Tracfone Customer Service is Being Dishonest

[easysurfer]

Around a week ago, I found out my Tracfone is no longer working.

I contact customer support by calling and their chat. First they say, we are having outages, give it 48 hours. So, I think, okay no problem, I'll give it 48 hours. 48 hours come and go, still no service. Then I call them and they say, I need a new phone and it'll be sent FedEX. I should get it by Wednesday (yesterday). Today is already Thursday and no phone. Then on contact their online chat today and ask for a tracking number. Customer support gives the canned responses, "How can I help you? Let me check into that..." Finally after about 15 minutes, the person types that the phone isn't sent out yet, but will be sent today. What? They just sat on this? I tell them I'm going on a trip soon and need it in about a week. The person types, I understand, then goes "There's no guarantee it'll be sent out today." I'm thinking, what? You just said it'll be sent out today. What a joke.

I told them if the phone doesn't arrive by my trip, I done with them as I'll need an alternate phone. Then support gives the canned response like "Pleasure talking to you, if you need any more help...".

Looks like I'm going to bail from Tracfone regardless. But, the problem is all my 2FA security is set up now to my non-working phone so I can't just toss my phone in the garbage just yet.

 

[Midpack]

We had Net10 phones (same company as Tracfone & Straight Talk) for several years, and service was definitely iffy. I had to work with them, DW didn't have the patience. But we were paying a fraction of the cost of cell service with the big 4, so we chalked it up to 'you get what you pay for' - which we've found to be true much more often than not. Quality customer service is one of the things you can't count on with discount services...

 

[easysurfer]

That's what I was thinking about the "You get what you pay for" part. Discounted means lacking quality customer service, I don't mind the trade off. But when the customer service is or at least boarding on being dishonest, makes me pause.

I may give this until early next week (in the meantime, I'll read up about alternatives) and my end up getting a prepaid (such as from Net10) for about 2 weeks just to get me through the trip then deal with Tracfone later.

 

[REWahoo]

Made me look.

In the Feb issue of Consumer Reports ranking of 13 prepaid cell carriers, the three worst customer service ratings went to Net10, TracFone and Straight Talk.

The three best overall ratings went to Republic Wireless, Cricket, and Page Plus.

 

[BigBob]

Since you likely are saving $$ each month that you use TracFone, if it were me, I would just buy a new phone off Amazon (I got one that tripled my minutes whenever a card was added - LGB48G around $30) with 2 day shipping and transfer your number to it. Then you don't have to deal with customer support.

 

[easysurfer]

Since you likely are saving $$ each month that you use TracFone, if it were me, I would just buy a new phone off Amazon (I got one that tripled my minutes whenever a card was added - LGB48G around $30) with 2 day shipping and transfer your number to it. Then you don't have to deal with customer support.

But wouldn't I have to deal with customer support to transfer the number from the old tracfone to new?

If I was to switch to a different carrier but transfer the number, how long would that take about?

 

[REWahoo]

If I was to switch to a different carrier but transfer the number, how long would that take about?

I switched from Virgin Mobile to Cricket and once I inserted the Cricket sim card in my new phone, my number was ported over and working in less than an hour. Did everything online or via the phone without talking to customer service.

 

[BigBob]

But wouldn't I have to deal with customer support to transfer the number from the old tracfone to new?

If I was to switch to a different carrier but transfer the number, how long would that take about?

For my situation, I got the phone in the mail with instructions, called some automated number, (I think I provided some SIMM number off the phone) and it all was handled automagically. Very simple. Hard part was transferring over my Contacts (manual entry).

 

[easysurfer]

My relationship with Tracfone is no more .

I just didn't like the way their customer service was incompetent at best, deceitful at worse. So, I already switched over, same number, to Consumer Cellular a the new provider and love their customer support. Friendly, knowledgeable and in the USA .

My plan is no longer prepaid though, so I'll have to get used to that. At least still no contract.


I did sell my soul to the devil as I ended up doing something I swore against. That is, got a smartphone instead of just a flip phone.

 

[OrcasIslandBound]

My wife (or should I say DW) has the consumer cellular service. Its easy to keep track of minutes, data etc and very easy to change plans slightly to finesse paying for exactly what you get. Her plan runs about $22 a month for 300 minutes and 100 megabytes. Wouldn't be remotely enough for me, but works for her. Also about a year ago we bought an unlocked iPhone 4 through Amazon. She loves it.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[OrcasIslandBound]

BTW, my plan is with T-Mobile $30 a month plan. 100 minutes and 5 gigs of data. Neither service will work very well on Orcas island, so we'll have to switch to Verizon when we RE.

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[ERD50]

.... I provided some SIMM number off the phone) and it all was handled automagically. Very simple. Hard part was transferring over my Contacts (manual entry).

If the old phone was SIM based as well, you can save contacts to SIM, slip that SIM into the new phone, and then you can load them into the phone memory.

After putting in the new SIM for the new service, save those contacts from phone memory to SIM for future access.


With a smartphone, there may be other options - save contacts to a memory card, or to 'the cloud'.

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

If the old phone was SIM based as well, you can save contacts to SIM, slip that SIM into the new phone, and then you can load them into the phone memory.

After putting in the new SIM for the new service, save those contacts from phone memory to SIM for future access.


With a smartphone, there may be other options - save contacts to a memory card, or to 'the cloud'.

-ERD50

After I manual put in my contacts of the smartphone, I saw a video saying that I could have just updated by using the old SIM. Oh well, too late.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

BTW, my plan is with T-Mobile $30 a month plan. 100 minutes and 5 gigs of data. Neither service will work very well on Orcas island, so we'll have to switch to Verizon when we RE.

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You may wind up roaming to Canada. That happens on the west side of Lopez, I know. If so, get somebody's cross-border plan. T-Mobile?

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[OrcasIslandBound]

Good question about the roaming. I'll probably just disable the roaming using the phone settings.

The only service that works at our house on orcas is Verizon. It also works in most other places when the others fail. Unfortunately I believe that Verizon is significantly more expensive. Oh well

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