Straight Talk Wireless Reviews

She repeated the information I gave her back to me. She stated that she was going to send me a return address with my new phone and that I was to send my old phone back to them. I told them I understood. She then gave me a tracking number so I could track the package. I asked her, would I get it before Christmas. She stated you should. She stated to check on my email tomorrow and it should be on there. The next morning I checked my email. There was nothing from them. I waited to the afternoon and still nothing. I called Straight Talk back. I talked to someone again in support unit. She asked me what was going on. I told her. I gave her the tracking number (**), she stated to me that they were not going to send me a new phone until I send them my phone.

I explained to her what the other lady told me yesterday. She stated that that was not their policy and I was to send them my phone. I stated it was the holidays and I need my phone. I asked to talk to a supervisor. I talked to another lady. She stated that they were not going to send me a phone unless I sent them mine. I asked where I was to send it. She stated she would send the information to my email. It’s 12/26/12 and I still haven't received anything yet. I could see why their ratings are so low. Thanks for listening.

I was trying very hard not to throw any f-bombs around and kindly asked, "How could the system actually assign someone a number that still belongs to someone else?" I am sure that the CSR had the "deer in the headlights" look and said that the numbers are automatically assigned by the system - that they have no control over it. Who is the moron that designed a system that would commit such stupidity? Trained dolphins and dogs jump through hoops. We, as customers, shouldn't have to!

Since the beginning I had been on the auto refill plan. But when they changed over to my replacement phone, they did not keep it on auto refill so it got deactivated. So again with another 65 minutes on the phone with them, I was back to auto refill. But I just found out that when they put it back on auto refill, they changed the plan from the previous $30.00 per month to $45 per month. So I’m about to once again call in and be prepared to spend another hour to get this corrected. This unfortunately happens each and every time any phone changes have taken place. They are horrible and they all do not speak good English. The price you pay to go on the cheap!

I was then instructed to call back in 24 hours. I followed instructions and called back on Saturday, 12/1/12, whereby the representative proceeded to troubleshoot the phone again with the exact same steps as on Friday. Before getting too far, I insisted on speaking with a manager and was transferred. I then went through the same troubleshooting steps as before and had to step outside to try and program my phone with 5 codes that were given to me. After an hour I was instructed, no joke, to hang up, drive to the nearest cell tower and put in the 5 codes when I was right next to the cell tower.

Like an idiot, I did as instructed again and the phone still did not work and would not be programmed. I called Straight Talk on Sunday, 12/2/12, and again the representative started to "troubleshoot" the phone with the exact same instructions as on Friday and Saturday. Before the "troubleshooting" got too far, I asked what country the Straight Talk rep was stationed in and was informed that it was the Philippines. I immediately asked for a phone number in the USA and was given a number for the Executive Resolutions Department.

On Monday, 12/3/12, the representative at the Executive Resolutions Department, after troubleshooting the phone again for the the 7th time, made the admission that it was a defective phone and needed to be returned. The representative stated that he would email me shipping instructions and that a separate email would be sent by FedEx with the label and once the defective phone was in the mail, then a working phone would be sent to me. The shipping instructions were sent on 12/4/12, but no shipping label from FedEx.

I called Straight Talk Executive Resolutions Department again on 12/5/12 when no shipping label showed up and was told that another shipping label would be sent out to me today. I was informed that his manager was on the phone with FedEx and that the line was "busy" and she couldn't get through to see why a shipping label wasn't sent. Again, I got the shipping instruction on 12/5/12, but had no FedEx shipping label. I called and was informed by a different representative that a physical shipping label would have to be sent to me via the mail and that it would take 3-5 business days and a phone would not be expedited to me. So now I'm out a work phone for a week plus probably another week. I informed the Straight Talk rep that I was finished dealing with them and that complaints would be filed. On 12/7/12, I finally got 2 FedEx shipping labels in my email and the phone was returned to them on Monday, 12/10/12.

I cancelled my Straight Talk service via email on 12/6/12 and went to MetroPCS to get a phone. On 12/10/12, I received a phone call with a voice message left to contact Straight Talk about cancelling my service. I returned the call and was notified that my account was inactive and the service cancelled. When I asked about the credit to my credit card for the 8 days I didn't have cell service, I was told that no credit would be given and that no manager was going to give me a credit for the 8 days of no service. The only way I was going to get credit for those 8 days was to get another phone and sign up for service with Straight Talk. I proceeded to ask the representative, "If you were me, would you buy another Straight Talk phone and sign up for new service?" There was silence on the other end of the line. I stated that I would call the BBB and my credit card company.

I have since put both the cellphone and the 8 days of no service on dispute with my credit card and have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Do not sign up with Straight Talk, which is owned by TracFone. NET10 is also owned by TracFone. To sign up with these guys is just asking for problems.

Meanwhile, I would go without a cell phone, so every month I would have to add minutes to a TracPhone for the days I would go without my other phone. This was so damn frustrating, and like clockwork, same thing month after month. And by the way, "TracPhone, Cricket, etc." is all the same company. Walmart just puts "Straight Talk" on the phone which is owned by Walmart but the service is operated from India. It’s a scam! Do not fall for it. You will waste so much time dealing with these people over the phone (and not your phone that isn't working).

You do not get to talk to anyone who has any actual technical skills that can assist you. In spite of sometimes being put on hold for up to an hour, I would then be disconnected and have to start all over again. You never talk to the same person twice. At the end of the day, all they can do is keep repeating the same steps that do not the fix the problem. I paid $45 for the phone card and $179 for a Straight Talk phone which you have to purchase to the service. The phone has now quit working and Straight Talk does not provide any technical assistance to assist customers nor any resolutions for their customers' problems. I thought I would be saving money going with this service but instead, I got taken to the cleaners.

We were told that our refunds were processed and our service to our phone was immediately ended. The voice mail on our phone immediately indicated that # was no longer in service. After 2 days, we realized our refunds were never sent. So, we called S.T. once again who stated they had "no record of our previous conversations" and no refund could be given. When asked about ending service, their customer service rep stated service was ended 2 nights ago at our request but they had no record of us calling in. Needless to say, we'll never have any future service nor refund. They owe us over $300 but will not respond to our calls since we are no longer their customers. Complete Deception!

If your life is boring and you need more stress and aggravation, by all means, purchase a Straight Talk phone. But you will be sorry! Any savings will be eaten up by your precious time and increased stress. I tell everyone do not get involved with this company! Deal with a provider where you can walk into their service centers for assistance. This company steals good, honest customers' money!

Today, November 12, 2012, I haven't had internet services on my phone since early morning. Around 8:30AM PST, I called technical support and I was with a tech support representative for over 90 minutes on the call trying to have the internet fixed. Tech support representative did not resolve the case. I still had no internet. He gave me a fake case number ** (later on when I called and talked to supposedly a supervisor to inquire about the case, the supervisor told me that there is no case created). Tech support rep in the morning misinformed me, saying that he is going to escalate the issue to a higher level tech support and that it should be fixed in about 4 hours.

After 5 hours of waiting/having on internet, I called the number he provided me 1877-222-2355 (he said it's a direct number for tech support). The number does not exist and does not take calls! He gave me a fake phone number. At 2:30PM I called a regular number and spoke with another tech support rep. She was clueless and started leading me through the same steps I was doing in the morning for over 90 minutes. She was really slow and unhappy with her job. I asked for a supervisor. Another woman with a rude, slow voice introduced herself as a supervisor. She said her name was Daisy. Daisy was rude since the first sentence, neglecting my complaints and leading me through basic steps that I was led through in the morning. That was scandalous.

I asked why I have to do it all over again, what I've done in the morning. I asked how come she cannot see in the system what we've done in the morning with the other customer service rep. She said, "That was another person so I don't know what you've done with him." And the supposedly supervisor said, "There is no case. Here at Straight Talk, we don't make cases." Then she put me on hold without warning me that she will put me on hold. So I was sitting with a silent phone for 10 minutes or more. I was calling her name, checking if she's there and what happened? She was not responding, put me on forever hold! I tried calling back in at the regular Straight Talk phone 1855-222-2355 and the Straight Talk phone was hanging up on me, call after call. It was saying, "Due to high call volume, we have to disconnect with you" or something like that. Scandalous!

If Straight Talk does not resolve my issue with the internet (no internet all day) and if Straight Talk does not reimburse me for not having internet all day and wasting almost 2 hours of my time with a rude and clueless technical support, and for going through so much stress with the rudest and unhelpful supervisor Daisy, this is my first month with Straight Talk and it will be surely my last month with Straight Talk.

We both hate contract phones. They give no service either, and you get locked in. But this is beyond belief! We are now waiting for the "box" to come, and reviews I've read sound as if two weeks to new phone is common. This is so not acceptable. And I don't know the last time both of us were so angry, because this endangers her life!

I've called them about this matter more than 10 times, but all I seem to get is that the amount will be put back into my account and that they’re sorry and that it won’t happen again. I wait one month in between, and then the following month at around the same date, they again take out $48.81. They wait another day or so and take out another $49.36. That’s not all. I waited a few days and I get charges added on to my account. Thanks to Straight Talk, I got NSF with my bank.

I called them again but they refused to pay the NSF that they caused. They speak to me as if I wanted more from them after they've already put the money back into the account. I kept telling them that I didn't have an account with them in the first place, but they told me that I did, etc. They asked me to take down this toll-free or fax number for me to send them my bank statements, but I don’t think I will. They have my credit card number now and each time they say it won’t happen again, it does anyway. Now they want my bank statements. Remember: I don’t have a Straight Talk account, a cell phone, or any signed agreement with them, but they keep taking money out of my account. I could close my bank account, but why should I have to do all of that? Straight Talk, you are wrong and I am not.

They want my bank statements because they think I’m lying, but I have proof of this. We have been dealing with this issue the whole year; they take money out of my account and say it won’t happen again, but in the end I am in the hole because of Straight Talk. They made me have NSF and they have given me a bad name when paying my bills. I now have over $100 worth in NSF. My bank has also been transferring money from my savings account, and now I have no savings because of Straight Talk. You want me to trust you and send in my bank statement? I think Not.

Straight Talk, you are in the wrong. You took money out of my account, causing me to have NSF charges. My savings have been transferred into my account because of the money you keep taking. You had no right to do that. Stand up for what is right. I didn't authorize you to take money from my account in the first place. You caused all of this and you need to fix it. Thanks so much for putting me in the NSF and cleaning out my savings account.

My goal now is to see if the company will ever send me a phone that works. Also, I have never given up my existing cell phone and, at this state of affairs, may not; even though it costs 33% more and gives less service than the Straight Talk plan I selected. At least it works after almost two years. I guess I will continue to beta test their phones while FedEx handles the shipments. I will give the company credit for the patient and polite helpdesk people. They do take their time to do as much as they can to fix my continuing phone problem. I have only once had a manager try to force me to go with Verizon rather than AT&T, but my problem was never the bars or service, just the physical phones have been bad. When I can call, the phone service is okay. I now hope they don't send me my former phone which didn't work.

On 10/6/2012, I attempted to purchase Straight Talk Minutes cards through walmart.com, orders were cancelled. I contacted Walmart customer service and was told that Straight Talk (again) had cancelled my transactions. I do not understand how valid transactions are being routinely denied by this wireless company! In all cases, my financial institutions (bank, credit card, PayPal) had approved my transactions and held funds pending completion of transaction. In all cases, the transactions were cancelled by the supplier, Straight Talk. Similar transactions by family and friends have also been cancelled.

So, we called on the third day after adding the $30 card to the phone and were told we had to call Customer Service back from a different phone line so as to troubleshoot my daughter's phone. Needless to say, we were kept on the phone for exactly 47 minutes, yet the problem was not fixed after this amount of time! A return call was made to us on my line from the technical team. Again, we were engaged in troubleshooting for an additional 38 minutes! There may be some customers who have that kind of time to sit and spend troubleshooting a phone, but I do not.

