We have a couple of missions here at Ting. One is to change the mobile industry in America (no big deal) and another is to “surprise and delight” our customers at every opportunity.

As missions go, we feel like these are pretty good ones.

We have a group of customers we call the Ting Ground Crew. This geographically scattered group of student ambassadors spread the word on Ting with fellow students. They share ideas in the Ting Ground Crew groups online, they encourage each other and talk about their experiences.

One Ting customer and Ground Crew member in particular stood out: Joe Murray.

We know paying for college is tough. We figured maybe Joe could use a bit of help.

We invited him to Ting HQ for what he thought was an interview on his experiences with the Ting Ground Crew. Little did he know, though, we had more than just an interview (and some Ting swag) in store.

Take a look.

*Or maybe you’ll totally believe what happens next. I don’t know you personally. I don’t know what you will or won’t believe. I mean, what’s unbelievable to me might seem totally reasonable to you. Just watch the video, OK?

For no real, discernible reason, we have decided to give a customer and member of the Ting Ground Crew, Joe Murray, a check for $10,000!

Joe thinks he’s flying to our head office for an interview, with no knowledge of what’s actually in store. Within the hour (around 3:00 PM EST), we’re busting into his interview and surprising him with a massive check! We’ve embedded the live stream directly below so you can watch how it all went down. We’ve also released a 2 minute edited version with all the highlights!

Thanks to Joe for being awesome and for helping spread the word about Ting.

Today’s Ask an Exec question comes from Jim and Jill on Facebook, who ask why Ting doesn’t have a device payment plan like many other carriers out there.

Scott Allan, Director of Ting, explains why device financing isn’t high on our list of priorities right now and offers a few insights and alternatives.

Read more

Are you always on-the-go and often end up using more mobile data than you’d like to? Today’s app of the week is here to help you (and your wallet) out!

Wi-Fi finder uses your phone’s GPS to display a complete listing of Wi-Fi hotspots in your area. You can sort by free or paid and instantly get directions to any zone on the map.

Wi-Fi Finder

Free

Download from Google Play

Download from the App Store

Read more

In this week’s Behind the Scenes, we chat with Brad C., Associate Product Manager at Ting!

As a Product Manager, Brad communicates with a number of departments and touches almost every aspect of Ting. Whether weekly meetings with our network partner Sprint, constantly working with our developers to bring new features to the Ting site, ordering new Ting devices or hanging with the marketing team, Brad does it all.

Find out Brad’s thoughts on why Ting is a different mobile provider, some of his major responsibilities, key projects he’s proud of and why he enjoys working here!

Read more

Have you heard about the newest ways to hail a cab? Apps that use your location to dispatch a ride are quickly gaining in popularity. With several such apps in contention for the throne, we thought we’d pick two of the most popular and get your votes for which one’s best in this week’s episode of Head to Head.

In case it’s your first time seeing this video series, here’s a refresher on how the series works:

Two comparable apps face off and it’s up to you to decide who wins! To vote, click on your favorite app at the end of the video. Voting is open for one week, after which we’ll share the results video to announce the winning app!

For this episode, we’re also giving away four pairs of Ting socks! To be eligible to win:

1. Subscribe to Ting on YouTube.
2. Pick your preferred app by clicking the appropriate annotation in the “Head to Head” video below
3. Comment on the “Thanks for voting” video telling us why it’s your favorite!

Ting was not affected by Heartbleed. Ting uses a different version of SSL than the one that was recently discovered to be vulnerable (OpenSSL).

We originally took the view that no news was good news and decided not to add our voice to the din. The thought was that affected sites should have the loudest voice as they communicate with their customers with important steps to take to protect themselves. This was the wrong approach and we apologize. We should have communicated right away that Ting customers would be unaffected by Heartbleed.

While you should change sensitive passwords regularly and always use password best practices, there is no action required for your Ting account to remain secure at this time.

Mashable has a great list of popular sites affected by Heartbleed. If you see a site you have an account with, be sure to check said site’s official communications to find out the best course of action. You can also check out heartbleed.com for all the gory details of this pervasive and potentially nasty bug.

It’s been almost a year since we unofficially launched our Personal Shopper program! To those who aren’t familiar, the Ting Personal Shoppers take the hassle out of finding a used device to use on Ting. They’ll scour the used device listings to find the perfect phone for you based on your price, model and feature requirements.

Chi, who manages Customer Service Operations here at Ting, describes the impact of the program:

“The program is a great first interaction with our great support team: People are amazed at how personal the interactions can be, as our Personal Shoppers really work with each customer to find the phone that’s right for them. The feedback that we hear most often is how quick the response time is, and how nice it was to sit back and relax while we take care of the legwork.”

Here are some of the stats from the program after one year:

What’s next? Well, the Personal Shopper program will continue to exist alongside a new, automated version we’re working on! If you’d like to utilize the Ting Personal Shoppers to find your next device, head over to Ting used devices page and click on the Personal Shopper icon.

Today’s App of the Week can save you big money on mobile data!

Onavo Extend is a free app that creates a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection on your smartphone to compress the data you download over the mobile network. This compression technology directs your data through Onavo’s server’s, significantly cutting your monthly mobile data usage. For you visual learners out there, Onavo has created a nifty image to explain how their “magical shrinking machine” works:

   Source: www.onavo.com

Keep in mind that it only compresses data that is received by your device, so any photos or videos you send will stay crisp and clear. Onavo Extend is available for Android 4.0+ and iOS 6.0+. Onavo takes privacy seriously. You can check out the Onavo privacy policy to read up on how your privacy is protected.

Onavo Extend

Free

Download from Google Play

Download from the App Store

Read more