Tracfone Reviews

When giving my phone number and shipping information that time, they told me the number was wrong and the address was wrong. Was I sure of that? Hello? I know my number and where I live. The new phone came here so, yes! It took over a half hour just for that alone. I explained that I have a new SIM card that had to be put into the phone that I want to use, and they still told me I have to provide shipping information and they'll send me a new SIM card. Again, it seems that they don't listen or don't understand and it's always a big run around when you need their customer service. I'm steaming mad and frustrated.

I just spent 30 minutes on the phone with their corporate office and the lady was less than helpful but only 200 minutes would be replaced. She said that maybe I left my phone on the browser but, the phone doesn't even connect to the browser. I tried it at a doctor's office and it just hung there and I ended it. This has been a nightmare since I changed phones, a month ago. I always liked Tracfone, but now I loathe them. It seems to me like a scam to make customers buy more minutes.

I have called since 8/2011 to try to get my phone "registered sim" and an adjustment of some sort for losing one year of service! I have been in contact with them over the last month with promises of "fixing the problem" but nothing! Non-responsive! I purchased this phone with "no contract" but it seems that TracFone has to have some liability or responsibility to provide for services. I have bought their phone and minutes, but no service! No refunds! No extension of expiration date! I didn't give them money for "charity". Are they not obliged to provide me with a working number and use of my bought time?

Straight Talk makes people jump through hoops and you get nowhere with their customer service agents who put you on hold a million times so they can "get help from other departments to resolve this issue". They barely speak English. They are not rude, but they're not helpful. One hand does not know what the other is doing. I was told again that I would have to get new SIM cards. I took my service and my numbers back to AT&T. Now, I want to return the phones and ST's web site has no return information. I went to Walmart because they are ST's retailer. The girl who helped me at Walmart was amazing! She stayed on the phone like a pitbull to get the proper information for me. Their return process is horrible and I am going to begin that now and see where it gets me.

So, the return address for Straight Talk phones is: Straight Talk Return Center, Bright Point Reverse Logistics, 1251 South Perry Rd, Plainfield, IN 46168. You have to pay for your FedEx or UPS back to them. Get your tracking number and call ST back with that number. First, you have to call them and get what's called a return authorization number and that has to be on the address label to them.

I really hope that someday one of your "employees" will need assistance, and they will be treated as badly as you treat you customers.

I can't tell you how many times I had to recite serial numbers. I was told the number would be switched in one hour, one day, two days, one to two days, one to three days, and three to five days. At this time, neither phone works. They deactivated my old phone then they told me I had to add minutes to my old phone and reactivate it in order to switch the number.

My old phone has a SIM card, the new phone does not. It appears they are incapable of working with that. I doubt they will be able to complete the transfer. I guess I'll just have to wait one hour to five days to find out.

So, I corrected my account number online with TracFone. I also called TracFone Customer Service to notify them to try again. I called them 44 minutes on the 3rd day after online activation requested and 55 minutes on the 4th day. Each time, TracFone told me my account number was 'rejected' by Verizon. I called Verizon again and they told me the account number needed '-00001' at the end of the account number or even drop the '-00001', etc. Day 5, TracFone has never activated! Verizon is now not working! Plus because of the delay, I now owe Verizon another month! Thank you TracFone and Verizon for trapping me in la-la (pay all, no service) land!

I finally got someone, Christine ID# 56064, to say they would refund my money if I first returned the phone to them. I was told to send the phone to: Tracfone Wireless, Inc., Attn: Refund Department. **, Medley, Fla, 33178. I was told to call 899-667-6472 when I sent the phone. I did everything they told me. When I called them to notify them the phone was sent, I gave them the tracking number, as they requested, I was speaking to Susavo with ID#43579. This was done on March 14, 2011.

I was told I would have my refund by April 25, 2011. To this date, I still have not received my refund. I have called back many times. Each time, they act like they don't know what you are talking about. With each and every question, they put you on hold to "ask their supervisor". When I ask to speak to a supervisor, they don't act like they don't understand what you want. When they do put another person on the phone, that person asks all of the very same questions, and you get nowhere, for hours! I called Walmart corporate office several times. Last call was July 11, 2011 and I spoke to Brittany. She said Walmart only sells the phone. I got no help from Walmart.

What do I have to do to gt my refund? These people are legally robbing us and there is no one to stop them. What recourse do I have?

I have never dealt with such poor customer service and I wish I had never spent the money for the phone or the card minutes. This is a total ripoff and I am investigating further ramifications with another source.

I have lost minutes from the phone and all the time spent waiting for customer service to try to resource how to help with the problem. I have lost messages from family because of the lack of voicemail messaging I purposely purchased the phone for.

Anyway, they tried to convince me that the TracFone I had purchased from them in a sealed container, sent directly from factory to me, activated and used for over 3 years was a DMFL phone, one of the cheaper models, that suddenly had a change and was a net10 phone. On 8/28/11, I was trying to purchase minutes using my computer so I can print out receipt for records; and it wouldn't let me. It said it was net10 phone. Well, let the challenge and the games begin.

I called and got the scoop and the fight was on. No one, and I mean no one (even managers like Christina, Paul, Leanna, Abimola, Deanna, Hazel and many more), could answer me why this happened. I asked, "I have been buying minutes DMFL for years on computer for a TracFone. Why did it suddenly said that serial number does not match? It's a net10 serial number; please check it, try again and lock me out of the system." They insisted it was a net10, and calling was the worst experience as no one can answer why I have all these receipts for a TracFone and minutes purchases, and now I suddenly own a net10 and I have made a mistake. That was my favorite. I was not really aware of what kind of phone I own apparently. But still, no one could answer the question. About all the money I had paid and minutes purchased for a TracFone, now it's all of sudden a net10 and no more minutes can be bought for it.

I was going on 29th for vacation, so this didn't set the tone too well as this was a 5 hour experience. I got hung up for over 4 times and had to tell and retell my experience again and again to different people, in different countries, with different speaking abilities and understanding capabilities. It was maddening, so I let it go with a promise from Paul that he was going to fix it and said I would need to call back when I'm back in town.

I did and I had to give another 3 hours, and they finally did admit some liability, responsibility and said they will send a replacement. They did, but it was a hassle to activate (another nightmare story there) and they automatically deactivated my old phone remotely, days before the new one came, which cost me a job. My mom is dying and I need to stay in touch with doctors. I lost a call and had a medical emergency that I couldn't respond to due to them deactivating phone remotely. Oh by the way, at one point, I did tell them I had and will continue to complain about them to all who will listen, and also sue them for all money spent for TracFone minutes and cost of phone since I really didn't get what was promised; and that they made a mistake and was unwilling to fix it.

I gave them financial total and said bill from lawyer would be faxed to corporate headquarters ASAP. I did not want and/or buy a net10 and would provide original phone and all papers to prove my point. They did, eventually, fix the situation but I still am sending photos of all stuff and complaint to main office for all the hassle and a request for lost wages for all the times spent fixing this mess of theirs which one representative actually admitted to me. They are an awful company to get help from; they will gladly take all the money they can get from you but offer nothing in return.

