you anything for free and they did get information off of me but the fact is, I didn’t feel any malcontent. Plus the phone was sealed and they activated and gave me the whole box, which does include instructions, a screen protector and a charger… so it was enough for me to think it was legitimate.
To be honest, I’m not sure if that matters. In the past few hours I’ve been thinking it might’ve been better to just say “No”. Maybe it would have eased my mind knowing that I definitely wasn’t scammed.
I guess only time will tell if it was a good or bad thing to do!