Anyone else here ever go thru Tracfone hell? I am now.

[elocs]

I've been a Tracfone customer for maybe 10 years without a problem. Since my minutes were due to expire on 7/11 and my phone was going on 4 years old I thought it would be a good opportunity to buy a new one. So I ordered one from Tracfone and it arrive last Thursday. I transferred my number and minutes (865) from my old phone and they said it would take 72 hours. I took a trip to Chicago for the 4th and so I was without a cell phone for emergency purposes.

On Monday, now 4 days from the transfer, my new phone was still not working right. I call Tracfone, Tracfone calls me, still not working. Finally today Tracfone calls to say that my new phone will not work within my house, that I would have to go outside to get bars. No way that is going to work. So the long and the short of it is that I try to get them to transfer everything back to my old phone. My old minutes had never showed up on the new one, but they were gone from the old one, so they were simply in limbo somewhere.

After a number of calls, being placed on hold, having to enter numerous codes and being disconnected twice I finally had my old phone working again with my 365 minutes, except I was given a new temporary number which nobody knows but me. For all of this inconvenience what did Tracfone give me? A measly 10 minutes and my minutes still expire on 7/11.

Needless to say I will spend the minimum amount to keep my phone active until I can use all of the minutes. Then it is bye-bye Tracfone. For prepaid wireless they are no longer the only game in town.

[rcrush]

1. I've heard nothing but bad things about prepaid wireless companies

I know some people that worked for Criket and they talk about how shitty a company it is. And everyone else I ever met who had a prepaid phone said the service was horrible and the company was horrible to deal with.

[elocs]

2. I've never really had a problem in 10 years until now. Customer service is not good.

The CSRs' first language is not English, so you do have to deal with an accent as well as all the background noise when talking with them. Try hearing and successfully entering a long series of numbers and it does get frustrating.

I broke one of my primary rules: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." My old phone was working well so I should have simply added minutes to it and stuck with it. The trouble is that I use my cell phone so infrequently that a prepaid phone was my best solution.

[JonLP24]

10. Miles better then AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc.

I pay $35 and I get unlimited local and long distance in the US as well as unlimited texts. Plus if I get an affordable plan with the subject line listed companies I sometimes go over and rack up bills easily over $100 and have to deal with a freakin' contract.

I'm very happy with Cricket, no contracts, I can go use up as much minutes as I want without worry about $150 bills.

I honestly can't think of a phone company that is better, reception is good and whenever I do call the company my problem is solved. I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't want a landline.

[Kadessa]

13. Tracfone is great for adults and kids

I have had many Tracfones and no problems worth mentioning. I have just bought new Tracfones for both my kids to make sure I can stay in touch this summer while they are at camp and I had no problems in setting them up. I bought the Motorola W376 that comes with DMFL and a camera, FM radio, web access and blue tooth. They also have games like Suduko and Tetras built in which I think are good for math and co-ordination. Anyway, I got them on promotion for $49.99 each which means that I only really paid something like $6 per phone considering what the DMFL costs.

[Kadessa]

14. Tracfone is great for adults and kids

I should have said that I got the phones on promotion for $29 something each, which come with DMFL already installed. Sorry, my bad.

[hobbit709]

3. Never had a problem withTracfone

on both of our phones. We've upgraded both over the years and everything transferred just fine. My wife even replaced one that was stolen without a glitch.

[elocs]

8. Evidently you need to get the right rep to get adequate compensation.

I have a friend who had a lot of problems and they gave him hundreds of minutes and extended his service for 2 years. I got a measly 10 minutes for having spent hours on the phone with them and having to input numerous series of numbers into my phone. I sure wish there was a decent alternative to Tracfone, but that does not seem likely after I have given it some research even though there are many more prepaid phone services available now.

[Corey_Baker08]

4. If you call Boost Mobile with the slightest problem they will credit your account

usually in a range from 5-25 dollars just for the inconvinence of their service not working for you. I have done it and they paid for my minutes the entire weekend! You may think of switching!

[hellbound-liberal]

5. We had Virgin Mobille phones for three years and have never had a problem

with our account or customer service. They have always been very responsive.

[csziggy]

6. We found out with Tracfone to replace with the same brand phone

Some of the brands go through a different 'service' and it can take forever to move the old number over to the new system and phone. Happened to my husband but with more complications than yours. Tracfone gave him 30 extra minutes and I think 60 days of service.

That was the only serious problem we ever had with Tracfone and I have been satisfied. When my old phone became obsolete, Tracfone replaced it free of charge and it took about twenty minutes to switch the old number and minutes over, no problem.

[elocs]

7. I am not happy with just being given 10 minutes and no extra days of service.

My minutes are back on my old Tracfone, but now it has a new number which nobody else has. On top of this my minutes expire on July 11 so I will have to add more just to stay active. The sad thing is that with all of its problems, and Tracfone has numerous customer service problems, after doing research about prepaid phones it still has the best deals for the most minutes.

[csziggy]

12. Try calling them back and seeing if another CS reprensentative can give you more

Or ask for a supervisor and try to get more. These days, Tracfone (and all other companies) should be fighting to retain customers and not be pissing us off!

And tell them you are sharing your experiences on an online forum that reaches thousands, so if you are left unhappy a whole lot of people will be hearing about your dissatisfaction. That works with some companies since they realize the reach of online communities.

One thing that happened while I was getting my husband's Tracfone mess straightened out, I told them I was extremely unhappy with the process and they ended up asking me what would make me happy. I think they may have offered me 10 minutes to start with and I told them we had used more minutes on the phone than that getting things fixed, so they offered 30 minutes. Then I told them that he had been without a phone for nearly three weeks and they offered the extra 30 days service. So they WILL up the offer to make the customer happy - you just have to be hard to convince to take their first offers.

And yeah - their customer service pretty much sucks, but so does most CS these days.

[Ohio Joe]

9. I've been using them for almost a year now

and I've had no problems. The phone itself has no features, it is just a phone but it works very well.

[elocs]

11. Like I said, I had no problems for many years,

but when you have problems with Tracfone they are PROBLEMS. Unfortunately there does not appear to be many good alternatives which are just as cost effective.