You have an endless wait period to get an operator and then always no help after a timely discussion. Which always leads to a, 'I have to contact my supervisor', who asks you the same questions and then puts you on hold. Then says you’re wrong because in the page discussed it shows minus 60, minus 60 and not the plus 60 as told, which corresponds to the problem. They then said it was because its annual form was not filled out (which was). So I filled it out again and got 172 days, not 352. And now it’s down to 61 days in less than a few months.

All my text messages are gone and none is showing the monthly. I told them the phone doesn't work properly and was told to buy another and exchange the SIM. The phone is provided by SafeLink.

I didn't use Tracfone often but updated the Tracfone yearly. That’s why I had a 3,100-minute balance.

Are they trying to lose customers? It seems like it! We've been using their service for over FIVE years and we WON'T stay customers much longer if this continues.

When I try to call their phone number I get a recording that they are unable to take my call due to high call volume. As a result, I have two problems: I cannot activate my replacement phone, and apparently I have no way to prove to them that I had 268 minutes remaining on the phone that died. (I can access my account, and there is a record of purchases there, but apparently no way for them to look up how many minutes were remaining on my account when the other phone died. This seems odd, given that they have been carrying over unused balances each month and adding those balances to my monthly purchase without any problem. Can you assist or explain?

I dialed the 1-800 number for assistance. I got to hear a lot of elevator music (same song actually ) and listened to a woman's voice repeating, "Your call is very important. Please stay on the line...blah blah blah...www.tracfone.com for faster service."

So, I headed to the computer and thought, I will try for the faster service while still holding the phone to my ear. Good thing I can multitask. So I entered all necessary info and hit submit. What? Invalid PIN? Try again. What? Invalid promo code.

I tried to contact someone from customer service via email. Mind you, my neck is now hurting because I am still on the phone listening to how important my call is, and typing at the same time. I sent my concerns and received an email that told me that someone will get back to me in 24-48 hours. OK, I am now taking deep breaths and counting to three, holding for three and breathing out for three.

Thirty minutes later, I spoke to a gentleman on the phone, who I had a difficult time understanding. I was so excited because I just knew he would be able to help me since my service ends tomorrow. I was told to go to the Prepaid Menu, Code Entry Mode and was told to enter *#0. Very happily I complied. He asked me what I saw. I told him, "Parameter 00 and then a 6 in the middle of the screen." He said OK. Go to the Prepaid Menu and check your minutes. Very excitedly I did. Hmmmm... still have the same 87 minutes. He has me repeat the above steps with no success. Tells me to turn off the phone and then turn back on. I did. Nothing happened. He told me that he will have to transfer me to someone else who can help.

So I waited and waited and waited. Finally, after one-and-a-half hours, I hung up and called back. I then got a message that customer service is closed and to please call back during business hours. I then sent another email to customer service letting them know my concerns.

The calls and text messages are from real people. Why? Because when I first notice the first call I answered my phone I said hello and they responded and said they’re looking for someone. I said wrong number. That's when I knew not to accept incoming calls because it’s deducting the minutes. Either way some how pressing any button on the TracFone is not necessarily pressing the accept button. It took units or minutes because I notice it’s doing the same thing with the incoming text messages. If you view them or not it will take away units or minutes.

So, like I said, I had only twenty minutes starting on my phone free after the activation. Ok, my TracFone number was only given to my son--only him and I myself. I realize when this was happening like I said again from 20.00 minutes. It took 3 units, so now it looks like 19.80 then 18.70. So that’s how it stole unit and minutes away from me being able to use them myself. I was not so happy with that. I noticed after the first couple times when incoming calls or the incoming text messages that my TracFone was receiving and all the stolen minutes I watch out for those and I started to exit or pressing the end button so I won’t lose any more minutes. My TracFone number is **. I hope this is understandable. If possible, can I request courtesy phone minutes to my TracFone? Thank you.

The representative attached an out-of-state phone number to the phone from another customer who is still using that number. The other customer called to ask how and when they will receive the number. He was in the midst of using his phone when it was disconnected. We received foul language texts, calls and notifications from other customers’ contacts over the next five days. We sent an email to complain to the company which the email response told us to call back. Five days later, the phone doesn't work again. We spent over two hours with another representative on April 3, 2010. We then requested, afterwards we demanded the refund for failure to supply the service. They denied majority of the refund yet they failed to activate the phone again. We already filed a dispute with the Credit Card/Bank regarding charges. We received a welcome email from Straight Talk/Tracphone on Monday, the 4th. The phone still does not work.

On March 7th 2011, I was told that it showed in their system that the phone was permanently deactivated at the request of the customer. After several more hours of relentless stress, I was finally able to make a representative understand that I am the customer and I never requested from my phone to be deactivated. However, they insisted that due to the way the phone was deactivated in their system, it was permanent and they could not re-activate. I was told that I would need to obtain another TracFone and they could transfer my unused airtime. When I called back with the information for the other TracFone, I was told that I had to purchase an airtime card for them to activate this phone and then they could transfer my unused airtime from my old phone.

After purchasing the airtime card, I called them back and was able to get the new phone activated. However, they completely refuse to transfer my unused airtime from my original phone. I have spent an exorbitant amount of time being transferred from one representative to another, and one department to another. I have done everything they requested and they are breaching their agreement. This is totally wrong! I should not be having this experience.

I purchased a TracFone and kept it active for nearly four years except for when the service was interrupted due to a problem in their system. Now, I am out even more money for another phone, additional airtime card that I shouldn't have needed to purchase in the first place as I am entitled to my airtime from my original phone!

As of March 14th 2011, I was informed that they will not give me any credit from my original phone/account and when I requested to speak to their Legal Department to file a formal complaint and request arbitration, I was told by Floor Supervisor Vanessa, ID number **, that the Loss Prevention Department said I am not permitted to file a complaint nor request arbitration! How can they over-ride my legal rights? My original phone still shows 7591.5 of airtime with an expiration date of March 12th 2013. I have gotten one runaround after another with this company.

I have had to spend more money out-of-pocket in an attempt to meet their additional requests. I spent an exorbitant, endless amount of time only to continue to get a runaround. I experienced extreme emotional distress, all because they don't live up to their responsibilities!

I waited till the next day and the minutes and time hasn't changed, but I did have service. So I called about 2 pm on 3/15/11, got a male representative, hardly understandable and explained everything to him. After trying to reason with him for 15 min, he transfers me to nowhere. He gets back on, transfers again and this went on 3 more times. I hung up and called back, sounds like the same person. After 20 minutes with him, trying to reason then it turned to arguing. I told him to cancel the airtime and credit my card company. He said he can't do that. Another argument started, I told him that I want to talk to his manager. He said he can't allow that! I then hung up.

I called TracFone to verify that tracfoneminutes.org was indeed affiliated with them and this information was confirmed. My 400 minutes were actually doubled by tracfoneminutes.org on an error by their company, for which I was told that there was no way to take off the additional 400 minutes. So, in essence, I got those additional minutes at no cost to me. I have read hundreds of TracFone complaints and many of the stories are similar to mine. I am not confident that I will have a favorable outcome by having my phone re-activated. Thus, I will be out not just the cost but the use of the phone as well. Thank you for hearing my complaint.

