This phone was purchased as a gift to my husband & me a few years ago. It was supposed to be for emergencies. The phone was activated, and we didn't even use all the free minutes (60) that came with the phone. I charged up the phone every six months. We are older than dirt, not tech saavy, and don't consider ourselves 'phone' people. I recently had an emergency. I ordered $25.83 worth of minutes online on 5/8/14, but the phone wouldn't work. It took them TWO WEEKS to inform me that the phone # now belonged to someone else, and I had purchased $25.83 worth of minutes for a stranger.
OK, then just refund my money please, I said. They said NO. In fact, a dozen people, including 2 supervisors at Corporate said NO. Where I grew up, that is called stealing. Even banks, as bad as they can be, won't even try to get away with that nonsense. When people deposit money, in error, to an account that is one digit off from theirs, the bank doesn't ignore you and say 'NO'. The bank goes into the other account and gets your money and returns it to you. It happened more frequenly before computers, when people filled out paper deposit slips.
Funnily enough, the customer who got the extra minutes never called customer service to find out where the minutes came from. Just your average lowlife American who figures that Tracfone made a mistake and he/she got away with something-for-nothing. In the meantime, I am out the money. It may sound like a small amount, and, believe me, I have eaten my share of sheet in life and just moved on. But this is different. It is not even in a grey area. I WILL get my money back and Tracfone will get another black mark against their name. But they don't really care, or they would have returned my money.
Tracfone isn't the best or most affordable out there. There are alot of other options. Go get an unlocked phone of YOUR choice, then shop for a SIM card, with the features you want. Most have much better pay-as-you-go prices. No one has to rely on Tracfone...they are a dinosaur. Eventually, they will say NO to you, too, and steal your money. Oh, and the phone? I tossed it into the wood chipper yesterday, after the final word from the last supervisor I spoke with, which was NO! Then I filed my claim against that lowlife company.
On Sept.20,2013 I purchased two new phones from Tracfone on their website. I used their phone finder zip code search thing and it came up with several phones that supposedly worked in my area. I chose new, Samsung S425G phones and paid $49.99 each, got free shipping, used a $10 off coupon and after tax it was a total of $95.38. Keep in mind that everything I tell you is about two of the same type of phone. One is mine and the other is my husbands.
I received the phones and was able to switch over the sim cards, minutes and time from our previous phones. I was pretty happy until out of the blue I start getting empty texts from the number 129. I went on Tracfone's support forum, which is a complete and utter joke and asked about it. Not only does one have to sign up for the forum, in order to get help they must make 5 posts before support can send them a Private Message. Finally I was able to get through and get the Private Message which is nothing more than a tinyURL link to a chat. When through their ""what's the issue"" drop downs, entered my serial number, etc. Waited 20 mintues... no one came on. Well, I didn't have time to wait just then so I put it off.
About a month later I finally got though. Got into chat and was told by the agent that they had no control over who texts me. I explained that I had done some research and learned that 129 was a t-mobile voice mail page. Telling me that there was a voice mail. Which is interesting since there was no voicemail. Not only that these 129 texts cost .5 minutes to view. Still the agent insisted that there was nothing they could do.
Next I/we started getting ""Emergency Calls Only"" on the screen when I turned the phone on. ???! I called support and was told to just turn the phone off then on and that should fix it. I did that and it worked ok for a while.
