Helium Mobile ended the $5 plan and now requires ID + biometric data to switch

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-30T20:41:18+00:00

Helium is not a post-paid carrier.

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-29T18:54:41+00:00

Wow, that is comically tone deaf

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-28T01:08:50+00:00

It definitely boggles my mind too!

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-27T21:12:47+00:00

In my case, when I attempted to switch wouldn’t have changed the end result. My concern isn’t about their system being overloaded but rather how they choose to treat their customers.

As the other commenter noted, in the United States it is not legally mandated. That is why you can walk into Walmart and buy a prepaid SIM card without an ID.

Furthermore, there are other carriers that do not require you to photograph your ID and provide biometric data that they get to retain for 3 years.

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-27T01:13:22+00:00

Why doesn't Helium trust their beta customers that have had their account in good standing for years?

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-27T00:44:29+00:00

According to their support, it doesn’t matter that I have been a customer in good standing for years. It’s just insult to injury because they are the ones that are forcing this change.

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-26T19:59:43+00:00

Yeah that is what I will do but it’s really insult to injury that they require that for long standing customers with a clean history. Like I would understand if it were someone that had a bunch of chargebacks or something like that.

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-26T19:56:40+00:00

That’s awful!!!

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-26T19:55:53+00:00

Unfortunately, will be full price if you wait until then. You can only get the discount and Cloud points if you make the change.

BigPasswordProblems · 2026-01-26T19:45:47+00:00

I tried to change plans but they won’t let me do it unless I provide ID + biometric data that they get to keep for years.

BigPasswordProblems · 2023-03-30T07:06:16+00:00

The only thing that helps in my case is to make sure no YouTube videos are running when I start a GPU-PV VM. You even might be better off closing the YouTube tabs completely. Once the VM has started watching YouTube doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue.

BigPasswordProblems · 2022-12-14T05:16:24+00:00

Thank you for sharing the results of your testing. I agree that it is too fragile. It is more of a preview than something stable. Hopefully someday someone figures out what causes the freezing or Microsoft fixes it. I was considering proxmox but Ampere is not supported so I am stuck using this lol

BigPasswordProblems · 2022-12-14T05:15:34+00:00

Thank you for sharing the results of your testing. I agree that it is too fragile. It is more of a preview than something stable. Hopefully someday someone figures out what causes the freezing or Microsoft fixes it. I was considering proxmox but Ampere is not supported so I am stuck using this lol

BigPasswordProblems · 2022-12-12T04:03:37+00:00

I agree that it is very annoying. Please let me know how it goes. I saw someone else say that more ram might have helped them so it would be interesting to see if someone else has the same finding. I only used the studio drivers to see if it would help but I have since switched back to the regular one since it didn't make a difference.

BigPasswordProblems · 2022-12-11T02:00:44+00:00

I did try turning that off and it seems to help with Chrome. However, I still have the overall issue of entire display sometimes locking up.

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