I lost a message from AARP Insurance Company that has been giving my mother the run around.

So I’m still waiting for the call. I've wasted a good part of the day on what should have taken five minutes. No one there speaks English and I feel sorry for anyone who works for that company. I've filed a fraud investigation through my bank. My bank account is over $120 short and still no minutes on my phone, or a call back

I contacted customer service to transfer my number and minutes back to my old phone. I was told by a supervisor that when they transferred everything to the new phone, they deactivated the SIM card and had to send me a new one. I was told that when I received and installed the SIM card, all I had to do was call them back and they would transfer everything to my old phone. When I contacted them on 01/29/11, I was told that I would have to buy an airtime card and add it to my old phone before they could transfer everything back to my old phone. I told the guy that I did not want to do that and wanted my money back for both phones and all the minutes. He told me that he could do that but than just sat on the other line, not saying anything or processing the refund.

I emailed customer service on 01/29/11, telling them I wanted my refund. I received a call on 1/30/11 and was told the same thing about adding minutes to my old phone. I explained what the supervisor told me but they wouldn't listen. I then told them I wanted my refund and was told that I could get one but she refused to issue me one.

I looked up the 800 number online and called to speak with someone. My primary concern was identity theft. I told the representative what my concerns were. She just wanted to take my number out of their system to fix the problem but I kept her on the line to try to find out who opened the account in the first place and how they might have taken my number. She finally said that they did have a record that someone in fact did open an account using my home number. I asked for their name. She said it was "confidential" but she did finally tell me the zip code which was from Washington D.C. and I live in Maine.

I asked to speak with her supervisor to see if I could get more information. I was connected and spoke with the supervisor who said that there is no record of any account with my number. I said, that can't be since I just spoke with a representative who told me there was and she also furnished a zip code from where the account came from. She said that the representative was asked to remove my number from the system so now there was no record of anything. I pressed on. She had me put on hold while she looked up my number under "old accounts" and she said that it wasn't there. I said that she could contact the representative who I first spoke with and that we could figure it out from there.

She said, "The only thing I can do is read her notes. She is in another service network, in another country". So, there is no way I can talk with her! I asked where she was located and she said Belize. I asked where the representative was and she looked it up and said "The Philippines". So since I know that I can call Belize or the Philippines with a simple 800 number from the US, then why would it be so hard for them to call each other? They refused to help me out in any other way.

Out of frustration, I hung up and vowed to first file complaints about this company and then find a way to track this issue down and get some protection.

Aside from the language barrier and background noise, it started out okay. But the representative couldn’t do more than say all was working fine, despite the obvious, my phone is not tracking minutes used and I'm missing 100+ minutes. Off to a supervisor. Did I mention the language barrier and the repeating of the same information over and over and over? The supervisor read from the same script, except telling me that my desire for a call log would involve a notary "for security reasons". I just want to know when I made or received a 2-hour phone call.

This should not take an act of Congress right? I happen to be a notary and have done a decent amount of paralegal work. I asked for a copy of this policy specifically the part I signed! I then asked for the manager. She's got the same script and could not provide me any specific information about what statute, federal policy, anything at all really that they were following. That I have an account online, I have not changed any of that information. The information they have is all attached to my email, credit card, home address, telephone number, etc, etc. Please just email the account of record, the records requested.

I feel they performed a super bait and switch on me. Also, when I call their 800 support number, no one has ever answered. There is zero technical support or assistance in over twenty times that I have tried to call and run through their phone numbering system which always puts me back where I started. This is a terrible product and a terrible company. They need to be investigated for fraud.

Now, it says 12/14/10. I told them that I wanted to change my number in case he adds minutes again. They said that I would have to have another SIM card. I got a ticket number and waited for the card. It came in so I called again. They didn't give me the number I wanted but I said that it was alright. I just wanted my phone working. Then, I was told that I would have to buy more minutes to activate the phone again. I told them that I didn't want to buy minutes when I already had 1,800 on the phone.

After being put on hold numerous times, he was insistent that I would get my minutes back as soon as I bought another minute card. I said that I would do it right now if that would get me the rest back, as well as my service date. All this took three hours. The first call was for two hours. Buying time for the phone did get it activated. Right then, I had a text come in while on the phone with him. Evidently, it belonged to someone else as a nasty sex text come in. It cost me minutes to read and it wasn't for me. I said that I didn't want that number as it appears to belong to someone else .

In the meantime, I saw my 1,800 minutes on the phone. I was so excited for that. But the excitement was short lived. My minutes disappeared except for the new minute card I just bought. He said that the old minutes would come back in about 50 minutes. At this point, he changed the number again and said to check in 50 minutes for the old minutes. I went shopping with my husband and went to use the phone. Nothing happened. I wouldn't call out but still used minutes to try and call someone. I had my husband call my cell as he was with me and the phone said that I wasn't excepting calls right now. When I got home, I called TracFone again.

When I got Eddie, I was happy that I could understand him. He said that he could give me back 450 minutes right now after being on the phone for about an hour with him. I said, "Why can't I have them all?" No supervisor was there to give him permission to do that, but if I call in the morning, there would be someone there to help me. Then, he said that he would transfer me to his supervisor who could get me 450i minutes back tonight. When the woman finally came on, we went through the whole thing again.

She kept putting me on hold. Then, after about an hour, she said that she couldn't do that and to call back in 24 hours. I called them the next day and was informed that the SIM card they sent me would not work in this phone. He transferred me to Natalie. Natalie said that she could get me my minutes back for me with not problem. I had to put in many codes. She said she that could get me back my minutes but couldn't use the phone until I have the new SIM card.

Thinking that I was getting somewhere, I felt great! Wrong! Then, she said that without the SIM card, she couldn't give me any minutes. I couldn't believe what she said. I asked her if she could overnight mail it. I was put on hold again and she came back every three to four minutes. Finally, she told me that her supervisor said that they could overnight the card. I was so excited. Leaving the 22nd and would arrive on the 23rd. I went to FedEx with the tracking number and saw that it was in the system. I was supposed to be here sometime on the 23rd before 4:30 p.m. I kept checking the Internet site. About 6:00 p.m. on the 23rd, I looked again and the delivery date was gone.

When I called FedEx, they said that it was never delivered to them. I called TracFone again. Now, we are actually up to about eight different idiots for the process. This new idiot said that they could not send it overnight mail as it was the holidays. I told him that when I started this, it wasn't the holidays. He was sorry--like hell he was. I said that the previous rep said it could be done and she had permission to do so. I was on the phone for quite sometime for her to get permission to do so. Now, this non-English speaking man said that I would get the SIM card in three to five days. I told him that every ** one of them has lied to me throughout and I was getting sick of it.

Around 2:00 p.m. on the 23rd, someone from TracFone called me to activate my phone. I said that there was no SIM card yet. Then, he said, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" Then, I had an email from them thanking me for buying minutes. If I didn't have so many minutes involved in this, I would throw the ** phone in the lake. I have kept notes about this. I have spent about eight hours in all for nothing.

