Republic Wireless Reviews 4,320

After I wrote this review, I was contacted by Republic representatives. They solved the problem their back office was having about reimbursing me and I received the refund right away. Thank you. And, you can see a review on this website gets action. ---
I was a Republic Wireless customer for quite a few years. I paid annually for the discount. I can't get a refund from them on unused time that was paid for. Thumbs DOWN on this one.

I am honestly heartbroken about what has happened to RW. I have been a customer well over a decade. I can't access voicemail without calling RW and speaking with an oncall agent. This is beyond ridiculous.

Sometimes I receive texts and sometimes I don't. My Samsung S10e is just over 3 years old -- my 2nd phone through RW. I run out of data. I lose connectivity or cannot even connect.

This was the best low-maintenance service I've ever had until DISH took over. While I have no proof or facts I can only speculate RW was going broke so that DISH bought them out only to use RW as a tax write-off loss.

My heart is honestly broken. This inconvenience is great. I will be forced to in the very near futre go with a mainstram reliable carrier and different phone.

I found RW through the online magazine Wired. I guess all good things come to an end. I thought I would have RW forever. I will miss RW more than I can ever express.

TO ANY RW-DiSH REP WHO RESPONDS: Please do not suggest I contact you through Twitter or Facebook as I have no account in either social media platform. Please do not feign excitement when greeting me in your reply or act as if you care about losing my business -- this only adds insult to injury for me. I know I am only words in a review to you, but the original RW meant so much to me.

Warning: service is poor, and they are unable to help you activate phones. Since purchase from DISH, service and quality is BUYER BEWARE. Avoid at all costs.

Was a good company until they got bought by DISH. Just tried to switch to their newest plans in order to add a line. Now none of my phones work. Emailed tech support, and got an automated response asking me to call.

Used to be one of the best, but since they were purchased by dish, it has gone down the toilet. There organization and plan rules are decades behind what they used to be. Avoid at all cost,

My husband has been a Republic Wireless customer for many years with very few complaints. However, since the switch to Dish, he has been having problems accessing voicemail and has had to call and speak with a Dish/RW rep several times, always ending up speaking to a supervisor (some of whom are able to correct the problem, some who provide a work-around). I'm now researching other cell phone company plans and we will be switching. Too bad, we liked RW.

I am a Legacy Republic Wireless Customer for over 8 years. In those 8 years I had a total of 3 issues that were all resolved in a short period of time (one issue was resolved by replacing my MOTO e phone at NO COST)

Since DISH Networks has taken over I have had no service and I have received conflicting reports on the compatibility of my Moto e with their new 5g NON SERVICE. When I finally agreed to purchase the "compatible" phone for $50 I was told that offer is no longer valid.
Such a shame that this company has degraded so fast in such little time.

Had Republic for years without problems. They went 5G and I had to get a new phone. Got the one they suggested with my same plan--- they don't tell you the phone now uses mobile data even when you're connected to your wi-fi. When I complained they lied and said they'd give me my data back-- they didn't. 2 hours and 4 people on the phone to figure out the problem and the another hour with samsung!

I cancelled my service with republic wireless (now Dish) due to unreliable service and increased price. I was promised a pro rated refund of my annual payment one month after the cancellation. I called after a month and a few days because there was no refund. They said it will be processed. After a week, no refund so I called again. I called 5 times about the refund and spoke to a manager on the last call. He promised a refund and the exact amount of the refund but I received $30 less than what I was told. It seems they charged me for the two months after I cancelled because I was on the $15/mo plan. It's been very difficult to deal with them and seems like the system is so broken that even a manager is unable to get the job done correctly.

Prior to dish the service was excellent. I have had to put in a complaint with the BBB and am getting ready to file another one. The problems are too numerous to even list. I am switching asap. I would NEVER do business with them again. By far the worst service provider i ever experienced in my life.

Was better service & pricing before dirty dish bought them out. Switched to Mint far better service and saving half my prior cost still with no contract!

Poor service since the takeover by Dish. I'm looking into switching.

Update: Switched to Mint last week. So far, all good.

I have two phones I use for business with Republic. Reception is sketchy at best. Have to go outside for good reception. 4 days ago my voice mail suddenly disappeared from my phones. Cant get voice mails now. Never had these issues with Republic in 5 years. Now that Dish has bought them out, its awful. They dont seem to care. Customer service agents are difficult to understand as English is not their first language.

Like so many others, I have had a RW acct for many years and since DISH bought them, my service is sporadic, at best. If I am ever in the midst of an active shooter, I'll l be lucky if I can call or text anyone. I gotta get out of this account and switch companies but I'm afraid I'll lose all contacts and messages I have saved, including ones from my brother who died last year. Has anyone been able to successfully switch?

