Tracfone is Better Now

[TromboneAl]

I'd had a pay-as-you-go plan with H2OWireless, and it worked fine except that I didn't have coverage at our house.

I got a new Tracfone for Lena, and it did have coverage. The phone is good and was only $59. It's a refurbished Galaxy J7 Sky Pro. I immediately replaced my phone with the same one.

The problem with Tracfone in the past has been that any glitch resulting in having to talk on a bad line with a rep who spoke English poorly, and entering in many numbers on the phone which barely had coverage.

This time, things went smoothly and tech support via chat was good.

 

[aaronc879]

I have had Tracfone for years. Great in every way except tech support. Absolutely horrible if you have to talk to someone by phone.

 

[easysurfer]

Good to hear that Tracfone's tech is better, at list this time.

I left them a couple years ago after getting a total run around talking to tech support.

 

[ER Eddie]

I'd had a pay-as-you-go plan with H2OWireless, and it worked fine except that I didn't have coverage at our house.

I got a new Tracfone for Lena, and it did have coverage. The phone is good and was only $59. It's a refurbished Galaxy J7 Sky Pro. I immediately replaced my phone with the same one.

The problem with Tracfone in the past has been that any glitch resulting in having to talk on a bad line with a rep who spoke English poorly, and entering in many numbers on the phone which barely had coverage.

This time, things went smoothly and tech support via chat was good.

I'm like you, in that the one problem I had with Tracfone is that their customer service is terrible. I got such bad customer service, I said I was going to quit. At that point, a supervisor came on the line and got my problem resolved. It worked out okay in the end, but it was very frustrating and time-consuming.

I'm still with Tracfone. I've been with them for like 10 years now. I stay because it's very cheap service, and at this point, it's set up and working fine. I pay about $7 or $8 a month.

It's a good service if you don't have problems with setup or billing. If you have to call in for tech support, good luck to you. I dealt with them about 6 months ago, and it was still a clusterf*ck.

 

[easysurfer]

I'm like you, in that the one problem I had with Tracfone is that their customer service is terrible. I got such bad customer service, I said I was going to quit. At that point, a supervisor came on the line and got my problem resolved. It worked out okay in the end, but it was very frustrating and time-consuming.

I'm still with Tracfone. I've been with them for like 10 years now. I stay because it's very cheap service, and at this point, it's set up and working fine. I pay about $7 or $8 a month.

It's a good service if you don't have problems with setup or billing. If you have to call in for tech support, good luck to you. I dealt with them about 6 months ago, and it was still a clusterf*ck.

The final straw for me was feeling that they lied to me. I opened a ticket and they said, yeah, a phone replacement was sent. Then I'd call again in a few days, and they said something like there was record of the service request . But at least I saved some $$$ using Tracfone in the past.

I couldn't be happier now with real tech support at Consumer Cellular.

 

[ejman]

I bought a $20 tracfone on ebay (Moto E) 2 years ago and then signed on for service using their website chat room with no problems. I spend about $100 a year for service and so far they have been responsive when I had a couple of minor issues. It works well for what it is but I don't think it would make sense for someone that uses a lot of data or spends a lot of time chatting on the phone.

 

[FIYes]

I have used Tracfone for years. It is an inexpensive option for someone like me who is not a heavy cell phone user. I have found Turkforum and Howard Forum to be good sources of information for Tracfone. The word on those forums is don’t call, always use chat if possible.

 

[RAE]

I have had Tracfone for years. Great in every way except tech support. Absolutely horrible if you have to talk to someone by phone.

+1. Had to give up my Tracfone a couple years ago when I had a problem and absolutely could not get the problem resolved by talking to them on the phone. Zero communication. Nice to know they are better now, but I don't think I will be going back for a while, if ever.

 

[ER Eddie]

The word on those forums is don’t call, always use chat if possible.

Good tip, thanks.

 

[jimbee]

I've used Tracfone for many years, and have received good customer support when I've needed it, both by chat and voice. I've found that chat has two advantages. No problem understanding different accents, and you have a transcript of the conversation for reference.

 

[CaptTom]

I've used Straight Talk, a TrackFone brand, for years and it's been pretty good. Saved a ton of money over my previous provider, AT&T, using the same towers.

The times I've had to deal with them, to order SIM cards for new phones and the like, I don't ever recall a problem. I always buy my own phone and use the "bring your own device" option.

Now I'm on Google Fi and so far I'm liking it even better. Saved even more money, most places the coverage is as good or often better, and right now I'm tethering my laptop to the phone over WiFi, because our cable internet connection is out. Straight Talk (and AT&T, and just about all the others) don't let you do that.