They tried to say that the person who I gave my old phone to must have taken my minutes. I told them that when I transferred from one phone to another, I had to have my birth date, personal phone number, address, etc. before I could do anything. This person knows none of that. I did not authorize any transfer and he wouldn't have known the information that is usually needed.

The last guy I talked to said that maybe they could compensate me for all my aggravation. They can't give me what's mine. Do they expect me to believe that they are going to make things right by me for all the time I have put into this? I don't believe anything they say! So, at this point, I am still waiting but I won't hold my breath.

I then called the escalation department at **** twice. The first person said that she could not hear me. Please note that I used a landline to call all the representatives! In the second attempt, the representative basically asked me to give her all the information so she could input them for me. She gave me an order number but I could not trace that order online when I was still on the phone with her. I expressed that I felt extremely uncomfortable about having her made a transaction to my credit card but I would not have a confirmation about the total charges and the item I purchased. I would not get off the phone until I got the confirmation or could trace that order online. All of a sudden, she kept saying she could not hear me. Then she hung up on me.

Then I finally was able to speak to Marie with staff no. ****, of corporate office, Net10 wireless through the customer escalations number ****.I asked to speak to the supervisor. She said all supervisors were in meeting right then! She would be the only one who could assist me! After almost another 50 minutes, she confirmed that no such order no. **** was found but the credit card was charged. She can't confirm the amount or what kind of the order was made. She had no record of who the previous representative was and how she came up with the order. I told her I wanted to cancel the order but she just kept on asking me to hold.

Finally, she generated the case no. **** about this purchase and said someone might email me. I declined to give her my contact number because I stated that I would not want to waste another 3-4 hours on the phone! I really cannot believe the company put the email contact but all the emails were invalid! I cannot believe that the last representative said, "I need to compromise" to work with her when I had lost close to 4 hours on the phone with her company! I basically spent almost 4 hours to try to purchase a re-conditioned phone and a 750 minutes phone card that should only worth $21.90. Now I have no ideas what has been ordered and how much I would be charged! And I was being hung up and be put on waiting when I wanted to sort out the issue! Also, some of the representatives have very strong foreign accent that I could not hear them at all!

I am grossly unhappy about the misrepresentation of the offer and want a resolution to the situation. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

I have called them about six times and they keep saying that they lost the ticket or they are still working on it. They keep promising me that it will be coming and of course it does not. I live in a rural area and I cannot get good signal with big cell phone companies. I got mad last time and told them that I would drop dead as soon as my phone arrived. They are horrible company and they need to hire Americans to speak to Americans too. These people act like machines, not human beings.

They threatened to take my minutes from me after fighting with them. They put the minutes on the SafeLink phone but now it's roaming. Day two on the phone from 1:30 to 10:30 trying to get everything correct. Yesterday they said they would send new SIM again with my old number and to call back today and they would give me the status. I am calling now and she keeps putting me on hold to update status. I just want my money back for the phone and my minutes at this point because they are giving me the runaround on this phone. The SafeLink phone is still in roaming minutes so it's taking all my minutes. I have a special needs son and need that SafeLink phone active and working.

I again contacted Tracfone; they told me that Kmart would have to deactivate the phone first. I called Kmart, they said they were only responsible for returning the phone to Tracfone. It is clear to me that I will be unable to get a refund without your help. The Tracfone 60 minute card is #986 *** *** *** ***. On 11/24/10, I purchased Tracfone and card from Kmart. On 11/28/10, I called Tracfone support to try to get phone to work, interaction # *** *** ****. On 11/30/10, I returned cell phone to Kmart, they would not refund phone card.

On 12/01/10, I called Tracfone; they refused to refund the calling card, interaction # *** *** ****. This is the Kmart Store # 3725 1702 Freedom Blvd. Freedom, Ca. 95019. I paid cash when I purchased the phone from Kmart. They said they could only give me store credit (not cash) for the returned cell phone. That doesn't seem right either. Thank you,

My main complaint is, why do you outsource? My new phone is working fine now but I wanted you to know I was upset.

On November 1, 2010 I called that number. It was very hard to understand the person from TracFone and I found myself saying, “Could you please repeat that?”. Not only was it hard to understand, it was also time-consuming, 30 minutes to add airtime? Little did I know what was in store for me forthcoming in the following weeks. I was told my phone would be on within 24 hours if it wasn't, I was given my first tracking number to call back and give the operator this number.

I gave them extra time, about 5 days went by and still no service on the phone, however they did bill my credit card $21.38. I called again and I had the patience of a saint. It was very hard to understand the broken English. I was being put on hold for two minutes several times, politely reminded not to hang up. I was given about 4 long codes to enter into the trac phone. Giving them the serial number. shutting the trac phone off and on. They tried calling the trac phone and asked me to make a local call. But the call failed.

They documented the actions and I was given yet another tracking number! I was told to try the phone in 24 hours and if it's not working, give the operator the tracking number. This call took about an hour. Twenty four hours went by and the trac phone was still not working! I called again, still had patience, but my tone of voice replied otherwise. More long codes to enter. They called the phone and had me make a local call, History repeats itself. Again, “Call failed. Please try again later." More 2 minutes of hold with that friendly reminder, please do not hang up.

They gave me a new trac phone number this time. I was given yet another tracking # if the phone was not on in 24 hrs. This call to them lasted about an hour and a half. Twenty four hours passed again, I tried the phone but it's still not working. With very little patience left this time, I said I would like to be compensated with some free minutes for all of this trouble. They said we will discuss that after we resolve this issue. With several more long codes to enter, taking the battery out, making a local call, them calling the trac phone. Same thing happened, the call failed.

The whole process repeated yet again. This time I was told to wait 24 to 48 hrs. I was given yet another tracking number if the phone did not work. This phone call lasted another hour and a half. I texted someone and the phone did take those minutes off for the text, also called the voice mail and it took those minutes off as well but the text and the call failed. Forty eight hours passed again. With no patience left, I called them again. The process repeated itself. More long codes with difficulty understanding the numbers being said. I spoke to this operator for an hour. I began telling them the steps they are about to tell me to make and what the results will be. Then I said, “You're about to give me another tracking no., aren't you?”. “Yes”, she said.

"No, no, no!”, I growled. She said, “Let me pass your call to our technical dept and you can give them this tracking number. "No, I said. I am done talking! You give them the number!”. So she gave them the number and transferred the call. “Look”, I said, “this has been going on far too long”. “What is your serial number of the phone?”, the second operator said. The monster I became said, “You should have that information in front of you several times from all of the tracking documentation. She told me, “Okay, go to menu”, and I said, “...and go to enter code right?”. “Yes”, said the operator, and I said, “No, I'm done. This is not working”. Then she said, “I'm going to put you on hold for another 2 minutes.” I roared! This time I didn't get the friendly reminder not to hang up.

I know they were hoping I would hang up. She got back on after about 5 minutes and tried to give me a new phone number for the trac phone. “No”, I screamed, “I want a refund!”. “Please hold and let me talk to my supervisor” she replied. Ten minutes of holding this time, “We cannot give you a refund”, she said, “We will fix your phone”. I then said, “No, I'm done! I'm not entering anymore codes making anymore local calls. I want a refund!” Then she insisted in giving me another tracking number. By this time I'm on the phone with them for 2 hours! The call then got transferred to a supervisor. I was on hold for another 10 minutes. My cordless phone battery was dying now. I grabbed the other cordless because I was not hanging up.