The sad part is that after all this wasted time troubleshooting, the phone started doing the same thing exactly two days later. However, I was repeatedly told that the problem was fixed and the phone reset to receive/ send 1000 calls/1,000 texts after calling into Customer Service for the third time. It was a big fat lie! To date, I have not been able to send/receive calls or texts on this phone since I reduced from a $45 card to a $30 card. This is intentional on Straight Talk's behalf to coerce consumers into buying the more expensive card although they claim either will work. Do not believe this. It is false advertising! And this is the second time it happened!

So I'm requesting for the service "Straight Talk" to please be right and not scam people. You cannot write that we get unlimited data if you slow it down after 2 weeks. Even though it's unlimited, we cannot use it because to go on Straight Talk's website takes about 15-20 seconds, so forget about watching a video. And I would like to add that anyone who wants to switch to Straight Talk, please do not because you're going really hungry after that. Be smart and get T-Mobile even though it's Edge because the T-Mobile Edge goes a lot faster than the 3G Straight Talk. I hope Straight Talk is going to make a good decision and stop lying to people.

Honestly, the price isn't that great. There are a lot of other prepaid, contract free providers out right now. Don't get Straight Talk to just save $10 a month. They are a joke. My wife and I are both unable to make or receive texts and calls over 50% of the time and we have both been mistreated and ran in circles for about 2 months with them. Buyer beware and good luck.

Remember to read the Terms and Conditions which seems like the only place to find it is on their website. It seems a little illegal to me, no contract. I've had 5 of their phones, none of which had a copy of these terms and conditions and everything on their $45 monthly plan says Unlimited all over it with no mention of not being able to stream (Pandora, Netflix, YouTube, any streaming service).

She kept repeating that the account had been denied for insufficient funds. Then, I asked why the payment was going in earlier than usual as I found this strange. She told me that I could sign up for a new auto refill plan but I kept saying that I did not need a plan. We already had a plan. She told me that the computer said that I no longer had a plan. Then, I asked to speak to a manager, but finally gave up waiting. Next, I went online to investigate and saw that every payment for a year had gone through but all of a sudden the charge was denied. Also, the charge went through early even though this was not really the issue.

I signed up a different credit card but then found this website and became worried about my personal information. Then, I tried to cancel auto refill online, and couldn't. I found it strange that you cannot cancel a service from a private, signed in account. So, I called ST back and had the auto refill removed from my account, got a bit angry even though I know the poor rep did not have any more information than I did. They were still trying to sell me a plan but I said "no," a definite "no." If my daughter still wants this phone, she can buy the cards. The phone works fine, but customer service is minimal and I wouldn't trust this company with your bank or credit card information. I'm so tired of robot phone reps and big company methods, so here I am.

After days of calling them and being on the phone with them for hours and hours and hours, they said both phones needed new SIM cards. Once the SIM cards came three days later, only my phone started working. Again my husband's phone would not work. Finally, after hours and hours and about 20 codes later, my husband’s phone started working. And now, my phone stopped working again. This is the worst service ever. You just get passed from person to person and each person starts over again completely. When you call, you are pretty much guaranteed to be on the phone with them for over an hour, every single time if not much, much longer. When I spoke with them about getting my money back for the third month, I had to pay to get my old phone working again.

The guy told me I should not have reactivated the phone and that if both our other phones were not working, then I should have gone to a pay phone or Walmart in order to contact them! They did not even want to refund my money for that month (I only used it for three days to call them about the phone problem!). If you never have phone problems with more than $30 for service is great. But if anything goes wrong, the service is worthless. This is only a summary of all the problems we have had! I still do not have a working phone!

I went without service for a day of so, then I went to Wal-Mart and asked an Electronics associate if he could call Straight Talk to unlock my phone. He did. Straight did their troubleshooting routine and still the phone would not unlock. Three times Straight Talk directed the Wal-Mart associate through the process without any success. The Straight Talk customer service representative told us that since they could not unlock the phone, they would send me a replacement phone in 3 to 5 days. I said okay but asked if in the meantime I could transfer the number to an older Straight Talk phone until the replacement arrived. Straight Talk said yes. I went home to retrieve the older phone. The next day, I used a friend's phone to call Straight Talk back and was horrified at the way they responded.

First, the representative wanted to troubleshoot the phone again, and since it would not turn on by this time, said he could not do anything. After about ten minutes of trying to get some type of resolution, I asked for a supervisor, which seemed to tick him off. Someone claiming to be a supervisor came on the line after a few moments, during which I feel they had already decided that their friendly relationship with each other was more important than this customer service stuff. The supervisor came on the line and continued to say that there had been no documentation that I would receive a replacement phone. After about 20 minutes of discussion, the supervisor told me that only if I sent them back the old phone first, would they send me a refurbished phone. I asked why, since the phone was still under warranty after only three month of use, I could not get a new phone. He became belligerent, and I suspected that things would get worse. I was right. I soon just decided that I would just first handle the matter of transferring the number to the older Straight Talk phone so at least I would have phone service.

Next when giving the supervisor the serial number and the MEID DEC numbers, he claimed the numbers were another Straight Talk customer's number, to which I disagreed, telling him that I had the phone right there and it had never gone from my ownership. He tried to say that I was wrong. But here I was, holding the phone with the numbers right in my hand. Finally he said, "Well yes, that is a part of your old account." Duh-h-h! After he failed several times to be able to get the numbers right, he finally said he did. He said that it would be a few minutes to a few hours before the older Straight Talk phone was activated. It is now several hours later and still the phone is not active. I feel he put a hold on following through with the activation just because he could.

I tell you, I have never been so frustrated with customer service or dealt with anyone who seemed to know less about what they were doing. I am not going to give up at this time on getting a new phone since they said they would not refund me a portion of the cost of the new phone, if I got a refurbished phone. I will call the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint. And I will tell everyone who will listen about the horrible service I got when I called Straight Talk today, and how they have yet to do anything about my new phone or activate the old one. I do not know if this had anything to do with it, but the customer service, or lack of service, was from overseas. All I got today was attitude.

A supervisor came on the phone and told me that they can give me an unlimited plan for 20 days, which I accepted. Before the supervisor hangs up the phone, he told me that he will transfer me to a another person to finish the transaction. However, when the lady came on the other line, she said that they can't do it. What? Really? Apparently, they had changed their mind and I was then placed on hold for another 45 minutes. I will definitely call the BBB and will tell my lawyer about this false marketing that just screwed me up! Straight Talk will definitely hear from my lawyer unless they do something to fix this problem.

I first rechecked the website for the phone details and what's included here is where the problem starts. They had indeed changed the phone's listing and removed the missing items from what was included with the phone I just purchased 4 days earlier. The day I bought it, those items were in fact listed as included. So someone between a 6-hour period changed the website listing from when I last checked it till I called them. They denied anything was changed and 3 different Straight Talk employees said I was not correct, no one changed anything and the phone never came with those items. I know I am right. It was listed as coming with those items and I told them they were selling phones and not giving the items with the phone the ad said it came with and told them this is fraud.

They didn't offer to refund my money or do anything, but basically said I was wrong about everything and rude as hell as they were doing it. I would encourage everyone thinking "Wow, $45.00 unlimited plan a month, no contract" not to even consider Straight Talk. I have never been frustrated with a rude staff, so-called call center that is of no help and the so-called managers who are even less helpful. I will never refer anyone to sign up with Straight Talk and in fact, discourage them any chance I get. Yes, I am angry at the way I was treated and told I was wrong. I know in fact that I am right and they are ripping people off and could care less when you call and inform them.

Corporate office, represented by a Mrs. Kalika ** from Florida, called and FedExed a new SIM card on June 29, 2012. She said the phone would now work. It worked for 2 hours maybe and since that date she has not answered her extension. I left several messages that were never returned. I was FedExed two more SIM cards and they did not work. Yesterday, July 10, 2012, when he received I believe the 3rd SIM card, someone told him that the phone would work in 24 hours. I do not believe that. I personally faxed a two-page letter last week, spent 5 hours being put on hold, faxed the receipt to show the card was purchased, and I sent a copy of the card purchased at Walmart.

I faxed a copy of the serial number of the original phone and serial number to the loss prevention department as I was told to do. A person named Serigo in that department told me to do that. I called back to that department and they said they did not receive a fax. I have the confirmation that they did receive this. I have had this phone number since that came out with Straight Talk and have always purchased the $45.00 PIN at Walmart. I asked for the CEO’s name and address; they told me that they could not release this information, nor could they tell me who called and they just gave the name of John ** and the zip code and this person was able to take his minutes and take his phone number. My wife and I have an idea who it could have been, but I worked in law enforcement for 18 years and court for 18 years. I have to have more proof. I requested that they send me a form, which every company, or I should say any professional company, would have and let me fill out fraud papers. I will go to the sheriff's office and fill out a report. I advised them that I would go to the FBI because offense was committed across state lines.

I was told the first time it was shut off and that I didn't have a secret question. I gave them one and even my wife does not know it. She spent three to four days on this; she is very ill. She has back problems, her lung was removed, and she has an extremely rare bladder disease. I had five brothers. One had a massive heart attack at 40 and passed away. Another brother at the age of 43 died in his sleep with a massive heart attack. My other brother had triple bypass surgery. The day after one of the funerals, my mother died in her sleep at 62. My father died of a heart attack at 54. My wife tried to explain and did put it in writing that I could have a heart attack at any time and she could not even call me to check on me. We have been nice and professional concerning this matter, but this business should be shut down.

I told them AT&T, Verizon and another company has already stopped this from happening. I would really appreciate your help and as soon as possible, taking in consideration his heart condition and my health. I am willing to go to the media, take this to the federal court and sue this company. This has lost him just little side jobs to have enough money to eat. My wife tried to talk to them, write them, and fax them. Even though we do not live together, she depends on my phone to check on me. She does not have the gas nor the health to jump in the car and run over like she has since this began. I do appreciate any help I can get. My wife is very good at taking care of things. She is kind and patient, but she even cannot deal with this anymore. You will have to call her number at **. I am staying with her because she is scared that I will have a heart attack and she nor would anyone know. Thank you.

Finally, one week later and 2 more SIM cards later, they activated it with my original number, but I still could not use it. It still said, “No service or roam.” So, they said I needed just one more SIM and they needed to activate it through the AT&T tower. Here it is July 6, 2012 and I got the new card today. Before I ever gave the numbers, I told the operator three times I needed my same number and AT&T tower just like they have told me. He assured me everything would be okay and I was surprised he gave me a different number. So, all this stress of calling and getting my number back was useless. I demanded to speak to his manager only for him to say I needed another SIM card. I told him no. I am never using Straight Talk again. Buyer beware: it is not worth any more of my time. They have the worst customer service ever.

The response I got, "We cannot send you your call records because in order to send the requested records, we need to be able to contact you on the phone you are requesting the records for to confirm your identity.” Uhm, hello, my phone was stolen and the best chance I have of finding it, or at least the person who stole it, is through my call records! Straight Talk has been no help in this situation. The service is at the best mediocre, and now that I have to spend the money for another phone anyway, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will not be a Straight Talk phone. I have also made it my goal to make sure that none of my friends even think about going with Straight Talk.

Tomorrow, I'm going to formally request arbitration per their contract. Because of my medical condition, I doubt that I'll have to travel to the arbitration hearing and will instead be able to attend it via conference call/web. We'll see, but the company will pay more than $45 to whomever attends the arbitration, I'm sure. That's how I'll win, even if I lose.

On Sunday, June 24th, 4PM, I called Straight Talk customer service and explained that my phone didn't switch over. Again, I gave the serial numbers and answered security questions. I was told to wait 10 minutes to 24 hours. 6AM Monday, June 25, 2012, my phone was turned off, my husband's phone was turned off and the Galaxy phone was not turned on. We are on auto-renewal, payment not an issue. I now have to wait until 8AM to speak to a customer service representative. At 8AM, I called and explained the problem. I was so angry that I told the CS rep to just turn my old phone and my husband's old phones back on, I was returning the Galaxy.

The CS rep said no problem, in 10 minutes, enter *22890 on my phone and my husband's. OK, great! My phone switched back on, my husband's switched on but with a new phone number! He had the telephone number for 17 years. I called back the CS and I was told we can't get the old number back, sorry. I told my husband who was fuming! He called customer service, he was issued a ticket number and told that it may come back in 72 hours. Oh and now your phone number is **. This by the way doesn't work. He can't call out or take incoming calls. I am now fuming! I have contacted the FCC (FCC.gov), the Florida BBB and the Florida Attorney General. **!