Told by Tracfone that I needed to buy another one of their cell phones, as older one died, and they would transfer my minutes & days left on it to the new one, so I made the new purchase of another cell phone . Today I had to phone on a REAL phone, (as where our home is no longer has Tracfone service), to TRACFONE for a total of 41 minutes, 1st with 1 "customer service" rep who was so rude that so I had to hung up on her, 2nd with polite one, but kept getting put on hold for 3-5 minutes at a time, as she had to confirm with some mystery people how many minutes time I had left....which I had written down before phone totally died, as 775.50 minutes. She FINALLY tells me that Tracfone will ONLY GIVE me back the base minutes of about 350, (it could of been Maybe up to about 370), as at this point my blood pressure just shot thru the roof on hearing this THEFT by TRACFONE !!!!! She said the other minutes were just FREE minutes, so didn't count !!! I explained to her that her company was STEALING MY MINUTES, as that was the type of cell phone I purchased from them, one that DOUBLED MINUTES, and NO WHERE ON THE PACKAGE DOES IT SAY THEY ARE "GIVING" ME MINUTES !!! I could of bought a TRIPLE MINUTE AGREEMENT, ore just a plain single minute AGREEMENT, BUT I BOUGHT & PAID FOR A DOUBLE MINUTE PHONE AGREEMENT !!! She would not put me in touch with a supervisor or any one who could understand consumer protection LAWS !!! I told her I would put that word out that TRACFONE suckers consumers into buying their products, but REFUSES to HONOR THEIR OWN ADVERTISEMENTS !!! Please pass this information on, as I have just read other customers having the same theft done to them on internet reviews !!!
I had purchased a tracfone for my ailing father to use in case of emergencies. I opened the account with my email, as he does not use the internet. When the year-long plan I had purchased, expired, I was prompted by email to add more time to my plan. I did so online, my credit card was charged, but my father's phone was deactivated. When I called, they insisted that I had entered the wrong number (though they could not prove this to me), that it was my ""fault"" and there was nothing they could do to help me. Even if this was the case, I should have received emal confirmation of the additional minutes, which I never did. They refused to take the charge off my card, credit my account, take minutes of the ""wrong number"" charged, or, in good faith, add minutes to my father's phone. I spoke to several people, the last was Geraldo Carballo, who was allegedly in charge. He told me the call center was in Belieze. He had no interest or investment in my case, seemed to care little about providing me with any assistance, and told me there was nothing he could do to help me. I am guessing that they do this reglularly to customers, charge but don't provide the servcie and that it is an effective form of fraud for them, because the customer has no recourse.
Tracfone Reviews
This phone was purchased as a gift to my husband & me a few years ago. It was supposed to be for emergencies. The phone was activated, and we didn't even use all the free minutes (60) that came with the phone. I charged up the phone every six months. We are older than dirt, not tech saavy, and don't consider ourselves 'phone' people. I recently had an emergency. I ordered $25.83 worth of minutes online on 5/8/14, but the phone wouldn't work. It took them TWO WEEKS to inform me that the phone # now belonged to someone else, and I had purchased $25.83 worth of minutes for a stranger.
OK, then just refund my money please, I said. They said NO. In fact, a dozen people, including 2 supervisors at Corporate said NO. Where I grew up, that is called stealing. Even banks, as bad as they can be, won't even try to get away with that nonsense. When people deposit money, in error, to an account that is one digit off from theirs, the bank doesn't ignore you and say 'NO'. The bank goes into the other account and gets your money and returns it to you. It happened more frequenly before computers, when people filled out paper deposit slips.
Funnily enough, the customer who got the extra minutes never called customer service to find out where the minutes came from. Just your average lowlife American who figures that Tracfone made a mistake and he/she got away with something-for-nothing. In the meantime, I am out the money. It may sound like a small amount, and, believe me, I have eaten my share of sheet in life and just moved on. But this is different. It is not even in a grey area. I WILL get my money back and Tracfone will get another black mark against their name. But they don't really care, or they would have returned my money.
Tracfone isn't the best or most affordable out there. There are alot of other options. Go get an unlocked phone of YOUR choice, then shop for a SIM card, with the features you want. Most have much better pay-as-you-go prices. No one has to rely on Tracfone...they are a dinosaur. Eventually, they will say NO to you, too, and steal your money. Oh, and the phone? I tossed it into the wood chipper yesterday, after the final word from the last supervisor I spoke with, which was NO! Then I filed my claim against that lowlife company.