Finally, she got on and required the same info I have given before. The devil has risen now. I said, “You should have all of that info in front of you.” It's the same process over and over. “I want a refund! Have you heard of the Better Business Bureau?” Then she said, “Let me give you to my manager”. About 15 minutes of hold before he got on. The devil spoke to him. It got ugly. After 30 minutes of him processing the prepaid purchase on the credit card, I got a transaction number. Now I said I want a refund for the 180 other minutes, “We can't do that”, he said. I said, “Yes you can and yes you will”.

I told him I am writing the BBB and Facebook, Myspace, local newspaper, television. “You can't rip people off like this!”. He said, “I'm going to put you on hold”, minus the friendly reminder to not hang up. Another 15 minutes of holding and he began the process. My cordless phone was dying again, lucky him. He told me he will call me at 8am with the transaction number for second refund and asked me not to call back. As of 11am he has not called back.

I spent a total of 3 and a half hours on the phone with them. I know I was the talk of the place. I plan on spreading this story and would like to know if this has happened to others. I will never use TracFone again. Oh and I'm going to call them after lunch.

They employ people from foreign countries and when you call there, you get someone who speaks such poor English. You can't understand what they are saying. It''s such a hassle that you hate to call there.

What good is the my folder if I cannot place certain features in it in order to utilize the features such as being able to place the calendar, calculator, note pad tasks, etc? The same applies for the ability to create a folder and not being able to place the features in it! On the lg420g, the upper right button is located below the message on the lower right corner of the screen and then on the circle type dial gadget the top is also for message. iI would seem this is overkill and that spot could be assigned a more useful feature. What good is the shortcut feature when there is no shortcut to it?

From main screen, press the menu button, two clicks right and two down, open the settings one click down to set short cuts, open short cuts, make changes to or add the features needed in the empty spaces. Okay, the short uts are set but you still have to go through way too many steps to use these. My first phone was the cheap $10 one. It seemed easier and had more features than this lg420g. The designer or designers of Tracfone have not really thought things through. Even the Tracfone web site has no help for these issues. tTere is no place to go except for a place that a person has to pay for help. I'm done whining now!

I called customer service, the prompt said press one for English, so I did but the young lady didn't understand me and I didn't understand her either. I asked her if she understood what I was saying and she responded "Hello, hellow, hellow, hellow, are you there?" I said, "yes I'm here." Then she hung up on me. So I called back, pressed one and got someone else who didn't speak English. After staying on hold for 25 minutes, she came back and said how can I help you? I told her my husband had a Tracfone with the double minutes for as long as you have the phone and he purchased a new flip and if he could transfer the plan and the number, she told me yes.

She asked for the number to the old phone, then see said this is not your phone, this phone belongs to a Donald *****, and I said yes I told you this was my husband's phone. So she said she needed to speak with him, I had no problem with that so I gave him the phone and he told her that she would have to talk to me because he wouldn't be able to answer the questions. I got the phone back I had to read the numbers off the old phone six times, then read the numbers off the new phone three times. Finally, she said now you have to turn your new phone on and your minutes will be on your new phone. I told her thank you and hung up.

Four hours later, the phone still was not activated. I called back. I was told I needed to activate the phone before I could use it. We went through the whole discussion of transferring the minutes and number. Then he told me I would have to have a new sim card sent to me with the old number. I received the new card a week later and it had a new number and no minutes. They didn't transfer his number or his 60 minutes that were on the old phone. So I called them back and a new none English speaking person told me I have to activate the new phone with the new card. I tried that and she said that phone was already activated after a seven hour call with three different people that didn't speak English, we came to a conclusion.

The new phone was finally activated with the old number, the plan was not transferred because it was for the other phone only, which was okay, but they could not find the 60 minutes they lost while playing phone tag. PS It don't matter what number you hit for English or any other language, the same people answer.

We went through number after number with no avail. She still tried to tell me I had a Net 10 card even though I had read everything to her from the Tracfone card. She finally told me to go to the store where I purchased the card and have them call TracFone. I called the store and was told they had nothing to do with it and could not refund or give me another card. I felt like I was being called a thief! I called customer service again. I talked with Miguel this time. Again, gave all the numbers and received the same response. I have a Net 10 card.

I explained once again that I had a TracFone card not a Net 10. He asked if I would mind being put on hold for 2-3 minutes while he contacted another department. I had no problem with that. After a few minutes, he came back and said he was unable to reach that department and asked if I would wait another 2-3 minutes. I agreed. I never heard from him again! I have spent $30 and wasted more time than I care to count and have nothing to show for it. No refund, no minutes, no patience! Very poor business! Now I am afraid to purchase another card. I can't keep spending money with nothing to show. I think this is some kind of scam TracFone has come up with. I would not recommend this company to anyone!

On the 6th day, they said that they would send me a new sim card. The next day, a new sim card arrived and I put it in the phone and could make calls but I could not get the voicemail to work. After two more days on the phone, I called it quits and told them that I wanted a refund to my credit card. I was told to send the phone back to Refund Tracfone Center, Brightpoint Plainfield, In. 46168. It cost me $5.90 to mail it back and the phone only cost $32.00.

A few days later, I get this call from Tracfone about telling them the tracking number. I didn't get the tracking number at the post office because that would have cost more. I have to wait and see if I will get my refund. The good thing is that I got the 450 service days and 160 minutes transferred to another phone.

Next time, I will buy the phone from Walmart where you can return it. I have two older Tracfone that I have for four years or more and had no problems at all. I may get my refund of $32.00 back but I don't think so after all I read on this website.

On the phone it states I have 922 minutes and until 5/2011 to use the minutes, but TracFone deactivated the phone. I offered to email or fax checking account statements, receipts or any other item they would like to see and they all read the statement again asking for $84.85. If I didn't have so much money spent on minutes, I would give up, but it is funny when I offer proof of payment and the read their statement 3-4 times then they just stop talking all together and just stays silent. I got the same statement emailed to me when I asked for help online.

At the same time they are asking me how many minutes I have on the LG phone, which I know I have 2,000+ minutes still remaining, but that cannot be verified. I'm told to call back tomorrow between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm, during which I am at work. At the rate they keep you on the phone repeating all the information you have given them 3 to 4 times and repeating other statements, you know that they do not have a complete command of the English language, which I'm sorry to say. Why would someone just keep repeating the same statements over and over again? Needless to say, you are holding each time for three minutes, etc. When you ask where you can return a phone that has not worked properly, you are told to check online for the address. Well if you can find one on their website you are lucky. Automated response systems work, but not all the time.