When I called in the morning of the 22nd, I was first told the payment wasn't made. I had my bank statement online and gave the debit card date and amount paid, and it had not been returned to me and they still had the funds. I went through 4 or 5 managers, each worse than the previous. The last told me I would have to have the bank contact them about the payment. I drove to the bank, as I couldn't call with my cell phone. I had a bank officer verify the payment had been made into their account and had not been returned. While on the phone, the bank officer was told it was returned this morning and It should show in the account in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, my phone has been off 3 hours, even when the payment had been paid from June 1. I was relayed a message that I would have to pay an additional $45 meantime to restore service. When I called to make the additional payment they demanded, I was told they would not accept an online payment, and I would have to purchase an airtime card from a retail store, requiring a trip to a distant Wal-Mart store. While calling from the store, I spent a half hour on the phone with 3 Straight Talk managers, who said they had to ok the reactivation first with their legal department? Who are these people?

I plan to dispute their charges with my credit card company, but I wish there was something that could be done to stop their unethical business practices. Their customer service is a joke and even when you call their special manager's line, nothing has been documented from your previous phone calls and you have to go through the whole problem from the beginning. It is not uncommon to be on the phone with them for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours each time you call. They always say that the problem will be resolved in 24 hours, but nothing happens. They tell you on one phone call that they will give you a refund and then they tell you something different on another. They tell you your phone is active and working fine, even when you can receive incoming phone calls. They seem to have no sense of following the FTC guidelines on porting in numbers and they seem to have no qualms about charging you for something that you never get (prepaid phone service). And trying to get any satisfaction from their online customer service group is a joke as well as being time consuming and expensive in terms of phone time.

I have also noticed that since Christmas, there has not been one touchscreen Straight Talk in any Walmart and no display of them either. So, other people have had to have trouble with them or they wouldn't have took them off the shelf so fast. I have been to Walmart in NC, VA, and TN and there is never a Straight Talk touch screen. That is $200 plus tax out of my pocket and I am very upset. I had a Straight Talk before this one which I gave away, but it worked wonderful. It picked up everywhere and it has done everything it said it would on the box. Right now, the box is more useful than the cell phone I have. I would appreciate anything you could do to help my situation out. I have the box and everything that came with the phone. Thank you for your time and please get back to me as soon as possible.

Now, May 3, 2012, we are in the same boat. I picked my grandmother up to help her with her weekly errands and she indicated that everyone’s phone had been busy for the last couple of days. That’s when I knew there was a problem. I wasted no time contacting their customer service again, and of course the automated computer indicated that the number wasn’t associated with a Straight Talk phone. After mashing a few buttons, I finally reach a real person. The customer service representative indicated I had transferred the number, which I hadn’t, and that I couldn’t use the number on the phone again. She said I could have a new number or if I wasn’t happy with that. I could, and I quote, move the mobile number to a new carrier.

That quote pretty much sums up their customer service. If you aren’t happy, well there’s the door! I told her that the number hadn’t been transferred by me or my grandmother, and that a new number wasn’t an option. I pushed back as nicely as I could. After several other attempts at her trying to defer me down a different path, I held firm to wanting the number and time to be returned to the phone and that I didn’t believe her story about the number being transferred.

After being on the phone for 40 minutes the problem hadn’t been solved. Finally, in an attempt to get me off the line she said that the problem had been fixed and if it wasn’t working to try again in one hour. I knew this was just a way to get me off the phone and guess what? The phone still isn’t working.

Each time I call, they want additional information and there’s still no full refund for the service I could never even establish. I have spent at least 10-plus hours dealing with their customer service only to get the run around. How many other customers have they robbed through these tactics? Finally, I was disconnected from them and their return number has been disconnected. This company still owes me $48.87. Clearly, this is a common method of earning stolen profits from unsuspecting potential customers. If I was going to donate money, I would have donated to a person or a non-profit, not a corporation. Terrible. I have never experienced such an outright theft of money by a business who is national (customer service reps in Philippines). I doubt if I will ever get my money back and I am requesting a document to explain why I won’t be getting it back (doubt I'll get that either). Do not use this company: they are thieves.

Finally the woman informed me that they would not be able to do this without sending me a new SIM card, which would take about 5-7 days to get to my home. I run my business through my cell phone and all my clients have my cell number to get a hold of me. So being without my cell phone can potentially cost me hundreds a day. Because of the length of time I had been on the phone with them and because the error was on their part, the woman I was speaking with promised me that my next month of service would be free. When the month was up, I tried calling to get my free month of service activated and they told me it was not documented.

I informed them that I had a reference number and that I had recorded the conversation, as I do for all the calls I make to them when there is a problem. I was transferred to multiple people over the next 4 hours. I was told by one woman that they were not allowed to give 30-day free compensation, that there was a limit of 5 days. Another person told me 10 days and another person told me 15. I was told by one lady that I wasn’t allowed to speak with a supervisor. When I hung up and called back, I was able to speak with one. She told me to email the recording to Straight Talk and that the customer service would get back to me immediately. Twenty four hours later I still had no response.

I called back and was put on hold for 30 minutes. A woman came on the phone and I asked if she was a manager, she said no. I asked if I could speak with a manager and she said she was one. I informed her that I mailed the recording and wanted to get the 30 days free that was promised to me. She said that they did get the recording and it was clear that that is what was told to me, but that they still would not honor it because the lady did not put it in her documentation. She was extremely rude, using profanity and yelling at me, and finally said that if I would leave her the ** alone, that she would give me 10 days for free.

Since I need my phone and because of the principal of the matter will not pay them for something that was promised to me, I took the offer and told her that I still expect the 30 days. I told her that I would be filing a complaint with the BBB, she called me an idiot and hung up on me. I can afford the $30 for my phone, but I cannot support a company that treats their customers as poorly as Straight Talk. I have spent around 10 hours on the phone with Straight Talk and I more than deserve the compensation that was promised to me. I would not have spent that much time on something if it wasn’t the complete truth.

I have a family and a business to run, I don’t have the time for this. I will be switching my phone service, as well as my husband’s and daughter’s. My parents, siblings and many of my friends will also be stopping theirs as well. I will also be spreading the word everywhere of the trouble that I have been through.

Currently, I am using my original phone number on resumes and therefore, I need to keep the same number. For the fourth time in as many weeks calling the service center, I called and asked that the new phone be given the old phone number. This brought the response that the old number I have had was not a Straight Talk phone number. I once again reiterated that this old number was the same number I had been using for the last six months. They then told me that a new sim card for the new phone was required to fix the problem and they would be sending one out. I told them I needed an active phone with the old number and I wanted to have the old phone left on. I told them they could deactivate the new phone until I they got the phone number issue resolved. I was assured the old phone would be left on.

In fact, they said both phones would be left on. This issue would be fixed in about a week. In the meantime, my service was deactivated on the old phone again. For the fifth time, I called the service center and this time the service people are telling me that I need a new sim card for the old phone to get the service back on. I am through trying to get service with this company. It appears they know little about how to fix the problems that reoccur and there seems to be little continuity from one call of a problem to the next call of the same problem. I now do not have a phone and am considering litigation if an employer calls and cannot reach me because my phone service is deactivated.

Now, I have never in the 65 years I've breathed air on planet Earth experienced such horrible customer service in my lifetime. As a former military, I have no problem understanding the 'outsourced' cultures that populate their customer service centers. But they are under-educated and under-trained, can only follow a script, and believe that continuing to state "I apologize" will in some mysterious manner assuage the degree of anger any caller may have in dealing with them. All they can do is escalate the call to a supposed higher level of service, which is simply a higher level of incompetence. I have demanded a number of times to speak to their corporate HQ in Florida and was given the number. You guessed it—the same outsourced culture, but supposedly in Florida. I was told outright by their management that they were aware of the customer service issues and were working to correct them. Not from where I sit, they aren't.

I’m on 'auto refill', but phone service was turned off anyway. ST customer service rep told me he fixed the problem. He actually cancelled my service and re-set me with a new phone number—all without telling me he did that. I'm a 100% disabled veteran. The VA, my primary care physician, emergency, etc., all have my number and I refused to accept what he did, taking that action to simply get rid of me, then lying to me about what he had done. It took hours over a period of four days, numerous calls to their Florida HQ demanding my number back, them telling me I had to wait 24 hours (twice), and then another manager telling me I had to now wait for 48 hours. I refused any more stalls and demanded they fix the problem and return my number due to illegal action of their customer service department. That call resulted in getting my original number back and they did give me a credit of one week’s free service. That manager did in fact tell me they were aware of similar problems such as mine and were attempting to correct them.

Set up again for "auto refill" – system did not refill my service. So here we go again. I called and was told all was okay and service would automatically bill. No, it didn't. I had to manually pay, then set up the auto refill feature myself, and confirmed it was done. I looked it up this morning and did it again—no auto refill. They truly have a screwed up the on-line system and that needs to be corrected as well.

Conclusion: The entire concept of ST has merit. Frankly, they offer a better deal out there than any of the big-box phone providers. But all of them have outsourced their customer service to the detriment of their good names. People from other cultures, despite the fact they speak a form of English, do not live in the U.S. and don't have a good grasp of day-to-day culture here and how to deal with us. Moreover, their training is inadequate and woefully incomplete. Reading from a prepared script is not an acceptable substitute for actual experience and working knowledge base on a company's systems. ST needs to take a hard look at how their customer service department is being trained and managed. My education is in business and management. I would personally fire the entire management staff and start over.

Well, I finally had to return it and was promised a refund. I included the airtime card since it was never used as not activated, I thought I would have to, as it was a package. I have still not been refunded and I received a call while out the other day from a woman who claimed she was from corporate and would not transfer me to a higher supervisor, that I would not be refunded for the airtime card (even with no use). I asked her to mail it back so I could use it on another phone and she refused.

The woman said they are non-refundable. Really? Even with a broken phone? Even when I have 3 other phones I could activate on? But that isn't the worst part! I am still not refunded for the phone or for anything from them. I lost over 7 days of business from this ** phone and US Cellular got it right back on working for me. I want them to be held responsible for this and I want a full refund. It isn't right to sell a non-working item and then not refund it! I even returned it at my own expense and all they do is call me to use up more of my paid airtime to tell me 'no'. Please help me with this.

So they would have never known if I received the phone or if Bill down the road received the phone until I contacted them. I was very upset. No, I was advised that I have to pay for the phone to be sent back to them and once they process, they will refund my money on to my CC, which could take 30 days. It only took them 4 minutes to take the money off my CC. This company is not trustworthy. There is nothing good to say about it. Once I return the phone because I do not want to argue with them anymore, we will see if I receive my refund. If I don’t, someone will hear from me and my lawyer. Even if it is only a hundred dollars, no one should be treated like this. I’m very upset.

So I sent it off and they sent me a new one which did the same as the first and third one. They froze up, turned off, dropped calls or would not ring at all. I finally got a totally new phone and when I received it, the plug inside the phone was smashed and I could not plug it in. I called Straight Talk and was told to send it back so I did just that the very next day. This was on Feb 2, 2012 and to this day, I do not have a phone. I was told I would have a phone in 24 to 48 hours but that was not so.

I call and have talked to Jose, Pablo, Walter, Carlos, Christopher, and lastly Windy. I ask to speak with corporate but was told by Christopher that corporate said they did not want to talk to me. I was so mad I hung up. But called straight back and got Wendy, she call corporate and they said they would contact me in 24 to 48 hours and still have heard nothing and still no phone and this is now Friday the Feb 10,2012 and still no phone. I paid almost $200.00 for the phone, plan and insurance and still have nothing to show for it. I feel Straight Talk is a scammer and they treat their people like we are dirt.

