So upsetting, I just received a USED/Refurbished phone through Cricket Insurance/Asurion after breaking mine. I got HOODWINKED into spending $75.00 on a deductible on a USED phone!!!! The phone barely costs $200.00 new, so that was a shocker, but a whole other story I'm afraid. The phone came to me with Ads/Videos that continuously play and not only scare the living daylights out of me, but suck my battery, play in the middle of meetings, and embarrass me to NO end. I called Crickey who said I should send it in and that they will then send me another refurbished phone. Is this a joke, I cannot be without a phone for a week. Oh and I have an idea - How about you simply tell me how to remove the ads. I do not have the energy or time to drive to UPS and mail my phone out and wait for another one, that will most assuredly come with ads. I have raved about Cricket to EVERYONE I know, but the past year my coverage areas are less, I cannot text within my home, and I can never seem to get in touch with anyone who genuinely cares. I don't complain, I pay automatically. I would say I am an ideal customer. But this Ad thing is making me crazy - Do you know how terrifying it is to wake up in the middle of the night to screaming adds and my phone all lit up!
Oh I know it. Some 50 calls later still CRICKETS.......guess what they are incompetent at Cricket and could care less about responding or taking care of their customers. Now I dont even receive calls and no one wants to send me a new phone! Yowza!
Oh I did PM you guys and was almost about to get help, when I received a message later saying to call Asurion. Asurion - YOUR insurance carrier said that is INCORRECT and I need to CALL you!!!!!!!!!! But NO one at your office is understanding that. Too funny. They finally today I speak to a capable person who tells me that CRICKET will send me another USED phone. Why on earth would I want another refurbished phone when the one you sent me refurbished has a virus on it! I want a NEW replacement. I paid for insurance. I pay my bills on time! I have NEVER filed a claim. Now I cannot even receive calls.
You people should do some research. Pop-up ads come from apps installed by the maker of the phone and Cricket isn't to blame. Delete the manufacturer preinstalled apps and replace with google versions.
You are 100% correct JBGoode!
The umax line of phones have preinstalled apps that not only push ads but can also install other apps without user intervention.
This is extremely dangerous as the apps that get installed are not from the Google Play store, they are downloaded from a third party app host.
There are several system apps that are the cause:
Gallery2
Sound Recorder
and (get this) the SystemFOTA app!
Yes, the Firmware over the air update app that is supposed to download firmware updates for security gets flagged by over 25 different antivirus engines on VirusTotal!
Assurance wireless is well aware of this as users on the Assurance Wireless forums that is the default start page of the installed web browser shows users telling Assurance Wireless representatives of this from over a year ago yet these devices are still being distributed to the public.
I have many homeless and disabled friends that were given these phones through the government phone program and every one I look at is infected.
I tried contacting the manufacturer but I only get a recorded message that refers me back to the people distributing these devices.
To determine which app is causing the pop-up ads you should be able to "long press" on the advertisement itself and it should show you which app is the culprit.
If anyone on this lonely community board needs assistance in removing ads or apps I will be more than happy to assist.
Thanks. I don't have that problem but was wondering why phones had pop-up ads. I've never had that problem and couldn't understand why people deal with this. Your explanation was helpful.
Wow! you're very fortunate to not have popup ads on your device.
I purchased an Alcatel phone from Cricket which I liked very much but I made the mistake of allowing the device to "upgrade" to Marshmallow.
At first everything was fine and having the new permission controls of Marshmallow wasw a godsend.
But about a month after the firmware upgrade I started getting several fullscreen popups telling me that my device had 4 viruses and that if I didn't follow the given instructions my SiM card would be damaged and I could lose data.
The fraudulent virus warning took me to some app called: "DFNDR antivirus/anti-hacking" on the Play Store.
I also noticed that several of the Alcatel's system apps had been modified during an update while I was asleep.
Now all of a sudden the factory installed launcher app, sound recorder app and file manager app were all now pushing ads.
I tried filing complaints with Cricket, Google, the apps developers and Alcatel and informed them all about how dangerous it is for system level apps to be pushing ads but every single one refused to assist in any way.
But what was much more disturbing was when I was looking at what all these apps had in common.
They all now had some SDK from Facebook injected into them and what I saw about it's capabilities made me delete ALL my social media accounts immediately and block my devices from being able to connect to social media.
Soon after this, the news about the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook fiasco broke and then several months after that the New York Times had reported the same things I had seen happening with my Alcatel device.
And then just over 2 months ago THIS came out:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/malware-found-preinstalled-on-some-alcatel-smartphones/
So yeah, I think you are very fortunate to not have ads pushed on to your device.
Uninstall Daily Pedometer. I have hated my Cricket experience for 3 months. ads all day everyday. Finally took advice from forum member and uninstalled daily pedometer and ive been ad free for 24 hours. Too bad it wasnt Cricket that offered the solution.
If you havent already figured out how to get rid of them, uninstall Daily Pedometer. After 3 months of hating my LG X charge from Cricket i can finally enjoy my phone without those horrible full screen popups. Cricket should be ashamed for not responding to this issue better. This solution worked for me.
I 100% agree! I took your advice to uninstall Daily Pedometer and after 3 months of these full screen and audio ads I am finally ad free for 24 hours. Thanks to you but not to Cricket whose response to this issue thread has been less than helpful.
Went into my local cricket store and they uninstalled "IDLE KNIFE" app and all pop-up ads (that I had been dealing with for MONTHS) finally disappeared.
I went into cricket store and she uninstalled IDLE KNIFE app and all popups FINALLY disappeared forever -- after months of trying all sorts of other things I had read on a number of forums -- as simple as that!
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