Why is Tracfone all of a sudden so unfriendly? I have owned Tracfones for the past ten years and recommended them to friends. I don't need more bills for things that I use only for emergencies! Have they gotten that big the the ordinary customer is of no importance to them anymore? Walmart will not accept an electronic return after 15 days? Gee, I wonder why? Are we in the United States getting so uncaring that everything we own needs to be thrown out only one month after we buy it. Truthfully, I cannot afford a practice like this. I would appreciate a reply from Tracfone as to where to return the phone that does not work and my minutes transferred to my new phone in a timely manner, not three days later.

Now, thanks to our government we have these free phones for I'm disabled. I was on the phone for 3+ hours to activate the new phone. They kept going over information several times and I had to repeat my information more than once, and being on hold for a good amount of time. I was talking to customer rep Joy, that was located in the Philippines,

Our government is paying for this service, and I feel that someone is taking advantage of our government kindness and billing. Lots of hours that should not be. Why are not these jobs in good ol' USA?

The only thing I can do on the phone is add contacts. Anything else I try to do I get the activation required message. Straight talk customer service told me to wait 24 hours for activation. On Tuesday, I contacted them through their Facebook page on their discussion board. After about 3 hours of corresponding with them on Facebook, they asked me for a landline number and called me. I was on the phone with them about 1 1/2 hours when they called me. Once again I spent most of the time on hold. They told me that my phone should be active and that their records showed that my phone was activated and programmed properly. However, my phone still shows activation required. They supposedly created a trouble ticket and told me to wait another 24 hours to see if it works and if it doesn't to call them back.

On Wednesday they called my landline. I was on the phone with them about an hour spending most of the time on hold. They told me that my phone should be active and told me to give them another 24 to 48 hours for activation. My phone is still not active. It still says activation required. On Wednesday evening I called the Executive Resolution Department and was on the phone about an hour and they still did not fix the issue. I also spent most of this time on hold. They said that they were going to refer it to a supervisor and told me to wait another 24 to 48 hours. I feel like I am getting the runaround from their customer service department and with no results. Their customer service doesn't speak English very well and is very hard to understand. You have to repeat things multiple times and also get them to repeat themselves multiple times.

Most of the time you spend on the phone with them you are on hold no matter what time of the day or evening you call. I paid $40 to get the phone and the airtime card was $45. I am still unable to use my new phone. At 2 a.m it will be 96 hours that I have been trying to get my phone activated with the response every time I call to wait 24 to 48 hours. I feel like they are not taking any steps to remedy the situation at all. I have not been able to use the phone at all and have lost my $85 that I paid for my phone and airtime.

I am going to see if my bank can reverse the charges for October since I did not get the service that was ordered. I think that is considered "fraud". AARP also backs them on their services for senior citizens. I wonder what they will think when they hear my story and anyone else that holds an AARP card. I was on the phone with these people for 1-1/2 hours the first time and 2 hours this time.

I had another issue that started on 10/1/2010 that was unresolved because they are difficult to talk to and lied to me. I called per their instructions on a land-line and was on the phone with them for 75 minutes to no avail. They are once again treating me unfairly and I had to spend money paying for airtime that is suppose to be free because I am on the food stamps program and cannot keep buying airtime that should be free.

Now, today 11/1st, I called to get the free airtime via their automated system and got 68 minutes instead of 250 free minutes. I need help because no one there will take the time to find out whats going on. I'm transferred, sitting on hold for several minutes multiple times and this is breaking me financially because their phone is the only phone I have and it cost me to call them.

I was not able to read any of the numbers. I called the toll free number on the back of the card, 1-800-867-7183. I spoke with a representative who connected me to another representative and then a 3rd person, who not only couldn't help me but seemed to keep me on the phone until I realized they were making me use the minutes from the first phone I had activated, but wasn't doing anything except constantly placing me on hold. I finally just asked what I could do if anything to get the minutes I paid for? I was told to fax the serial number of the phone, a copy of the Walmart receipt, a copy of the back of both cards along with my contact information and the reference number to 1-866-809-7133.

I sent the fax the first time on 10-08-2010. It paused for longer than a minute or two, so I wasn't sure if it had gone through so I sent it a second time. I thought everything was received until a TracFone agent called me on October 14th and stated they were still waiting for my fax. I told her I sent it, but would send it again. I began faxing it while she was on the phone, but she would not wait on the line. She said the faxes are received in another department and told me she would call me back if she did not receive it. I tried sending the fax again on that day (October 14th), I tried to send it 4 times before I called them because there were long pauses between the pages.

I had never had a problem sending faxes before, but I wanted to be sure they had received it. So I called back and went through two people who kept placing me on hold, and finally was told no fax was received. I asked for a physical address to send my information to, and was told there was no other way, I had to fax it. I sent the fax 3 more times and on the 4th try, there was no pause and everything seemed to have gone more smoothly. This was the 8th attempt that day to send the fax, no one called me, so I thought it would be just a matter of time before the minutes would be added.

Almost two weeks later, I called back and spent over 2 hours on the phone while they kept placing me on hold and calling different departments. Then I was finally told the fax was not received. I yelled and screamed and pulled up my Vonage account online and advised them that I did send the fax to them. I sent it a total of 10 times. I was placed on hold again and again and then a supervisor came on the line. She called to the department that receives the faxes, then advised me that the faxes were received, but they didn't receive a copy of the receipt. I protested and advised them that the receipt was the main item I sent. I copied the store receipt onto two separate sheets of copier paper, just to be able to fax it to them because it was a long receipt.

One time I sent the fax, the duration was 5 minutes because there were 4 pages, and I waited until they all went through. I thought they were playing games with me. First you didn't get any of them, now you didn't get the most important one. I was beginning to use profanity, so I asked for a physical address to mail in the receipts. I told them I can't keep sending faxes if they can't collect them properly. I was given an address: 9700 NW 112th Avenue; Medley, FL 33178 to mail the information to, but I was told I had to be connected to a different department so that another ticket could be set up. I was told that if I requested a refund without a trouble ticket, there would be no response.

I waited to speak with the young lady he connected me to and had to give her the serial number and explain the entire ordeal all over again. After another thirty minutes of explaining, she told me she could not issue me a ticket, I could not get a refund, the only thing I could do is fax the information and make sure they receive it. I told them the times and dates the faxes were sent already. I told her I sent the fax 10 times. I verified that the fax number was correct on three different occasions with them. I pulled up the outgoing calls to check the number, the fax was sent to and there were no errors.

Every time I send faxes, they were received, I've never had any problems before, so I questioned her about why I couldn't send the information by mail and just receive a refund and was told that the representative before her was wrong; I can't get a refund. I need to get the fax to them or there was nothing they could do and she ended the call. I called back to speak with a supervisor, but didn't get anywhere. I assumed they were just playing games with me. I am out of almost $125.00 just because I wanted to provide a mode of communication for my children so I could leave them and go back to the workforce. I had so many problems, just trying to do this simple thing, get the minutes I paid for. They kept telling me I can purchase another card, but I told them the way the pin number rubbed off.

I thought it was rather curious that I was just out of luck. It wasn't my fault, but I didn't get anywhere and I resigned from the job, because my youngest daughter was afraid of a guy in the neighborhood and I didn't have any more money to spend on the phone at that time. So after sacrificing 40% of the money I had, taking that job would be more of a hardship, so I resigned. I hate that I bought the phones and I hate the games they played with me. If they only knew my struggle, they might have tried to resolve the matter for real, but after all the time I spent with them, I am convinced that I was scammed. I'm glad people are complaining about the things they're pulling. I only wish I had read these complaints first. Something needs to be done, one way or the other. TracFone suck.