I knew that I was unhappy with the phone in the first few days but I did not want to just throw away my minutes that I had just purchased so I went ahead and used those up. About 3 weeks passed and I was well within my 30 day return period. I took the phone back to Walmart and they refused to take it back. Walmart's policy is a 15-day return on cell phones. I was only made aware of this policy when I went to the service desk and the girl pointed it out to me. There are no signs or anything that tell you this back there where the cell phones are.

How crazy is that! Walmart should not be allowed to sell a product where their return policy is different than the manufacturer, and why should they make people purchase a 30-day calling plan knowing that if they take their phone back in 15 days, then they will lose almost all of the minutes that they just purchased. Now I am stuck with a $100 phone that is no good. It drops calls, the screen freezes, and Straight Talk will not take it back because I did not purchase it from them and Walmart will not take it back because it has been passed 15 days. I am still within my 30-day period as I type this.

I still have no phone working and no value of card replaced. They are dishonest and rude although, one girl that I had in Jan was at least respectful. The guy did not understand English.

I bought the first phone on Black Friday at Norwalk Wal-Mart. They said it may take 30 days, then 24 hrs, then another 48hrs and then so on and so on. Then finally, they told me that it would be working in 2 hours and when I was out, it did not work.

These lies with a child with an asthma disability are not good, plus all the hours that I spent on the phone were not compensated at all. This is unjust! Total talk time trying to get my phone on bare minimum 7-10 hrs and still no phone, plus they tell you to check your phone every hour and try to make a call, knowing that it does not work. This is absurd and wrong!

I think when one purchases a phone that all information should be shared with the consumer prior to purchase. What I am told would impact my purchase. When I would call Straight Talk for help I found that I had to repeat the information each time I was transferred and on an average I was transferred at least three times per call. I asked one rep, "Don't you share information with each other?" I also asked aren't you required to log what went on with the customer so they do not have to re-tell the story, name, phone, etc. each time.

I told Straight Talk that I wanted to go back to my old phone that I knew worked. They said they would have to send me a SIM card and I would receive it within 3 to 6 days. I called after waiting 6 days and I was told there was no record of them planning to send me a SIM card. What I realized is that Straight Talk was deciding for me what phone I was going to use. I was told that since they could not send me a SIM card so my old phone could be used I "could purchase" another Straight Talk phone. At this point, I decided I wanted nothing further to do with Straight Talk.

Last night (12/20/11) I spoke with 5 different reps and I requested that I speak with a supervisor, that I wanted a 30-day refund since I would be leaving Straight Talk and I had paid through 1/28/2011. She asked for my credit card number, etc. And after giving her this information she said she could not give me a refund. I said, “Why did you have me on the phone for 30 minutes, pass me around to lots of different people where I had to repeat my story?” And I also have to say I am not convinced that they were not playing a game with me. One time I would be talking to Frank and the next time it was Francisco. I would be talking with Mary and she would send me to Marie. I made the comment you sound like the same person. I said let me speak with a higher supervisor that could make a decision and was told they were not available. Enough!

I hope you are able to pull all of my calls into Straight Talk and I hope they have been recorded. The reps do not listen to what the person is asking. No one seems accountable. The person(s) that said they would send me a SIM card made no notation in my account. When a person calls in and the phone is picked up, don't you have the system log the time and initials of the rep taking the call at the least? Why should I have to repeat the same story each time I am transferred or when I call back into your system?

I feel the staff does not take what they are doing seriously. When I go onto the Internet to find out what is a good pay-as-you-go program, Straight Talk is at the bottom due to your poor customer service. One last thing. When I asked for my phone number to be ported over to a non Straight Talk pay-as-you-go service, I called Straight Talk after T-Mobile said ST would not release the number. I called ST and they said they had no record of any such number. Finally T-Mobile reps called into Straight Talk at least 3 times to get my number released. Your reps are costing you business. They need lots of training and you should hire people with integrity. And you need to get a better system for tracking what your reps do and say. Please refund my full 90 day payment. Thank you.

determine how they wanted the second telephone returned. I was told by the first CS rep that in order to receive a refund, I would have to ship the second telephone back at my expense. I told the CS rep that I didn't feel that was fair to me as it was their computer that had made the erroneous order, so I should not have to pay for the return nor drive to town to get the package to UPS. When she said that she didn't have any other options, I asked to speak to her supervisor.

I was then transferred to another lady who spoke very fluent English. She understood and agreed that the shipment of the second phone was because of their computer error, however said that their system did not have allowance for pre-paid return shipment authorizations. As a consolation for my having to correct their error by paying for the return shipment and also the time and gasoline needed to drive into town to replace the shipment, I could retain and use the $45 service card out of the phone I was returning. She did not specify what phone the card was to be utilized in. So I kept the card, repackaged the second phone and shipped it back to Straight Talk, at my expense.

On 12/03/2011, Straight Talk refunded only $105.99 to my Discover card. After numerous telephone calls and emails to and from their resolution department, I was told that their refund of only $105.99 of my $169.54 purchase was correct because I retained and used the $45 airtime card from the phone I returned. Since I had nothing in writing from the CS Supervisor who authorized me to keep the card, I asked Straight Talk how they justified on the $105.99, when it should have been $124.54 ($169.54 - $45). Their response was that the remaining amount was for their shipping charges when they shipped the un-ordered phone to me in the beginning. Keep in mind that the website claimed those charges were free.

Since I see that this is not that uncommon of a complaint about Straight Talk, my recommendations if this happens to you are as follows: Watch your credit card account and immediately file a notice of improper charges when they charge you for the un-ordered phone. In writing, by mail or email, notify Straight Talk that you have received an un-ordered phone from them and will be happy to return it to them by any pre-paid method they like. When they tell you that they will not pay for the return shipment of the un-ordered phone, advise then that in that case they have 15 days to send a representative to your home and you will be happy to deliver it in person. Keep a copy of all your correspondences and give as copy of them to your credit card company to show that they have acknowledged that the phone was un-ordered and that you have made every effort to assist them in the return of their property.

A nice young lady in broken English explained to me that I have to send the phone back to the Tracfone warehouse in Florida..I was told that a FedEx envelope would be sent to me and after sending my old phone back to them, I would receive a brand new phone (please note, brand new phone ) back to me within 3 to 5 business days. I did as instructed and sent my old phone back in hopes I would receive my new phone in the time frame given to me.

Well, 10 days went by and I did not hear from Tracfone or straight talk and I started calling them to inquire about my phone. Well, to my surprise, I got a nice young lady again in the Philippines who told me that my phone has not arrived yet in the warehouse. I explained to her that my phone did arrive in the warehouse 8 days ago according to FedEx. Lo and behold, the young lady hung up on me. So with this, it became a daily struggle with customer service in the Philippines and myself here in the USA to figure out what happened to my phone.

After 7 days of making phone calls 2 to 3 times a day with holding times from anywhere between 5 minutes (hang up) and 2 hours (finding a manager) customer service decided to transfer me to Florida themselves instead of giving me the phone number so that I could call them. After another 30 minutes or so, a male person named Carlos answered the phone and told me he was a manager at straight talk -Tracfone and would handle my case from now on. He truly apologized for the delay and misunderstanding customer service agents in the Philippines gave me and would overnight my brand new Nokia e71 in the morning. I talked to him on a Wednesday and he promised me to call on Thursday morning with my tracking number.

Well guess what? Thursday came and I did not hear back from Carlos, the Manager. So on Friday, I decided to call Carlos myself with the phone number he provided to me and guess again? There was no Carlos, the Manager. Oh, how duped I felt.. But then again I found another customer service agent (this time with a heavy Spanish or Cuban or Puerto Rican accent, maybe it was Jamaican; at this point.

I was fuming and really didn't care anymore). He said my phone would be send to me on Monday because it was already Friday and there was no shipping over the weekend. I asked him what time did the warehouse send out the last phones on Fridays and I was told at 4 pm or 1600 hours if you like military time. I said to him it's only 11 am Miami time why couldn't he send it today? And with his heavy accent, I was told not possible because they need to find a Nokia e71 first (at this time I was really fuming but I kept my cool).

So to make a long story short I received my refurbished phone the Friday after. From the time I first contacted customer service to the time I received my refurbished phone it took Tracfone-straigh ttalk almost 30 days, sigh. Now I should be happy to have a phone again but guess what? Within a few weeks my new refurbished phone would not charge anymore. You don't have to guess anymore because now I'm going to the same troubles again. Only this time with our friendly and lying Miami based customer service agents.

First again, I would receive a brand new Nokia e71 from Tracfone/straight talk to an excuse to not send out a phone to me at all because they have not received my old one yet? Yes, even though FedEx delivered it on January 3rd 2011. One so called manager ( sorry can't remember your name because you spoke more Spanish than I did) who explained that the warehouse was so busy with all the returned phones over the holiday weekend that mine has not been logged in yet? Wel, if you guys wouldn't sell so much junk and empty promises, you may not have been so busy? But the cake really goes out to the customer service agent, Claudia, who thinks that lying for the company will shoot her straight to the top of the company. And then there is this nice guy who I believe was really trying to help me and for sure got fired over it.

And again to make a long story short, here I am again waiting for my phone that I paid almost $300 for with nobody giving me a straight answer where or when I will receive my brand new phone. Sorry, Straight talk or Tracfone or whatever you guys call yourself, you lost me as your customer. And thank you Walmart for not standing behind your product..

If you look up on the web, you can still find that offer. It is now two years. $300.00 was due me and they lie all the time. I felt scammed.

Please ask them this! I am personally going to do this and then, in my spare time start standing in front of Walmart with signs warning people not to get involved with this company. I am going to do it in larger cities that hopefully will get me some news coverage in hopes that Walmart will quit selling their service for them and eventually put them out of business! I urge you all to please do the same!

I called and complained. They again shut my phone off. Well 2 hours later, it came on. Today, I got a call from my ex to let me know they disabled her sim card and for her to have her phone back on, she would need a new sim card that could take up to 7 days to receive. I went and bought a little cheap flip phone for her until her sim card arrives. Well it has now been 10 hours and 5 calls and the phone has yet to be turned on. The last 2 calls, they said wait 20 minutes and dial the famous *22890. That is a joke. That is all they know how to say.

Well long story short, the phone is still not on. I contacted the Better Business Bureau and also the FCC and filed complaints online, which was quite easy to do. I suggest that if they screw with your service, contact these proper authorities. I had to once before with them, it gets their attention really quickly because the Better Business Bureau contacts them within 3 days. So let the complaints add up and put these thieves out of business. Walmart should be ashamed for dealing with such an awful company. They are next on my list of making my complaints to. Trust me, go online and complain and you will be amazed how fast it gets fixed.

I got new phones a few days later which we purchased locally at a Wal-Mart store. It took one hour and fifty minutes to get two phones activated which is about an hour and forty eight minutes longer than it should've, again due to foreign customer service. Overall I am very concerned about having to call customer service and will only do so as a last resort. Other than that, the phones are working properly and we have very good Verizon service in our area.

Again, I promptly (in only a few hours) informed them of the error and asked that it be corrected in a timely manner as I use the phone for business purposes. It took several days to reactivate the phone with the correct number. This has been followed by a cycle of deactivation, reactivation with a different number and sometimes recovery of the correct number, only to have the process repeated. The problem happens due to an error in the company's payment processing. This was the cause of the initial error, which they were made aware of immediately (prior to the end of November) and multiple times each time I called to re-activate the service and the problem still has not been corrected.

I have tried two separate cards from two separate banks and had conference calls with the company and bank representatives to ensure that all billing information is correct and still have been unable to resolve the issue. The cards show as declined when the company tries to process a payment and the banks have never received a request for funds. This exact issue has existed for over three weeks and the company has not made a timely effort to resolve the problem. Often when in the process of informing the company of the error and attempting to reactivate the phone, I have had to spend up to three hours being transferred to up to six separate representatives, having to reexplain the situation to each person. I have taken detailed notes of the last several days, which detail the lengthy experiences in dealing with the customer service department in attempting to resolve the issue.

I spoke to over 20 customer service representatives over the course of 3 days—all either lied to me (fake names, fake employee numbers, tell me they are a manager when they aren’t, or promise me a new phone) or just hung up on me. Eventually, I reached an employee in Miami, Fl who was cooperative and helpful. She got my new phone ordered and sent me the tracking number which should arrive at my house tomorrow. I am currently in a different state and the screen fell off of my old phone yesterday and was impossible to use.