Cooler still, Google Fi will route phone calls and texts over WiFi if cell service isn't strong enough. I actually send and receive texts on airplanes this way, using just the plane's on-board WiFi and the cell radio in "airplane mode." I've tested phone calls over WiFi, but never on a plane (that would be rude!)

 

[retiredunder50]

I have been using Tracfone since the analog days. They ride on the big 4 networks depending on your location and phone type (CDMA or GSM). Up until 5 years ago or so, the few times I had to deal with customer service was often a frustrating chunk of time and thankfully, I didn't need to interface with them often. They seem to be doing much better, service-wise. Their phones used to be 3 generations or so behind the current crop. The gap has been nearly closed, I typically take advantage of bundle deals via HSN and QVC as you can get a decent phone and a year's worth of service for about $100. The year's worth of service is a total of 1200 (or 1500) minutes, 1200 (or 1500) texts, and 1.2 GB (or 1.5 GB) of cell data. It is usually enough for me. The phones have decent wifi, GPS, cameras,...

 

[Texas Proud]

I have been using tracfone for many years...


The only time I had a problem with them was when I ordered extra time... I wanted an extra year and put it down... but they screwed it up and I only got the time... when I called they said I needed to buy more time blah blah... I insisted they take my previous order away and that took time...


Bought again and AGAIN they did not add my extra time... had to go through the call again!!! Waited a few days and bought again with the extension and all was good..



Got both previous purchased refunded but they did not know how to take off the time I got free minutes... not a lot, but since I bought 3 month extensions I got 6 free months...

 

[broadway]

Their website has not worked the two times I have used it.


Once to buy 30-days for a brand new Tracfone that I bought at K-Mart with Shop Your Way points. No record of the purchase.



And just this past week with activating a brand new Tracfone smartphone including transfering existing number. When I called and asked what was the hold-up since the other smartphone was also a Tracfone, the CSR told me there was no record of it.


So, both times I had to talk to a CSR to get the issued handled.

 

[Texas Proud]

Do not know if I had put this down before and do not want to look....


You can now buy a SIM card for a phone... bought one for my DDs I-phone... so you are not limited to just Tracfone phones...

 

[HGTVfan]

I’ve used a Tracfone for years and have been very satisfied. But I recently switched to Verizon Prepaid because I plan a fair amount of international traveling starting in September.

In order to port my phone number from Tracfone to Verizon, I needed a PIN number which I had never set up. I was dreading calling Tracfone but it worked out so well, no wait on the line and the customer service guy knew exactly what I needed.

 

[Beldar]

Tracfone Customer Service

If you search the Howard forum (I believe) look for the "Executive Solutions" phone numbers for customer service. Those people are located in their Florida HQ and you get an english fluent person rather than their general outsourced call center.

I've only had to use them twice in the past 5 or 6 years and it was effortless.


_B

 

[TromboneAl]

Update

I spoke too soon.

Everything was fine until I tried to port my old number to the new phone.
Since then the phone has not worked.

I am on hold right now with Tracfone. I've been talking with them now for one hour and 52 minutes, trying to get it to work. I've told them to give up on getting the old number ported, I just want the phone to work again.

I've been transferred twice, the second transfer disconnected me.

So, it looks like things are the same: if things work okay, you're golden, but if there's a glitch, you'll have trouble.

 

[TromboneAl]

Two hours forty-five total. Still not working. I'm supposed to wait four hours and try it again.

The whole concept of rebooting should never have been accepted as reasonable. I've rebooted that phone over twenty times now.

 

[braumeister]

I've rebooted that phone over twenty times now.

You know what they say about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

 

[TromboneAl]

Well, it finally worked.

Of course, I still may be insane.

 

[ownyourfuture]

I stay because it's very cheap service, and at this point, it's set up and working fine. I pay about $7 or $8 a month.

Same for me.

 

[TromboneAl]

In the past, I'd buy $9.99 worth of airtime, but then, at checkout, pay $49 to have a year of airtime added.

That option is no longer available. Now it seems that the best deal would be $125 for 365 service days, 1500 minutes, 1,500 texts, 1.5 Gig data.

I guess they figured out how to sock it to those like us, who only need maybe 100 minutes a year.

 

[Beldar]

Don't forget to use the bonus codes.


(and yeah, I don't use many minutes and have racked up about 20 hours of talk time that keeps rolling over).


_B

 

[FIYes]

I have read that the $49 one year add on appears, disappears based on the browser you use. Chrome was recommended. Now, I am only repeating what I read on another forum and can’t confirm this. But hey, maybe worth a try.