Obviously SD ** had owned the phone, SIM card, voicemail before me! I even said when I called my own home number, which my carrier knows the updated info, that it still showed the wrong name on the cells out going caller id. Tracfone did not offer a new phone or SIM card. I told them I would no longer be a customer and hung up. I will be returning the phone for a refund. The tech dept. was lousy! Do not purchase!

Long story short, I am installing the 3rd SIM card and the phone still doesn't work. They want me to call customer service again, but I just can't stand the aggravation one more time. After spending more than 6 hours on the phone to resolve this problem, I'm giving up. The $30.00 I wasted on this phone isn't worth it. Verizon here I come!

The next day, they asked me to activate the code entry mode and had emailed me steps to go through and to see if the airtime showed up; still none yet. They came back and said that they have seen me added airtime on my account, and I said yes, I know that it showed up on my account but it still did not show up on my phone. I sent emails back and forth a few times and they asked me to send them information on the entry code and said that it should be a 9-digit number on an entry code it was a 10-digit. They said that I did not send them enough information. I said that I sent them exactly what they wanted, then they argued that I needed a landline to resolve the situation. I told them there is no land line of which I can use.

If I had a landline in the first place, I would not need a Tracfone. Still there was no response. I know that all they have to do is punch a few buttons to send the airtime information on the phone screen; they did it before when I first activated the phone. By the way, this phone card is for 120 minutes double to 240 for this particular phone. I only have approximately ten minutes showing with 80 service days.

This is the only source of communication I have with my doctors and a family member of mine. I am thinking about consumer cellular now.

pack you sent me. You have not expressed concern for a dissatisfied customer nor have shown any actions toward righting this situation. I have patiently waited for you to refund $29.98 for your 120 minutes airtime card that I was unable to use. It has become obvious that: 1) you do not care about customer relations and 2) you do not intend to issue a refund for minutes that were unusable due to TracFone not supplying a workable phone. From my research of TracFone, I have found I am not alone and that this situation is a recurring problem for many consumers who have purchased your product and found it inoperable. If I do not receive a timely response from Tracfone, I will file a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau and with our Attorney General."

1. I did not upgrade to a current new phone! Phone #1, referred by you as original phone, was declared defective by your representative who then told me TracFone would send a replacement phone, which is phone #2, referred by you as my current new phone.

2. Phone #2 aka my current new phone was never activated which I found did not work in my area from going to Walmart's internet site and using a tool they supply to their customers purchasing cell phones to determine if a certain phone will work in the area they live in! It is amazing that with selecting the LG290 phone aka Phone #2 aka my current new phone, entering my 5 digit zip code and pressing enter, I was able to determine that the LG290 phone aka Phone #2 aka my current new phone would not work in my area.

But apparently TracFone did not have this technical capability when they sent me Phone#2 aka my current new phone as a replacement phone(!) and again when customer service could not provide me with an answer as to why Phone #2 aka my current new phone could not be activated. Instead I was told it would take an hour, then 72 hours all the while knowing the phone would never have worked in my area!

This is blatant consumer fraud! And I am not impressed with your reply stating you will be using this issue as a coaching tool because your representatives read from a prepared script and get off the phone too often seeking advice when customers challenged their ridiculously incorrect responses.

3. Phone #1 aka original phone purchased at Walmart was returned to Walmart! Phone #2 aka my current new phone sent by TracFone was returned to TracFone!

4.I am fully aware that my purchased 120 minute airtime card was doubled due to the double airtime plan that came with phone #1 aka original phone along with 10 airtime minutes for a total of 250 minutes not 240. I am only requesting the original 120 minute airtime card applied to the phone #1 aka original phone I purchased be refunded for $29.98. There was only one 120 minute airtime card (why would I purchase a 2nd when I was unable to use the 1st one) and it was added to phone #1 aka original phone. The pin number is 193 171 019 603 109.

Your customer service center assured me the minutes would be transferred to phone #2 aka my current new phone. Phone #2 aka my current new phone was returned to TracFone on 9/19/2010 by USPS along with charger, battery, copies of my Walmart receipt showing my purchase of TracFone aka Phone #1 aka original phone and airtime card and also of my returning defective TracFone aka Phone #1 aka original phone, along with all correspondence with your company, a copy of the 120 minute airtime card (front and back) and a 2nd letter of complaint.

Now after stating this issue to you a third time, your offer of 60 minutes and 30 days is nothing more than a concealed effort on your part to extend the duration of my complaint in hopes I will grow tired of dealing with you and give up. You are very much aware that I do not have a TracFone and do not have service with you, so how do you propose I use your 60 minutes and 30 days?!

I am attaching once again all previous correspondence mailed to TracFone regarding my complaint. If I do not receive a satisfactory response due me in a timely manner then you leave me no other choice but to proceed with filing of formal complaints as previously stated."

I truly wish more consumers were aware of Consumer Affairs site so they could research a company before doing business with them or purchasing their products and services. With knowledge consumers will be empowered to put TracFone and others out of business.

They told me that they would send out a replacement battery for the refurbished phone they had sent. It was supposed to be sent on Tuesday or Wednesday, Sept. 5 or 6. Today is Friday, Sept. 8 and I still have not received even a new battery. So I called Tracfone back and was told that the battery was just shipped today and I would not receive it before Monday, Sept.11. I feel that I should have been sent a new phone like the one originally purchased since it was less than 90 days since date of purchase and that is what the manufacturer offers. I was told that if I had bought the phone from a local retailer such as Wal-Mart, I would have received a new phone but that Tracfone does not have to honor the manufacturer's warren, it is only at their discretion.

I feel this policy is totally wrong. When you buy something, you expect to receive what you purchase. What Trasfone sent isn't even the same brand as the one I originally bought. This is the worst service of any call provider I have ever dealt with. Any other company would have sent what I order and I would not have all these problems and have to call for 6 weeks to get a refurbished phone!

Tracfone shipped us the order without its accessory kit. We reported the problem after we found that no accessory kit included. At first, they won't able to credit the cost or to ship the kit until we decided to cancel the whole order. After forwarded to another line, we waited half hour. Then he said they can re-ship the kit if we keep the order. But we need to talk to another dept to deal with it. So we waited for another half hour to get the thing settled. It took us more than 2 hours to solve the issue.

The phones was purchased for my boys at school as required for emergency use. Immediately after we activated the phones, we found they experienced bad receptions, due to the school's location in the mountain. I called in and the Tracfone service nailed down the problem on the network carrier after more than half hour trouble shootings. They said to send us a new AT$T SIM to replace the T-mobile SIM card. We would receive it within 5 days. It took us one and hour hour to get the promise.

After waiting for 2 weeks with no replacement arrived, we called in and asked where the AT&T SIMs are. Then, they told us they never sent out the replace, because the data from the last time trouble shootings was not adequate to support for the replacement. They need to run the test again. They refused to send out the replacement without a new test. What a bad service!