Since I had no way of getting access to the new phone arriving on the opposite side of the country tomorrow, I went down to Walmart and picked up a temporary phone. I called Straight Talk to get them to transfer everything to the phone I had just got. Everything seemed to have gone correctly until I made my first phone call and the person on the other end says, "Who is this?"

Straight Talk changed my phone number. When I called Straight Talk again I was transferred three times and spent around an hour on hold to hear, "I am sorry but you have to take this number." This morning I tried to use the phone again and it is disconnected. My plane to go back home leaves on Tuesday; and at this point my coworker, who doesn’t know when or where to pick me up at the airport, will never arrive as his number was lost with the old phones screen falling off. I do know that he would at least text me if he had my number, which has changed and been disconnected. Since he will not arrive, I will not be able to make it home until the day after I arrive—pedestrians are not allowed to walk through the underwater tunnel and I prefer not to swim 3 miles in December ocean.

I can understand if Straight Talk cut off his internet usage, but I can't agree with them rendering his phone useless. He saved for weeks to be able to purchase a phone, that he can now throw in the trash. I don't see how this can be legal.

I told them that I am a single father who needs to be in contact with my son in case something is wrong, and my work/school requires me to have a phone so they can get a hold of me. Their response was, "Sorry sir, but we cannot help. If you want a replacement, you need to send us your phone first." I told them that I am even willing to be billed if I don't return the phone in a timely manner, like all other cellular companies do. I got the same response. When did satisfying a customer become less important to a company? What’s next, company profit? A company's profit is dependent on the amount of customers a company can maintain and how much they spend on said company’s services.

I was put on hold and when she got back on the line, I was told there was no one available to authorize restoring my phone, and since it was Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I would have to wait and call back on Friday during business hours. I asked to speak to someone higher up, but she kept repeating the same, so I continued through the holiday with no phone. I called back on Friday morning, and a gentleman, who was very hard to understand, told me to turn my phone off and back on, and that service would be restored within an hour. He asked me to hold the line for a survey and then he hung up.

After an hour and a half and no phone service, I called back. I was kept on the phone for over 2 hours while she was checking my account and repeatedly asked me if I was sure I didn't call and transfer the phone because it has been an approved transaction already. I ended up losing my cool, told her it was not approved, because this was my account, and I had not approved it. I asked for a supervisor again. She said one was working with her on this, but no one else ever talked directly to me. She ended up telling me they would restore phone service, but that it would take up to 3-4 hours, and she would not tell me why. So I said, "Ok, I just wanted to get my phone service back", and I would wait.

After six hours had passed, and still no phone service, I called again. This time, I was told the phone is active, but pending awaiting assignment of new phone number. I insisted on same number and then I was told I could not have the same phone number because it was already expired. I told her I had been lied to all day long, and I did not believe that. I bought this phone in March of 2011, and had read the contract and the only mention of losing my phone number was being inactive for 60 days, which was not the case with me. I was then transferred to a lady who identified herself as a manager and after listening to me and reviewing the account, agreed to return my same number, but I am going to be without a phone another 3-5 days, no more than 7, because they have to mail out a new SIM card.

Apparently the Straight Talk employee who handled the original transaction for a customer transferring their service to another phone, made a mistake and put my number in, which is what I figured must have happened. But they should have been truthful to me from the start, instead of continually asking me if I was sure I hadn't called and made the transfer. People make mistakes, I understand that, but it was not my mistake, yet I am the one having to do without, and no one was interested in helping me or taking the time to look at the account and investigate what had actually happened.

No one at Straight Talk cared that I was without a phone over Thanksgiving. Family and friends were trying to call me were getting a message that my phone was disconnected. I spent all day Friday back and forth borrowing friends' phone to call Straight Talk trying to get this resolved. I was lied to time after time by every single person I talked to. I am awaiting a SIM card, because mine had been disconnected by the employee doing the original transaction and the SIM card would no longer work.

After looking up at complaints about Straight Talk, I see comments after comments by customers who have experienced the same unacceptable service. They all sound almost as if I could have written them. Now I'm nervous I may not receive the SIM card. How is a company allowed to continue operating like this? Yesterday was a horrible tormented day for me. Each time I called, I was patient with them, answered the same questions over and over until I was finally prodded into becoming an irate customer. I only wanted them to correct their mistake and get my service restored.

I called to check the status of my shipment once I had sent back the old phone. I was told they had it and would be shipping my new phone that day. When I called the next day to get a tracking number, I was told it was not shipped but would be going out the next day. I was told they would call me with the tracking number. I never got a call, so I called back that evening and was told the same thing. It was not shipped but they were going to send it the next day. I was assured by the manager that she would call me in the morning with the tracking number. Once again that night when I did not get a call I called back and was told the same thing.

When I became irate, I was told that this was their policy and I would get a call with the tracking number in the morning. They have still failed to provide me with a tracking number or any information other than saying it will be shipped the next day.

When I gave them the credit card again, they would not activate service from that date, but told me I needed to wait until the end of my payment plan. I explained that I didn't have any minutes left. It didn't matter to them that I would be without a phone for 15 days. Finally, the phone was activated but only appeared with 700 minutes. When I called back, I ended up on the phone for 3 hours and the phone service said 0 minutes.

I gave up and canceled service. Then, I found out that the $100 Straight Talk phone I had purchased 58 days ago was non-refundable after 30 days. Stay away from this company. They are ripoffs!

As the end of the month is approaching, so I buy my $45 dollar unlimited card and a few days before I am to use the new card, the phone does the same thing the last one did. So I call straight talk again and the process is repeated. But this time, they said I was to buy a new card before I got my new phone which wasn't a big deal because I still had my last card I bought. But if I didn't buy that card, I would have been very mad.

Anyway, I get my third phone and it works fine. I made it past a month and I was nervous about my phone messing up and a week after a month, it starts shutting itself off. I was like, no, not again. But it would turn itself on and work fine. By the end of the week, it shuts off and doesn't work. It just does the cycling through the Tracfone and Samsung pages.

I'm tired of this I'm going to call them again tomorrow and see what they are going to do. But the funny thing is I haven't dropped my phone, maybe twice, not bad drops or anything. But my girlfriend has dropped her over and over and hard too and hers works fine. I just don't know what to do. I'm wasting tons of money on something that problem isn't going to work again. I need my phone. I'm in college and I drive a lot. I have many jobs that have that number and school and family. Something needs to be done.

They would always send me the exact same phone model that hasn't been working for me. It would take weeks for a whole phone to be delivered to me. I relied on this company because it was cheap and what I could afford being a single parent. I need the phone for emergencies, traveling to and from work and other places that I go. I'm demanding a lawsuit for this company! I'm tired of their lies. Even a manager told me that he was sending me a new phone model that's in the same value as my old phone and when I called them back they had already sent me the same phone that I had been replacing 4-5 times!

Straight Talk is a scam artist! I have been trying to find a corporate office number and haven't found one. I'm really upset and have been without service for a month now waiting on the phone that they were suppose to send me. I have no phone now with a 4 year old and on a limited income. What should I do? I have been sitting without a phone for a month now! I'm a single parent and need a phone! This was all I could afford, but I'm looking into other phone companies now for great quality service and "American" customer service!

Went online to www.walmart.com. Bought the pins and instead of being sent a refill card right away (in about an hour) the order said it would be filled in two days (purchased on 11/19/11 said it would be processed by 11/21/11). Well, it is now 11/22/11 and no pin numbers yet. This is really annoying and what should be as simple as pulling up my email and resending the pin numbers has become a huge inconvenience for me. Still waiting to see how it all turns out. I am hoping for the best because I enjoy shopping online with Wal-Mart and I have great service with Straighttalk until this latest incident.

So why did Walmart offer it if they were not going to help you? Well any way, I received the envelope on Nov. 12th so I sent the phone back on Nov. 13 and they got it on the 16th according to tracking. I called on the 18th and I was told that they were in the process of sending a replacement. I asked the rep when would I receive my new phone, I was transferred and after being on hold for 15 minutes I hung up. So as of today I have not received any correspondents from Straight Talk customer service concerning the replacement. I still do not have my phone back. I need a cell phone when I am traveling back and forth to work so I had to purchase another phone from a different cell phone company.

But they told me I needed to wait until the end of my payment plan. I explained that I didn't have any minutes left. It didn't matter to them that I would be without a phone for 15 days. Finally, the phone was activated but only appeared with 700 minutes. When I called back, I ended up on the phone for 3 hours and the phone service said 0 minutes. I gave up and canceled the service. Then, I found out that the $100 "Straight Talk" phone I had purchased 58 days ago was non-refundable after 30 days. Stay away from this company. They are rip offs!

I dropped my account and I'm now going to drop my daughter's. It took 3 hours on the phone with Straight Talk to finally get them to send the new (used) phone and the problem is not solved. Also, she cannot use her phone in 65624, which is on the Straight Talk coverage map, and Straight Talk gives this run around of only used in the original registration zip code. But before I dropped my service, I went on a road trip. I had awesome signal, awesome call quality over the 2000-mile trip! The problem then is not the phone, it's the signal in this area, but they will not look into it. I'm tired of calling them over these issues and having to start over with explanations each time.

They didn't. I have been so frustrated that I've burst out in tears twice. The customer service reps do not speak good English. They are hard to understand and do not comprehend what you are telling them. I went through the same exact process six times in trying to reactivate my phone. They are like drones, they do not hear you when you tell them you've already tried this! I have all the activation codes memorized and have had three different zip codes and phone numbers in three days!

Two agents have conceded, after two hours on the phone, that no phone will work in this area, but they absolutely refused to give me any type of refund. You take the phone to a Walmart and they tell you to call Straight Talk. I have always been pleased with the service I received at Walmart. This has ruined my whole opinion of them. I live on a fixed income and went with Straight Talk because of the low price, but ended up with nothing to show for it! $135.00 is a lot of money for me to loose. I have never sued anyone, but would like to sue them for costs and all the anguish they have caused me. Seriously, this whole week has revolved around beating my head up against a brick wall with the Indonesians that they have running it! Nothing has been done to help me and I now know nothing will be after all I’ve went through. I am all for a class action law suit!

Finally, after hours on the phone, I spoke to a supervisor who told me that my account had been assigned a different number. I have had the original number for 14 years. At that point, I told the supervisor to get my number back for porting out to another service or I will rake legal action. The supervisor said she reactivated my account with my number. She lied. Now after 4 days without my phone number or phone (I use it for business), I still do not have an active account with my old number.

On October 30th, I called to cancel my cell phone service completely. They cancelled the service but said that they charged my credit card the day before and could not give me a refund. So now, I just payed $48.46 for a service that was cancelled.

I will look for a new phone service because this one does not care if they keep or lose people. If you want to keep me with this phone company then call me. If you do not call me in seven working days about this, then I will move to a new phone service.

I contacted Straight Talk on Monday Oct 3, 2011 regarding the defective phone. They told me they would send me a new phone when they received the defective phone. I sent in the defective phone to them. They received this phone on October 12, 2011. I was informed I would receive my new one within 3 to 5 business days after they received mine. It is now Oct 29th, and I still have not received my new phone. Every time I call, they continue to tell me that they can not contact the warehouse due to their high call volume. I called on Friday Oct. 28th and they once again told me the same thing that they were having trouble contacting the warehouse due to the high call volume. This is unacceptable.

On top of this, I am losing time. I paid for the $45 dollar a month plan. And they already owe me another $45 dollars for a month because they took money out of my checking account instead of using the prepaid card I had already added to my reserve account. So now they have my brand new defective phone, I have lost almost a month of service because they haven't sent me a new phone, and they still owe me another $45 for the month they stole. Now we are talking about $259 dollars that I am out of right now. That they can't seem to resolve.

They can take your money, yet they can't make good on it when your phone is defective or they owe you money back.

