Straight Talk Wireless

They told me they have no record that I ever purchased or returned an iPhone. I know I did though because they had to sign for it. I never thought that they were going to demand those numbers to refund the money for my purchase upon return of the item. They now have both the 300 dollars and my iPhone and there’s nothing I can do about it.

All the power I have left is to tell my story and hope that no one else buys a Straight Talk phone from their online store. Oh yeah, I also have a bank statement online, showing where I made the purchase and the date of purchase. I would go so far as to say that Tracfone aka Straight Talk should be boycotted and that no one should ever make a purchase from them in the foreseeable future. The reason for this radical declaration is very simple.

When I was googling the customer service number for Straight Talk. I came upon an article, stating that Straight Talk is currently in a lawsuit or lost a lawsuit where they have been ordered to refund 40 million dollars for fraudulent charges, in regards to their 45 dollar monthly phone plan. (I have been a loyal customer with this 45 dollar a month plan and had no idea they were skimping people on their minutes. I would have liked to have been a part of that lawsuit, especially since they just stole 300 dollars from me and I’m on a fixed income. (SSI Disability)

I have no way of buying a new iPhone now or transferring my service to another iPhone and I have a locked iPhone 5s that they keep telling me; it’s going to stop working any day now and yet with all their scary stressful emails, they have no problems pressuring me to buy a new iPhone! However, when I attempted to buy a new iPhone, they sent me a “pink iPhone” (wrong color obviously) and when I called they told me to send it back within 30 days for a refund. I cannot purchase another phone until they refund the money for the purchase I already made! They say they have no record that I ever purchased an iPhone 7s plus in January when I was transferred to the refund department and yet their other departments have said they can see where I made the 300 dollar purchase.

My hope in writing this email is that anyone that reads this email will share this post and/or tell my story to as many people as you know, so that you and everyone else can avoid the horrific stressful situation that they have put me through. (No matter how much cheaper Straight Talk aka Tracfone might be, it’s just not worth the hassle and aggravation they put you through.) I went through the whole verification process and gave my full address/name/full credit card number and even then when I thought they would refund my money for this iPhone, they said I needed to find the confirmation number from my email. Well, my email deletes everything after 30 days. I tried to explain this to them and they just kept repeating that they had to have the confirmation number from my email over and over. Then they started to hang up on me and I cussed them out and hung up first.

This is not how a professional business treats their loyal customers. They’re suppose to automatically refund your money and if you don’t have the confirmation number they’re suppose to verify you are who you say you are and then refund your money. They’re not suppose to do this. When I told them I didn’t have the confirmation number they changed their tune and said they had no record that I purchased the iPhone to begin with but, I still have a bank statement that proves that I made a purchase of 300 dollars from their website on a date in January. That’s proof enough or should be proof enough that I bought an iPhone 7s plus from them! I feel a horrible pain in my stomach and I haven’t been able to eat all day. Laters and remember: “Just say NO to Straight Talk aka Tracfone.” They ruin lives.??? I will now check myself into a psychiatric hospital and slowly start shredding newspapers after they dope me up to the gills! Haha???

1. When we signed up, one of us was assigned to run on the Verizon network, and the other on the TracFone Wireless network. There were almost no problems with the service on the Verizon network. The TFW network often had little to no coverage, even in large metro areas where everyone else had coverage. Also, visual voicemail (the ability to click on a message to listen, rather than having to dial in and enter a password) worked for ONE MONTH on the TFW network - out of almost five years of having the account with ST. Multiple calls to techs only resulted in frustration. Chat techs took forever to respond to the simplest questions, and often ended the chat by saying, "Call the support number as we cannot assist you through chat." The techs on the support number were no better. Many of them were absolutely not understandable due to thick accents and very poor English language skills. All of them blamed the specific phone, or TFW, for the lack of visual voicemail. None offered solutions. The visual voicemail on this phone works just fine now that we have switched carriers.

2. Over time, we built up over 13,000 rewards points for having our accounts on auto-pay and auto-renewal. Other than one $10 mobile hotspot card - which NEVER WORKED - we could not redeem our points for anything, including the three months' worth of free service that we should have been able to redeem. The rewards system was always experiencing "technical issues" that even the chat techs and phone techs could not explain. "Please check back later." Well, it is now almost five years later, and we have gladly forfeited those points to go with a carrier that doesn't offer scam rewards that are worth nothing.

3. Logging in to our online accounts was always a huge hassle. Often in the middle of checking something, or updating our address, for instance, the system would take us to an unrelated page, and then require us to log back in and start over. And any time we tried to use the Rewards points, it would go through that redirect routine repeatedly until we could finally get through to the checkout page to let us finish the order. Of course, all of those attempted redemptions never went anywhere anyway, as noted above.

4. At the time of service transfer, one of our accounts ported immediately. The other port request was repeatedly rejected due to an alleged "wrong account number." Our new company went above and beyond to submit the request using the IMEI instead of ST's account number. ST still dragged their feet in responding to that request, taking days instead of the typical few hours needed. In the meantime, they sent a survey asking why we switched, and how they could improve. Having told them all of these problems before, I still filled out the survey in hopes that maybe this time, someone would actually pay attention to the serious problems with this company.

Do yourself a favor - do some research and find one of the several other companies that offer equal or better rates, and far better customer services.

Well guess what happened, They took the 7000 pending points away. I tried calling in today and was hung up on 3 different times. Then when I called back the last time, I was transferred to Ralph, an HR manager at Home Office supposedly and only after a few short sentences with him, he hung up on me. I was upset and told them so, but I didn't yell, wasn't disrespectful and didn't use foul language. WHAT IS WITH THE CUSTOMER SERVICE AT THIS COMPANY? I have been with Straight Talk for probably 8 years and talked highly of them this whole time, but this has definitely changed my mind. DO NOT USE STRAIGHT TALK, THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS!