Anyone here come across a service called FreedomPop that promise free internet access and phonecalls. Well, if you haven’t and do, tread carefully.

I read about it and disregarding the old adage that there’s no such thing as free lunch, investigated what it was all about. Apparently if buy a sim for just £6.99 as a one-off and then settle for getting ads when you surf the net on 3G and 4G on you smartphone, you get a certain amount of megabits free every month, texts and phonecalls free.

I sent off for a FreedomPop sim, which involved opening an account but - this is important - declined to ‘upgrade to premium’. The sim arrived, I stuck it in my phone, then tried to make a phone call, and the whole process, which succeeded eventually - eventually - was such crap, that I removed the sim, threw it away and cancelled my account.

Today I found that FreedomPop had withdrawn £12.46 from my bank account. Odd, I thought. In fact, I then found they had taken the same sum previously in November and the original £6.99. This was after I had specifically declined to ‘upgrade to premium’.
I’ve been in touch with my bank and told them not to give FreedomPop any more money, and been on to FreedomPop to get them to pay back my money (which they said they will).

But beware, I would hate to call these people crooks, but, well, I’m just going to have to do so.

I've had a card from them since launch day and haven't had an issue, they do have a number of add-ons that cost money, perhaps you missed an option somewhere.

Well, you were lucky. My service was shite and, no, I didn't miss an option. I'm especially careful about that kind of thing after being burned (like this) a few times.

I just ordered mine last week and still waiting for the SIM Card.

I believe it is running on Three UK's network.

I immediately downgraded my tariff to a free account. Hopefully I won't get billed for "Optional Services"

Think its completely free now.

Sorry but they certainly arent crooks, dont think you read it all correctly and got charged for stuff you didnt cancel

Service is what you would get from Three as it is an MVNO on their network. The fact you managed to get charged some sort of monthly fee when no one else has would point to you not being as careful as you think you are.

And yet agian you are not that careful it seems ?

People, why do you discard the possibility of a system error that might had occurred with that person's account? After all, FreedomPop agreed to return the money.

Even a computer mistake wouldn't lead to the conclusions the OP has jumped to, or warrant the comments made about the service as a whole.