We have to buy the $45 unlimited service card, (will not work with the $30 service card, so they say) to put on the phone. We bought the $45 card, unlimited, and the phone is paid for, so and ST deactivated our phone; shut the phone down three days ago with no real explanation as to why. Of course, it's always past the 30 day return. It's 15 day return to Wal-mart, if you didn't know.

I didn't get stuck with another phone that I didn't like, but that's another story. So anyways, customer service people are not helpful, very unfriendly, and hard to understand. Straight Talk does have a good thing with the phone service and internet service, if they wasn't so greedy and cheap with their phones and services.

I repeated calls to Straight Talk technical support and they revealed that none of the straight talk phones will "ring through" to the bluetooth device it's paired with. They don't support "that feature", even though they advertise the phone has bluetooth capability. That's not right! Is the ability to "ring through" a bluetooth feature, or not? All other phones support this feature, from all other wireless providers. Has straight talk somehow stripped their phones of features that are standard on other provider's phones? Beware!

I was told by the representative that it was a guy that called in to have my number transferred which was an unauthorized transfer. I was told different things-- that my phone would be on and working in two hours yesterday, that it would be working in 8 hours as they had reactivated my sim card, that they sold my number to AT&T, that a sim card would be shipped overnight, etc. I have a secret code and the reps didn't ask those codes during the number transfer as she/he would have realized that they were talking the wrong person. Straight Talk reps performed an illegal act by transferring my number to another phone without my permission and violated my privacy.

On August 26/11, they finally admitted to receiving the phone back. It was because I made them look up the tracking number for the package and they can't deny it anymore. It was received by them and signed for. They said it would take 30 days to process a refund. And they said they would mail a check, even though I paid by Visa debit card and wanted it refunded to the card. It's now 10/5/11 and I still have not received my refund. I have filed a dispute with my bank back on 5/26/11. But they said the merchant said it was a valid charge and refused to assist me any further. And they never asked for proof that I returned the phone.

When they closed my claim, I asked why didn’t they ask for this. They said they should have. So, I sent it in and they reopened my claim. Then a month later, they upheld the original ruling. Even though I have proof I sent it back and that Straight Talk received it, they will do nothing to help me. I was told by a claims person there that I could always sue in small claims court. Needless to say, I will be looking into filing a complaint with them with the OCC. But the fact still remains that I am being defrauded out of $160.58 by Straight Talk. I don’t know what to do now.

I had a phone for a year, when I dropped one time too many. So I ordered a new one but it was defective. I ordered another and still defective. On my third attempt, take a guess! I am told that I cannot return this phone to the store but I have to pay FedEx myself to send it back.

I decided to send it via insured mail. Good thing, since it has been a month and they have no clue, as to what I am talking about. When I have called, they said, "What Phone?" or at least, that is what the foreign people say. I hate to tell them but text book English is not real English. I should know, because I took text book French and I get very strange looks from the French when I try to talk.

Insure you returns because it may go bye bye, like mine.

The first phone was a flip up phone, and the inside screen cracked in less than two weeks. Not the plastic part, but the LCD part. The second phone did the same thing, but on the tiny outside screen. The third phone cracked the LCD screen on the inside. Every time we had to go to Wal-Mart, deal with the gothic witch at the electronics counter, and then spend hours on the phone with Straight Talk to transfer the number and set up the phone. Not to mention that every time I had to re-enter contacts, set up the browser, and tweak the phone settings to his liking.

The fourth phone my husband got was an upgrade so he wouldn't have to deal with the cheapness of the Motorola that had given us such headaches. I went through the set up process for the fourth time. Only this time when he brought it back from the store it was activated already, and had a new phone number. Just great!

I called straight talk and was told that they would have to send me a new SIM card, and it would take 3-5 days to get it to me so we could keep the same phone number as the original phone. I told the person on the phone that was not acceptable, and she needed to work around it.

She assured me that she could and de-activated the phone in order to do so. I was on the phone with her for two hours programming codes by hand and being put on hold while she did the same at her end. At the end of the process, she told me that the phone would be up and working in an hour, and to turn it off and on to test it. The phone came back on after 24 hours (not the hour she said), but with the same phone number.

The next day I spent two and a half hours on the phone doing the same thing with another tech, a guy this time, who assured me the same thing. After hours on hold, programming codes, and begging for more talk time on the phone to compensate us for the inconvenience, he gave us 200 minutes, and assured me everything was fine.

Again, it was not. It took 24 hours again, with the same result except now the internal information on the phone stated that the phone number had in fact changed, while the caller id stated otherwise, and I had to use the new number to reach the cell phone. Meanwhile, the phone number that I wanted to keep told callers that the voicemail had not been set up.

Today, I asked for a supervisor right from the start, and Mary Jo assured me she was a supervisor, and that she would be able to help me. I spent two hours and 45 minutes on the phone with Mary Jo-employee number **. I spent the next couple of hours programming codes into the phone again and being put on hold again with her breaking in every three minutes telling me to bear with me, all the while my temper going higher and higher.

At the end of the long and tedious process, she informed me that she had to call the carrier, and that they weren't answering her call. I told her to put me on hold and take care of the situation. She came back every three minutes again until I felt like pulling my hair out when she said please bear with me time and time again. Every time she asked me if I was still on the line, like I should have answered a question when she never asked me one. "Please bear with me" doesn't require an answer, if she had said "can you please bear with me", I would have said yes. I was ready to scream at her by the end of it. I was able to hold on though, thinking that we would have a satisfactory result at the end.

In the end, she told me that she would indeed have to send me a new SIM card, and I was infuriated! If the first person had gone ahead and done that, I would probably all ready have the card, and wouldn't have wasted days and hours trying to fix the phone. I told her that Straight Talk was going to compensate us with something, and she came back after putting me on hold yet again to tell me she could give me five days on my service days. What a crock! I told her to put me on hold and get me more than that because we would have been waiting for 8 days by the time the SIM card got here, not to mention the time I had wasted on the phone over the last couple of weeks. She came back and told me she could give me 10 days. I told her that was really generous of Straight Talk.

Now, I was at my wits end from the beginning, and the end result of my hours of work, and my patience was that I would have to wait to have the number I wanted, and they were barely making up for it with the 10 days. Unbelievable!

As I told Mary Jo, my husband is a talk show radio host in Fayetteville, and he has people calling his phone all the time to set up interviews, and appearances on his show. I am talking about editors of sports journals, other talk show hosts local and national ones even one from Canada, athletic directors, coaches, and a couple of people who are on ESPN national T.V. It is not professional and has become impossible for him to keep in contact with these people because the telephone number that he has given them says that the voicemail is not set up.

I can't believe the position that Straight Talk has put us in, the time and effort it has taken just to keep a simple phone number. The cheapness of the phones they sell at Wal-Mart, and the ignorance, and incompetence of their staff from the simple technicians all the way up to the supervisors.

I am appalled by the lack of knowledge that has caused the delay in sending a new SIM card, I am frustrated by the time it has taken out of my personal schedule, as well as the professional implications my husband has to deal with because of the inconvenience Straight Talk has imposed on us. Why he continues to use Straight Talk is beyond me. He refuses to discuss it on the radio show even though it would probably cause a boycott of their products in the Fayetteville area, refuses to put it on Twitter and Facebook. I suppose he is thinking it is unprofessional of him to do so, but I would think it would be a public service. So, I am going to do it for him. Even if I have to call every talk show in the nation, everyone everywhere will hear of this incompetence, ignorance and inconvenience put upon us by Straight Talk.

As my husband's passion and talent is being on the radio with his words spoken to a loyal and adoring audience, my talent is my written word read by everyone I know, everyone they know, and every outlet I can find. Straight Talk will hear my story not only from me, but from every possible facet available to the common consumer. Thank you for your time, as I have given Straight Talk plenty of my valuable time, and expect them to do the same for me to make this right.

I am writing this to let others know their policy is for you to first return the phone, then, you will get a replacement (so they say). I asked about transferring my contacts over, since I will not have the phone I paid for, and I was told that I had to write my contacts and the phone numbers down before sending the phone.

One of the main complaint is "sim card unregistered" which leads to cancellation of all phone use except 911 use. This turns into money and time loss for the user in more ways than one because the entire billing period is paid up front. The company keeps this money whether or not the phone is dealt with. One person’s loss may be as little as a day or two, to much more as in buying another phone, and having the same things happen. Since Straight Talk is selling phones in the millions as per their website, I can see where this amount would be staggering.

Thank you for your time up front. Richard ** I would leave a number but mine is not working.

I am without the "unlimited" internet service that I am paying for.

They have ridiculous expectation on their end that you can spend a week without a phone while they fix their screw-ups on your account, and they have no offers of temporary relief. Sheer fraud on their part - I discovered this for a fact when I was told that I had to call from a second phone, (interesting trick when you are single) so they could walk me through re-programming my Straight Talk cell because of its defects. So, I went to Walmart customer service to use theirs. The WM employee took one look at my face and handed me her phone. I called ST's junk customer service merry-go-round for an hour and eventually, they said that it would take 3 days for them to put my existing ST number onto my replacement ST cell. At that point, I let them know that I was aware that they were full of it, and they changed their tune and fixed my issue in 30 seconds instead of three days. Amazing what they can accomplish when they get off their lazy **.

Finally, I got the phone yesterday, after a full 16 days without a cellphone. But the phone they sent would not work. They said that the SIM card was defective. Why on earth would they send me a new phone with a defective SIM card? Didn't they test it? Now, they are telling me to wait another 3-5 days before they will ship a new SIM card. This is totally unbelievable. I have been lied to numerous times, and they keep offering free days to compensate. I don't want free days, I want a cellphone that works.

This is the worst customer service in my 43 years of life. They would not even give me a "loaner" phone when I am currently on day 17 without a cellphone. You would think that when they ** up, they would take control of the situation. But they just keep reading off a piece of paper saying "high call volume. Blah, blah, blah." I wish I had seen the complaints about this company before I switched phone companies.

Later in the afternoon, I talked to Vince StraghtTalk on Facebook. He said that they would ship another SIM card, which would be the 3rd one, overnight to arrive on Friday. Of course, I never got it. I found out that it had never been even processed at StraightTalk, let alone shipped. After several hours on the phone and numerous messages left on Facebook on Friday, 9/2/11, Vince StraightTalk Facebook told me that they would ship another one overnight. As of late last night (9/2/11), they were unable to provide a tracking number for the shipment. They use Fed Ex for their shipping. Now I find out that they never shipped it out on 9/2/11 either. And I was told to wait until Tuesday 9/6/11 to even get a tracking number. When I asked if the latest Sim card would resolve the problem, I was told that they can't answer that question. I am getting no answers, and certainly no resolution of the problem. Just go on their Facebook page and click on "Discussions". There are pages of people having similar problems. Apparently, StraightTalk has no idea how to resolve the problem, or they just don't care. I am out $167.00 and still don't have a working phone.

I have called seven times and emailed several times. Each time on the phone is 30 minutes or longer. Today was a good day, it was 90 minutes being transferred from one person to another. Now they say it will be 30 days from August 12 that I will get a refund. And they don't speak my language, which is English! Horrible company.

As of yesterday, they were still calling to tell me that there was a problem with one of the ports. If you do not have the ticket number for your issue, forget getting any assistance quickly (If quickly is even in their vocabulary at Straight Talk Customer Service). Seriously, I think they get paid by the minute on each call! Straight Talk may be okay if you are not going to port a number, but customer service is horrible.

In conclusion, they did not help me. Do not buy this phone or you will have problems - dropped calls and an inactivated phone! The have very poor customer service. WalMart needs to sever ties with this company!

So we bought a new phone today for $43.00 and some change, we got the phone home and low and behold. The phone is turning off and on all on its own. So, we called Straight Talk AGAIN and guess what they told us? "Oh, you seem to be having a service issue; so we will change your phone number." So now we have a new number. Thankfully, our phone works now. But did we really have to spend $43.00 to make our phone work when it was just a service issue? Anyways, we have been to three Walmarts today and I am NOT driving back to Walmart. So I guess they won... For now.

