Do not buy a tracfone. Things have changed for the worst.

[kickysnana]

I have been a loyal tracfone user since 2002. I bought one for my parents and daughter-in-law. This week I went online to change my credit card that keeps my lifeline going when I don't buy airtime ($4.99 a month). It would not let me change the credit card information at all.

I called Customer Service who told me that I had just voluntarily disenrolled from lifeline (I did not select anything only looked for the place to input the credit card info). I was shuffled around and hung up on. In all I was on the phone last Friday (6th) for 2 1/2 hours and they told me that I had voluntarily disinrolled (I did not), my phone was no longer supported (web site says it is), they could do nothing, I could not speak to a supervisor. Finally a "floor supervisor" came on and said he was going to escalate it to corporate as they could do nothing there and I would hear from someone within 48 hours. I heard nothing. I found another number online but it sounded like now it is routed back to the same people who Wednesday told me that there is a "cooling off" period when you change something that is up to 5 days and to wait another couple days. Which would be today. Nothing has changed. Emailing did nothing other than they changed my password for me.

Googling this week shows me this is the rule rather than the exception. 2 out of 3 times transactions do not go through and they are not honoring their "double minutes for life" program past 2 years.

[old mark]

1. We used Tracphone and changed to Net10....they have been great for us.

all prepaid, very simple, cheap, no commitments. We have let one of our phones lapse for months, just re-activated it online at no extra charge. We got it initially from Walmart, now get it online. They even sell good phones, more features than I will ever use.

mark

[elocs]

3. From what I understand, Net10 is owned by Tracfone. n/t

[Paper Roses]

2. Funny you should mention tracfone. Just yesterday, I spent the

better part of 2 hours on the phone with them. 3 Calls to straighten out my account-they never took off my old phone and added my new phone. My last transaction in July was to change phones and buy 60 minutes. Sounds simple. Got my minutes then on the new phone but now they were going to expire so I went to my account. No new phone, could not do anything so I called them. First person kept telling me her computer was frozen-OK, that happens. She then had me repeat my info 3 times before telling me she changed my account. Nothing changed.

Called back. No record of my call, had to go through it all again. Bought the minutes from Customer Service person. OK, checked phone in 15 minutes as told for credited minutes-nothing. 4 hours later, still no minutes, called back. Had to go through a horrendous procedure of entering about 20 digit code numbers--in 2 fields. OK but then SC person said there was an error, could we do it again. This started at 8:30 in the AM, by 4:30 I finally had the credited minutes. Next renewal time, I thing I'll check for a new prepaid carrier. It was so frustrating. Don't they train these people? I bet the account was not fixed and new phone added.

They had my CC# and immediately charged my minutes, how come the long delay in adding them? No confirmation number. Did they hope I would not notice that I had not received the credited time? I have to wonder. I say that because if I let the time expire, I'd lose the 168 minutes I still had available from prior minute purchases.

[eShirl]

4. I have been getting "system unavailable" for weeks trying to add more time

On the other hand, a couple months ago my father-in-law's tracfone updated fine with a 60 minute card and new expiration date of June 2017.

:wtf:

[Paper Roses]

5. 2017?? And how did he do this? Wonder if they will catch this goof?

[eShirl]

6. Just recharged it as normal with a $20 card and that's what it came up with.

[glinda]

7. we had a lot of problems with Tracfone a few years back and now we do some sort of

T-Mobile buy minutes. Our coverage and service is tons better.

[supernova]

8. I've been really happy with Virgin

pay as you go phones. Nice features and the phones are pretty cheap.

I buy a minute card every three months and no problems. No dropped calls. Call quality is good. I've only ever been out of range in a couple of places, Ocracoke Island NC and out past Chantilly, VA into almost Skyline Drive. In both cases, not very developed areas.