Got hosed. Perfectly good phone I liked stopped working after Dish switch. They said it will never work again on their system and I needed to buy a new phone and get more expensive plan. Repubic had been getting more and more buggy anyway. Bye-bye Republic. I'm with Consumer Cellular now. What a difference! Stuff actually works now! And it's cheaper too. Maybe they'll learn from the mass exodus but I doubt it.

We had Republic for almost 10 years. Around April 2022 we noticed we stopped receiving text messages and our calls started dropping. We found out with the purchase by DISH that they shut off service for one of our phones because it was older and that in a few days our second phone would go through the same changes. We were told we also had to update our service which also came with selecting one of the new plans. We had paid for the full year of service back in January to save money through the year. This was April and we were seeing so many issues that were a direct cause of DISH. We decided to drop Republic and were told we would be refunded for the unused months we had already paid for. 2 weeks later we called to find out where the refund was and were told we could not receive a refund because our phones had not been properly removed from the service. It doesn't end there. We finally worked with our new carried (they had properly canceled our service) and sent the cancellation confirmation to republic. Again they said we should receive the refund in conjunction with the next billing cycle. We gave it a month and still no refund. We called again and were told our plan was not eligible for a refund. After fighting for over an hour and jumping between person to person we finally got a supervisor and they approved the refund. We were told it would be in our bank within the next 2 weeks. 4 Weeks later no refund. We call again and they say the refund was sent and received by our bank. We called our bank and they checked back through all of their records and beyond and couldn't find the refund. Called republic back and were told the refund had processed and they were not liable for the money and hung up. We will never recommend anyone use republic and further will never recommend DISH because of how horrible our short experience has been. Again we LOVED Republic until April and had used them for our service for almost 10 years. DISH ruined them! We have no hope that we will get our refund or that they will take responsibility.

Called Customer Service as encouraged to do. I don't know what Lizette thinks was going to happen by asking me to do that BUT....I was told that the partnership with DISH effected just about everyone's service and isn't planning on letting some items being fixed. For instance, visual voicemail is not allowed to be fixed, no plans on letting us call Canada again, etc. Was told by DISH/Republic's own Customer Service that services will be systematically changed as they are driving everyone to leave their "grandfathered in plans for one of the new, more expensive ones". Lizette - how is this supposed to fix our customer relation fiasco?

My voicemail stopped working since Republic Wireless partnered with Dish. I get a busy signal when I try to access my voicenail. People trying to leave me voice mails also get a busy signal. I have tried to trouble on their website but could get my voicemail to work. I called their customer support twice. I was on the phone for a long time both times, and each person gave me different instructions and neither fixed the problem. The second time the person told I should upgrade my plan to one of their newer plans for my voicemail to work.

Also, I found out that I was not getting some text messages. One of my contacts mentioned she sent me a couple of messages that I could see. So I don't know how many text messages I have been missing since Dish came about. :(

I am shopping around for another company.

Very disappointed with the recent changes. I used to recommend Republicans to friends. Now I'm looking for another provider. I can't even access my voice-mail and texts when out of data. I called in about the issues, and was told this is due to the new changes. I'm sad because I had a great 15 years with them.

I, too, am a Republic Wireless customer of over 10 years. With no notice (email or text) from RW by DISH, my phones just stopped functioning yesterday...no texts, no phone calls, suddenly NOT REGISTERED ON NETWORK! Really. This happened almost 2 weeks into my current monthly cycle. When I contacted the DISH rep, I was told my phone was no longer supported for the 5G technology that they were going to. Nice thing to have done to a couple of retired folks. Good thing we still have a landline at home. We ended up ordering new phones and new plans. While our order was confirmed, we have yet to receive a tracking id for the shipment of our new phones and the associated items. With things being what they are in the CHIP world, we wonder how long it will be before we will again have a working phone?
As to figuring up the billing amounts, I found that looking in RW by Dish's Help area, you can check how will I be billed when I change from a my choice 4.0 or lower plan to a 5.0 plan. This explains how much you used on your original bill and the amount you start out owing on your new phone once it is activated. It says that you will not get a refund, but a credit to your next bill, if I am reading it right, so make sure to check your full statements for the next one-two months. I assume that the plan going forward is the same as RW, a monthly one that does not require a contractual period. I could not see a contract that I needed to sign before ordering new phones, so I assume it is monthly and basically, other than the new plan with its parameters, the same as what I had with RW before.