So today, I purchased another phone working off the Verison tower. I got my number switched over to it and it worked for all but 30 minutes before not letting me except or make calls or texts. My phone still says I have 29 days left on my service card and I have four bars! I just tried to call Straight Talk and they said due to the amount of callers at the moment, my call could not be taken; to call back later. No kidding, if they do everyone like this, I'm sure they DO have an ungodly amount of callers.

The phone was received by them on March 2011. I was to receive a refund check of almost $70 plus I was asking to be reimbursed for the $10 postage by April 25, 2011. I still have not received my refund.

Each time I call, I get "Peggy", who puts me on hold and/or transfers me from one person to another. None of them seem to understand what I am asking. They repeatedly ask me for the same information. I have tried to get them to put an American on the phone – to no avail. They act like they don't know what I am asking. I want my refund.

What are my options? I am very disappointed with Walmart for being the sole distributor of this product with no local people/numbers for customer service. I have had numerous problems with these phones and when you call for help, they can't figure it out and say you have to purchase a new phone.

So right now, I'm paying for a service that I am not receiving. I did email them twice, and once no human reply. When I did get a human reply, it was very vague, stating I should call the costumer service number. So, I had to use my parents’ phone to call, and waited a good 20 minutes on the phone with no results. I did get a ticket number, and they stated I should call back within 24 hours until someone could figure it out. I still need to call them back today. I will let you know what happens! This time is the last time I'm calling them. If it’s not resolved, I would like to be compensated.

Jacob F

Today July 19 2011 I go back to St Helens store, from Portland again. Indeed there was a person that helped me take care of this. When I purchased the first phone I paid $99.88, had receipt. Now phone is on sale for $89.88. When transaction with Straight Talk was completed and it came time to complete sale, I said I have a credit for $10.00 coming back. Person helping me said he would have to call Lisa back for approval. Lisa told us she would not give the refund. I tried to explain to her that if I had come in, made any kind of purchase and it didn't work out, and had to bring it back, if the item on that day was less expensive that they would defiantly give me the credit between full price, and sale price. Lisa at that time got rude and told me she was giving me a phone. I said she was not giving me a phone, Straight Talk was giving me a new phone. So i guess I had to just donate $10.00 to Walmart.

He supposedly checked with his supervisor (to see if he had done it correctly) and assured me they would stop. As stated above, they did not. I am now in the process of looking for another service provider (Virgin Mobile ???), and will be leaving Straight Talk as promised. I must say, the customer service reps were very professional and tried to be helpful (so I do not have a complaint about them).

Whole other story dealing with Walmart. I was finaly after 2 grueling days traded to a new phone by Walmart after filing an online complaint against them. got my new phone, Straight Talk at first didnt want to put my old number on the new phone until they recieved from me the old phone, i told them Walmart has it!! "Vell ve cant do anyting aboot it until ve git your old phone"(broken english).. me: "I Dont Have It Walmart Has It!!".. Straight Talk: "Vell ve cant do anyting until ve git the oder phone from you".. Me:. " I Dont Have The Other Phone Walmnart Has It, They Traded Me This New Phone For It".. Straight Talk: "I am checking my system, i'm so sorry ve cant do anythin for you until ve git the oder phone from you".. this went on for over an hour.. finaly got my old number back, but was charged sales tax by Walmart for a Straight Talk "Service" card.. i was told that there was a law passed years ago that you cannot charge Sales Tax on a "Service", is this true??

Not only are you put on hold but every 30 seconds, they will get back on the line telling you that they are looking at your account and please hold another two-three minutes. All these take up your time. The average call is going to be at least 40-45 minutes if you really have a problem.

So yesterday, I called because my phone won't call out yet again. One of the first things the technician had me do is perform a factory reset on my phone. Before I did this, I asked if this was going to wipe out all my files because I informed her that I have a 16GB SD card that I can copy everything to because I have backed nothing up yet. She informed me that my files will be back on my phone 15 minutes from the time of the reset so we reset it.

Guess what, it didn't work after another 75 minutes. The problem still wasn't resolved. She told me that a supervisor will have to call me back in order to get the problem resolved. The phone call lasted 96 minutes. An hour and a half later, I checked my phone because I have not received a call back but it works anyway so I tried to go to my contacts. Guess what, everything on my phone was wiped clean. Several ringtones that I had to purchase, all my pictures, all contacts, all videos, everything. So I called them back. They told me to see where the technician told me the files would be replaced; however, there is no way to retrieve this information. Also I should not have performed a reset anyway. I got no solution so I called corporate headquarters and they were kind enough to give me a 90-days service. However, I had three times that much in just ringtones, not including everything else I lost, let alone the 90-minute call.

So now, guess what, my phone isn't dialing out. I called Straight Talk and I was on the phone with the technician for six minutes 30 seconds and told them literally seven times the problem with my phone. The last thing they asked me before I hang the phone up was, "So what is the main problem you are experiencing with your phone?"

I would not recommend Straight Talk to my worst enemy.

However, this time I had a different phone number, so I called customer service and told them what they had done and that I wanted my original phone number back. So we did the reactivation process all over again and you wouldn't believe that these idiots gave me yet another phone number. So I called them back, and explained all this ** again. And while all the other calls were 20 to 40 minutes long, this call took well over an hour; then I had to wait for 24 hours before reactivating. All the while, I still had no service under any number.

Well, finally, on Friday evening, I was able to activate with my original phone number; however, on Sunday morning, they deactivated it again. The lady told me I ran out of minutes on July 1; and began to explain that I was set up on auto-draft and she said, "No, sir. You are not on the auto-draft program", and explained to her how they have no clue as to anything that's going on. And when they say their system is updating for tens of minutes, don't believe it. They're just stalling, hoping you hang up and go away. Straight Talk is **.

One time, when I called and talked to a representative on pay-day, I asked her to add my minutes to an old phone, but instead, she just talked me through re-programming my phone, and I'm afraid they'll just keep having me reprogram my phone until my one year warranty runs out. I truly believe that they will never let me send my phone in for warranty repair, and my warranty will run out and I'll have to buy a new phone. That's about it for now. I have no problem with talking to one of your attorneys. Thank you very much.

Three months ago, I chose to do the auto refill which has been a mistake from the get go. The first time a charge showed up in my bank account, it was for $49 and change. I learned that auto refill charges taxes and not a flat $45 fee. After learning that, I was mad but accepted that amount up until this past week. I finally upgraded my phone to a better one, and when I did, I had to wait on a sim card to come in the mail which my old one didn't have. Upon receiving the sim card, I called and spent almost two hours on the phone to learn that I now have a different number than the one I've had forever. To get my old number back, I had to wait on yet another sim card to be mailed to me along with no service till then.

My auto-refill had just been paid also four days prior to this. They wanted to charge me yet again, after I now had a different number too, and spent almost four hours on the phone going from one person to another to find anyone who could understand English. They speak it--but don't understand it. They kept repeating the same things over and over, and saying: take your time, we understand, let me navigate my system. Then they would ask you the same thing again and keep repeating it back to you--along with saying "I understand, take your time, and let me navigate my system to check on that for you." Speaking English is different from understanding it, and I honestly believe that they read from a script they have infront of them and that certain words you say prompts them into what to say. After that round of over a dozen times of the same words, I did get someone who spoke and understood it a little better or so I thought at the time.

I explained that my auto refill had just been paid and that they shouldn't have to take another payment. I was told that they wouldn't, and yet here I am less than a week later with $49 and change being deducted yet again. I called my bank and explained that they are taking two payments instead of one and they are investigating into fraud with them. Straight talk does not have rollover minutes, and if you load a card before the 30 days is over, your time starts right then and not at the end of the 30 days of the previous payment. As I stated in the beginning, if you even buy a card and load it one minute late, you will lose your service.

Their service may be cheap, but its a hassle with people who can't comprehend English, and charging taxes on auto refill versus just buying the card at Walmart adds up in time. To me, it's not worth it. I hope no one makes this mistake that I did. Getting a new phone will screw up your account bigtime with Straight Talk, make you lose your number, and auto-refill will allow Straight Talk to rip you off fast! Don't do it! It takes hours to get anyone on the phone for technical help, and you really wish you hadn't bothered to begin with once you go through this.

Another minor problem with this service is the phone will and does shut off at any given time without warning. Text messages don't show who are sending them to you until you open and read them, and the internet is very limited. If you don't get auto-refill, Straight Talk will and does send numerous text messages daily asking you to pay that way. Also when you are trying to either call out or send a text, if a phone call or text comes in, the phone will freeze up not allowing either to happen till it clears between the two things happening.

I have had to send new phone numbers to everyone which drives them nuts that it keeps getting changed. Having the phone shut off while using it is a major inconvenience when it does regularly and not just once in a while. You can't get anyone in customer service to help at all and none of them understand English, and seem to read a script over and over, hours and hours are wasted on the phone trying to get anything fixed -- and the end result is, nothing gets done.

Here I am now with a charge on my checking account on February 5, 2011 that was assured would not happen. I was told to decline the phone when it was delivered & I wouldn't be charged at all. I checked the tracking number with FedEx & called to tell them not to even attempt to deliver it to my address as I was declining the package as told by the Straight Talk representative. They gave me a confirmation number to confirm that it was being sent back to Straight Talk.

I just spent 1 hour & 31 minutes on the phone with Straight Talk trying to get them to refund my money that was never supposed to be charged. I was still told that they couldn't promise me they would refund my money before they received the phone back. Straight Talk even confirmed the confirmation number with FedEx that they provided me to prove that the phone was going back to them without even attempting to deliver it to me. I have bills to pay that can't be paid without this charge being removed from my account that never should have been posted in the first place. I will also be incurring overdraft charges that never should have happen if this refund isn't processed today. They lied to me on the phone so I went & purchased another phone based on those lies. This is false representation.

I will not be telling people the positive feedback I was telling before I realized this fraudulent charge was on my account. I dropped AT&T thinking that I would be with a good wireless provider. However, look at what I have to deal with now? There is no reason that my money can't be refunded today as I have diligently tried to get them to do so. I have asked as pleasantly & patiently as possible for Straight Talk to do the right thing & refund my money. I can only say if it isn't done today & I have to incur these additional charges I will do so much advertising on the internet to put this email out there to give others a choice of not being treated this way.

The first phone took 10 minutes to activate and be able to make and receive calls. On Jan. 21, 2011, they decided that there must be something wrong with this phone too. They sent me a FedEx to send the phone back. I shipped it out on Jan. 24, 2011 and someone signed for it on Jan. 25, 2011. On Jan. 26, 2011, they told me that they were waiting for confirmation that the phone had been received. When they finally told me that they had my phone, I got an email that it would be three to four days (maybe seven days) from the date they received it until I get my replacement.

It is now Jan. 31, 2011 and they are still telling me that it is still being processed so they cannot give me any tracking number or even a date when it will be shipped. I had several calls from a Charmaine that I would have my phone on Jan. 31, 2011. It is now 10:08 PM and I still don't have the phone. I had planned on upgrading my phone in a few months but now, all I want is my money back so I can go somewhere else--someone that understands customer service.

Straight Talk/Tracfone does not tell you the network the phones access. Therefore, you make your purchase on affordability and features of the phone. With the promise of overnight FedEx delivery, I received my phone two weeks later only to find out that this phone with the (G) extension only works on the AT&T network. In my area we don't even get one bar for AT&T. Everyone in my neighborhood knows that Verizon is the best carrier for this place.

I called and got an RMA number and the address to which I am to return the phone. I packed it up, took it to the post office, obtained the tracking number and certified to the correct address. Straight Talk told me I would have my refund within 30 days. This is over a month and a half ago.

Meanwhile I went back to the site and they have another Samsung (refurbished) phone for free and I ordered that one (451C) that I know accesses the Verizon network. The phone was refurbished and free and the card for the minutes was $30. That phone came within a week, activation was easy enough. And I could be heard loud and clear on this phone.

My problem is the refund of the old phone in the amount of $99. One rep tells me it will come within 30 days of the date of return by CHECK. Another one tells me that the money will be returned to my bank account. Another rep told me they have no record of every receiving the phone.

I have email stating the opposite, receipts for the return and certified mail as well. Nobody wants to give me my money back and I don't know how this can happen. They, of course, try to keep you on the phone as long as they can so you use up your minutes talking to them.