On Sept.20,2013 I purchased two new phones from Tracfone on their website. I used their phone finder zip code search thing and it came up with several phones that supposedly worked in my area. I chose new, Samsung S425G phones and paid $49.99 each, got free shipping, used a $10 off coupon and after tax it was a total of $95.38. Keep in mind that everything I tell you is about two of the same type of phone. One is mine and the other is my husbands.
I received the phones and was able to switch over the sim cards, minutes and time from our previous phones. I was pretty happy until out of the blue I start getting empty texts from the number 129. I went on Tracfone's support forum, which is a complete and utter joke and asked about it. Not only does one have to sign up for the forum, in order to get help they must make 5 posts before support can send them a Private Message. Finally I was able to get through and get the Private Message which is nothing more than a tinyURL link to a chat. When through their ""what's the issue"" drop downs, entered my serial number, etc. Waited 20 mintues... no one came on. Well, I didn't have time to wait just then so I put it off.
About a month later I finally got though. Got into chat and was told by the agent that they had no control over who texts me. I explained that I had done some research and learned that 129 was a t-mobile voice mail page. Telling me that there was a voice mail. Which is interesting since there was no voicemail. Not only that these 129 texts cost .5 minutes to view. Still the agent insisted that there was nothing they could do.
Next I/we started getting ""Emergency Calls Only"" on the screen when I turned the phone on. ???! I called support and was told to just turn the phone off then on and that should fix it. I did that and it worked ok for a while.
Told by Tracfone that I needed to buy another one of their cell phones, as older one died, and they would transfer my minutes & days left on it to the new one, so I made the new purchase of another cell phone . Today I had to phone on a REAL phone, (as where our home is no longer has Tracfone service), to TRACFONE for a total of 41 minutes, 1st with 1 "customer service" rep who was so rude that so I had to hung up on her, 2nd with polite one, but kept getting put on hold for 3-5 minutes at a time, as she had to confirm with some mystery people how many minutes time I had left....which I had written down before phone totally died, as 775.50 minutes. She FINALLY tells me that Tracfone will ONLY GIVE me back the base minutes of about 350, (it could of been Maybe up to about 370), as at this point my blood pressure just shot thru the roof on hearing this THEFT by TRACFONE !!!!! She said the other minutes were just FREE minutes, so didn't count !!! I explained to her that her company was STEALING MY MINUTES, as that was the type of cell phone I purchased from them, one that DOUBLED MINUTES, and NO WHERE ON THE PACKAGE DOES IT SAY THEY ARE "GIVING" ME MINUTES !!! I could of bought a TRIPLE MINUTE AGREEMENT, ore just a plain single minute AGREEMENT, BUT I BOUGHT & PAID FOR A DOUBLE MINUTE PHONE AGREEMENT !!! She would not put me in touch with a supervisor or any one who could understand consumer protection LAWS !!! I told her I would put that word out that TRACFONE suckers consumers into buying their products, but REFUSES to HONOR THEIR OWN ADVERTISEMENTS !!! Please pass this information on, as I have just read other customers having the same theft done to them on internet reviews !!!
I had purchased a tracfone for my ailing father to use in case of emergencies. I opened the account with my email, as he does not use the internet. When the year-long plan I had purchased, expired, I was prompted by email to add more time to my plan. I did so online, my credit card was charged, but my father's phone was deactivated. When I called, they insisted that I had entered the wrong number (though they could not prove this to me), that it was my ""fault"" and there was nothing they could do to help me. Even if this was the case, I should have received emal confirmation of the additional minutes, which I never did. They refused to take the charge off my card, credit my account, take minutes of the ""wrong number"" charged, or, in good faith, add minutes to my father's phone. I spoke to several people, the last was Geraldo Carballo, who was allegedly in charge. He told me the call center was in Belieze. He had no interest or investment in my case, seemed to care little about providing me with any assistance, and told me there was nothing he could do to help me. I am guessing that they do this reglularly to customers, charge but don't provide the servcie and that it is an effective form of fraud for them, because the customer has no recourse.