You know, I am sure Wal-Mart has their eyes on Tracfone, a company ripe as a possible entry point into the communications field. I like Wal-Mart. I don't know if they know what's going on there at the Tracfone headquarters. Whenever I returned something to Wal-Mart they never played games with the money spent; it doesn't seem like their style.

This is so very frustrating to deal with obvious scamming. I mean if you have 100,000 people who paid $100 for a phone and you hold the money for a month, you are earning interest on $10 mil. I am getting no satisfaction from them.

I am signed up on Straight Talk's auto refill where my unlimited service is paid on a monthly basis ($45 + $1.31 tax) automatically to my credit card. As of 12/24/10, my phone had stopped providing service (unable to make calls or text). I called Straight Talk to explain the problem. The representative took me through the code entry mode where I had input a series of numbers and took the battery out; we did this 3 times. Under the prepaid folder, under my phone number, I noticed the phone number was a different number than what had been assigned to me a year ago when I purchased the phone. When I asked the rep why the phone number was different, she informed me "you don't understand how that works, the phone number does not have to be the same number given to you; the numbers are shared for your area".

What? Okay, I replied. I mean I am obviously at the mercy of this company. My monthly $45 was paid on 12/24/10 to cover me for the majority of January 2010. I have paid for service that, as of 12/29/10, I still do not have. The rep then told me (since none of the coding, removing of the battery and turning off and on of the phone didn't work) that as a part of their troubleshooting, they would need to change the phone number. What? I told her I've had this phone number for over a year. Again, I'm at the mercy of it, I have no phone. I agreed to the phone number change so that I could get this resolved. While waiting, the representative disconnected the call.

Wow, yes. So then I called back. While I was calling back, I was logged into my Straight Talk account online and noticed that my phone did not have a phone number attached to it. So when I called Straight Talk and entered in my phone number, the recording stated that there was no such number. I got another rep (Francis). I again explained my situation. Since I didn't have a phone number, I provided her with the serial number of my phone. She accessed the information and yes, she took me through the prepaid folder and again I entered a series of numbers (under the code entry mode), took the battery out, put it back in, turned off the phone, turned on the phone. We did this 2 times. After taking out the battery (for 1 minute), I was asked to dial *22890. The phone showed "calling". Activation, but no connection, no activation. In fact, the message I received was activation was unsuccessful. The rep then stated that since they were so busy due to the holiday and all the activations, it may take 2-24 hours and to keep trying.

It took me 2 hours today, 12/29/10, with no resolution. I went through this exact same process, steps and time when I called on 12/24/10 when the phone stopped having service. One last note, I am unable to remove my credit card information from my account or cancel the service at all on their website. This is a very, very shady company. As of today, 1/1/2011, 9 days after the service stopped (9 days into my prepaid plan), still no cell phone service!

Today, 12/17/10 and still I have no phone every sim card 2 total received many days passed with no sim card even thou promised an overnight shipment by FedEx due to this Fantom sim card and inability to get a tracking number or confirmation that a sim card was even sent I did as they said continued to call corporate office as well as wait on manager to call back to confirm my new sim card shipment never once was I called back, so everyday I have called, everyday I was told the same thing a sim card was sent but no sim card came except for the sim I received on 12/10/10 and 12/17/10. Well, to my anguish none of these sim cards work!

I again today was told another sim card is on the way and there is no way to reverse this transaction all I can do is wait for new sim even thou the one I received this morning was just sent priority mail overnight by fed ex. I have been promised 2 months free service 1 month for the month I already had on my old phone and another month for my inconvenience only to be told by another rep that I may or may not receive that even thou it was promised days ago. I am very upset during this time my daughter ended up in psych ward and son in jail and due to fact I had no cell phone I was unable to be reached. all of my kids are straight talk customers and have also experienced problems with straight talk I am very frustrated.

I called corporate office. Melvin stated it could take up to 21 days before a replacement be sent out. Keep in mind that the services have been paid for up to one month. However after 21 days, it will be time to add new minutes, Straight will not be responsible for it.

He also stated that there is no one I can speak with, they would have to email the higher company. I'm really frustrated right now. I've never heard of such. Please investigate this issue as it seems to me that more will arise with their unprofessionalism in consumer care.

So I faxed the receipt showing proof of purchase to a fax number in Miami, FL. I waited 2 days because the L2 said someone would be calling me back and they never did. I feel like I'm in an ongoing crisis after numerous hours of time that has been spent on the phone with Straight Talk. I have missed lunch breaks trying to get this issue resolved and even stayed after work late some evenings to make calls to them. I have no other means of communication so they are cutting off my lifeline and I am extremely frustrated. No one from Straight Talk seems to know how to assist me from here. Every time I call, I either get hung up on or told I need to fax a Walmart receipt. I didn't purchase the phone from Walmart, I purchased it from a seller on eBay. I am at wit's end with this disaster!

Please don't buy from Straight Talk. They don't have customers as their first priority. I am going to call corporate to see if they have any common sense. No offense against anyone, but their customer service needs major help. I tried to be patient and treated all people right despite the language barrier. But when I tell you the same thing a million times and you keep repeating the same steps that you know won't resolve the issue, that's just ridiculous! This makes me appreciate companies with contracts.

So I have requested refund for my service that I'm not able to use, although I pre-paid for it. I called Walmart and they gave me their "internal" phone number. Same message. I can't tell you strongly enough to avoid this company and their scam! They stole my money. I changed jobs 2 days ago. My cell phone number is the only way for clients to reach me. Their service won't even allow voicemail or text messages to be saved during this "down time," so I missed every client order and call/text.

Everything that was enticing about this company is false. It's a gimmick to lure you to them. Then like a spider, you become their prey. You don't pay ahead, you lose your service. You pay early, you lose your minutes. You tell me, who doing who? After that several more days, I have went days without service. The automated system states that my number is not active. This happened around the 1st to 3rd of the month. No telling on how long you are on hold, just waiting. Trying to push the phone through your ear. Nobody seems to be able to speak good, clear English.

After several supervisors and requesting to keep my number, no hope. I was still not able to. I was informed the same problems will occur if I didn't change my number. I don't know but it's hard for me to believe that I'm the only one experiencing this with this company. You know, there was a time when I would tell anyone that Walmart was my store. I have even been in a heated conversation about a company I like. I truly pray and hope the good name of Walmart won't be blemished with greed. Straight Talk.

After a few days, I called to be told they never received it! Even with my confirmation number, they told me I was wrong. Then it was found, I was told within 30 days I would receive my money! That was Sept. 23, today is Oct. 28. I was told it was still being processed. It started on the 14th and why not be patient? Again, Straight Talk is not honest, will lie and hope one forgets to keep the money owed to them. Do not, I repeat, do not use them!

When I asked when it would be sent/received, his exact response was "Just wait for it, okay? " (No, that was not okay! ) When the phone still was not received by today, I again called the Philippine call center. The first person I spoke to provided me with a FedEx tracking number. I called to track the shipment and was told it was delivered on September 29th at 5:35 pm. Not possible, since I didn't even send the broken phone to them until September 30th. I called the call center again, was told by this rep, Joy, that it wasn't sent at all. She put in yet another report to escalate the shipment.

I was promised by the supervisor, Francis, that I would have a replacement phone by the end of the week, which is tomorrow. Since he apparently, according to tonight's rep, Joy, did not get it ordered, it seems unlikely that a phone from Indiana can possibly be received in North Carolina by tomorrow unless they hand deliver it! This whole experience with this company has been terrible and it seems as though a class action suit is unavoidable in the foreseeable future.

I then tried to call and activate it. I had asked to have my phone number ported in. During this wait time, the number was taken from my phone, so it did not work. There were countless calls, countless people and no one could get it activated. They then decided that they had put in the incorrect Sim card. They wanted me to pay for the shipping of the new Sim card. I argued that this was not my doing; they had put in the wrong card. I got someone that would work with me. They said they would send the card free shipping assuring me that all I would have to do was to insert the new card and I would be all set. This was now three weeks without a phone and countless hours on the phone.

The card did arrive, but it did not work in the phone, they couldn't get it activated. Fortunately, the letter enclosed had a number for the corporate offices and so I called. I got an Armondo in Customer Service. He listened to me and said, unfortunately, they sent me another incorrect Sim card. The card that was sent was Verizon and I needed AT&T. He assured me that this would fix the problem. He asked me to call him when the card arrived. The card arrived and I called. He was not in his office and neither were the three other customer service reps.

I asked to speak to the highest officer they had. This was a Perlene **. She answered and was horrified. She said she would send a new phone out; she would activate it herself and give me two months of free service. Great! Finally, after close to a month. I was desperate to save money, so I persisted and it paid off.

This was last week. On Monday, I was at a meeting and put my wonderful new phone on vibrate; it went haywire, vibrating randomly, flashing all sorts of pages and many of the buttons no longer worked. I called Ms ** assistant, who did not believe me. I took it to Walmart. The clerk examined this phone and he saw that it did not work. He said that they were getting a lot of this style of phone returned.

I went home and called the assistant. I told her that I could verify this and he told me they had problems with this. She said that she had this phone and never had any problem. She said I could send the phone to her so she could see for herself. I told her that I was not going to send the phone; at least I could call and receive messages. She said that she would send a new phone and I needed to call her and she would help me activate it.

The phone came today after I left for work. The assistant called me at work, rudely telling me she saw that the phone had arrived and now it was time to activate it. I told her that I could not, while at work, but I would call Monday and do this. A few hours later, I tried calling my kids from work to see if they were okay (I work until 10pm).

The phone had been deactivated. I cannot get help through the website, the lines are all busy (hi call volume) when I try to call. This is unbelievable and I think you should know about it.

I called customer support and after about 45 minutes on the phone with them, they told me that since I was transferring a Verizon Wireless number, they needed to send me a new SIM card. Nowhere had they warned me about this beforehand! Anyway, the SIM card was supposed to arrive in three-five days. Six days later, I called back StraightTalk support to report that my SIM card had not arrived. For some reason, they couldn't help me that day and told me to call back today. So this morning I called them back and after about 20 minutes on the phone with them, they gave me the FedEx tracking number for the package. I went on FedEx's web site to see where the package was and learned that they tried to deliver it last week when no one was home. They didn't leave any kind of slip saying they tried to deliver anything! So I had to drive about 20 minutes to the FedEx facility during lunchtime today to pick up my SIM card. Finally I have cell phone service again!

I believe, if they offer service, they should also be able to help the customer with any issue, without treating the costumer with rude comments and attitude. Wal-Mart should carry a policy, to back up their product. Also, a policy that assures the customer that if the product is damaged then, they will back up that product and assist in either fixing the issue. So I bought a another phone from them, and needed assistance on getting my numbers from my old phone transferred onto the new phone. They called the number on the box, and could not get through to anyone, and then informed me that it's not their job to assist in this matter. Then told me I would have to deal with it on my own.

The rep apologized for the misinformation I had been supplied previously and proceeded to restore my service. Once my service was restored by adding another $30 phone card, I was instructed to test my phone to see if it worked properly, it did, but what I didn't know was that Straight Talk had switched my phone number when restoring my service without my permission or knowledge and is now stating that my number is no longer available to me. I became irate because I had maintained the same phone number for more than fifteen years.

I was transferred to three different reps including a supervisor who spoke very little English and for the most part hadn't a clue as to what they were talking about. At one point, one of the reps stated that if I wanted my old phone number back, I would have to purchase a new phone card to reactivate my old phone number. I explained to her that I had been informed by three other reps that my old phone number was no longer with Straight Talk and questioned her statement, but was ready to forfeit the $30 phone card I had purchased earlier to recoup my old phone number.

Nevertheless, I was still skeptical and asked the rep to check one last time with her supervisor to make sure that what she was telling me was accurate. The rep placed me on hold, when she returned to the phone she stated, "I'm sorry, but my supervisor said your old phone number is no longer on our system, so we cannot reactivate it for you". I have dealt with many wireless carriers but Straight Talk is by far the worst. I really do question Wal-Mart's commitment to support such an inadequate and incompetent communication's company.