The next day to my surprise there it is, happy, happy, and happy so I thought. I did not know that I would spend the next few days wanting to strangle one of them. Upon receiving the new sims card I immediately call to activated my phone, again someone who can barely speak English, I spent 3 stress hours then she said everything is fine in the next 72 hours my old number and my minutes will be transferred to my new phone. Great I will be patient.

Now it is well over 72hours. Now it is October 5, 2010, I called them again. The person I spoke to informed me that within the hour everything will be transferred to my new phone and she is sorry. Ok I am desperate, so I wait. My old phone is still active, my new one is not. Then my old phone is inactive on record yet I can still make calls, and my new one is active on record and yet nothing. By the way no phone number on the new phone either. About 11 am I call again it is now 1:24pm and I am still trying to resolve this problem.

At this point I don't know if I should cry or curse them out. Second choice is out of the question since I need my phone. They keep asking the same info again and again. Don't these people pay attention, a headache is starting. Every time this guy comes back from putting me on hold for the 20th time now, yes I am counting, he is asking me for the same info I just provide before he put me on hold. I have the flu, I should be resting, and instead I am been aggravated. Oh wait a message I have phone number.

Oh no, that my old number, he just got back. I told him about the message, I am been put on hold again. Will this end any time soon, I am about to pull my hair off. This company should go out of business. Customers should not be put through this ordeal. He is back, oh just to tell me that he going to put me on hold again. Nice.

I got about three of the phones together that wouldn't work. I phoned TracFone and spoke to the agents’ rode the electronic phone coaster to no avail. The 120-minute phone cards I paid for would not activate my phone or the other phones I bought them for. I got nothing but the run-around from TracFone. TracFone does not honor their customers or their responsibilities as providers of prepaid services. I sent fax copies of my receipts online, copies of my receipts for solutions to my expended cash.

All went unanswered, unsatisfied, uncompensated. After all that frustration, I just put my remaining TracFones away and retired them all. TracFone Prepaid Wireless cell phones are a frustrating waste of money. TracFone Prepaid Wireless, Inc. doesn’t care about anything but taking your cash money and then hiding behind a computerized phone maze of their own design to frustrate and discourage anyone whom they caught in their wireless web of prepaid deceit!

I am giving up on TracFone. It is obvious that the "customer service" has no idea on how to give any service and I will be switching to another phone. The fault has to lie with management. I would advise anyone to steer clear of this company.

I asked to speak to a supervisor because I could not understand the person talking to me (heavy accent). I was supposed to be transferred and I sat on the line and I could hear someone talking in the background to another caller. This person never picked up my call and I hung up frustrated. I then called back only to get another person hard to understand who said she'd check into seeing if they could fix my problem. She basically kept me on the line an hour supposedly checking with different departments when I finally said I couldn't stay on the line anymore.

She didn't hesitate to say this is almost finished or apologize at all. It felt to me like this was some game they are playing. I know it wouldn't be hard to cancel a transaction and instead I now have double minutes on a phone that I plan to cancel as soon as I can find one with better service. I plan to report this to the BBB and whoever else I can. Tracphone is ripping people off and shouldn't get away with it.

After the third day and the third attempt to activate my new Tracfone, I still don't have any phone service. Tracfone tech support is terrible. They have transferred my number and minutes from my old phone, cutting off the service that I had on that phone, while I am waiting on the activated phone to come in the mail. Why didn't Tracfone wait until I received the new phone before activating it? Tracfone tech support informed me that there wasn't anything they could do to get me phone service until I receive the new phone in the mail. This company has a serious tech support problem. I have 120 prepaid minutes on a Tracfone that has bee deactivated. Please contact Tracfone and see if you can help me with this situation. Thank you, William.

Since I had purchased another phone and wanted a new number, Sharla suggested that I transfer the minutes, 36 minutes, from the old phone to the new one and I agreed. She then went through the activation process where by I entered codes and the activation was completed. I also had a bonus code from the Tracfone savings book that added an additional 50 minutes if I purchased over 200 minutes. When she tried to enter the ‘Purchase minutes’ information for the $119.99 and 800 minutes for 365 days promotion, the system would not accept it. She told me that because of the double minutes, I would receive 1600 minutes to be used over 365 days plus the remaining 36 minutes and the bonus 50 minutes. The offer is good for the month of September. According to this, she told me that I would receive a confirmation within 72 hours of the entire procedure. My old cell phone now has 0 minutes. The old phone, IMEI **** with telephone number **** which is a Lifeline value plan will end on September 24, 2010 with 35.1 minutes remaining. The new phone which is a Samsung T105G with IMEI ****.

According to Sharla, I should receive 1600 minutes for the doubled 800 minutes, 50 minutes bonus and 36 minutes from the Nokia phone which would total 1686 minutes. I believe the intent was to have 886 minutes but she insisted that the 800 minutes would be doubled. I went through the credit approval sequence for about 3 or possibly 4 times, giving the same information over and over again when she received an error in the ‘add minutes sequence’. She also had me use the phone to input a number of codes which apparently were successful. The bill to my credit account was to be $119.99 plus tax of about nine dollars bringing the total bill to just under $129. I agreed to the charges and she said the minutes would be added and the account will be charged within 72 hours. That’s the status as of 4 PM on Thursday, September 16, 2010.

Before I got to talk with Sharla, I had been on hold for 1 hour and 30 minutes on my first call to Tracfone. I let the music play with the message repeating hundreds and hundreds of times. No one ever came to answer and the line did not disconnect. PPS 4:30, September 16, 2010, I checked new phone. It is activated but no new number. The old number **** is active on the new phone. The 36 minutes has not been transferred. The 50 minutes is shown as units remaining and the re-activation date is shown as 63 days from today or it will be on November 23, 2010. PPPS 9:00, September 17, 2010. The phone now shows a new telephone number.

The total minutes remaining are 50. I went online and the Value Lifeline Plan has been transferred to the new phone. I had requested that the plan be discontinued and was told that it had been cancelled and by buying the minutes and the 365 days of service, I would no longer need the monthly service charge. PPPPS 12:45 PM, September 19, 2010, so now, I've waited the 72 hours that Sharla said would be required to straighten out the problem. I went to the Tracfone website. The site shows the original phone as inactive and the new phone requiring verification by putting in the number I was given in the phone. The verification showed ‘Failed’ so at that point, I dialed the number on the new phone. It rang and a stranger answered. I then tried dialing my landline home phone. It rang. I have no idea what is going on.

So here I am, on Sunday, September 19, 2010, with a phone that does me no good at all and the website showing me that I am enrolled in the Lifeline Plan. Here is what I feel should resolve the situation. First, cancel the Lifeline Plan as of September 16, 2010 and if further charges are added, that they be removed. Second, add the missing 36 minutes to the new Samsung Phone. Third, complete the additional minutes that I ordered for $119.99 plus $9 tax. Since Sharla, the representative, insisted that the 800 minutes would be doubled, I trust that the company would honor this and give me the 1600 minutes that she promised. Fourth, begin the service date as of the date of first use of the phone. I have not used the phone for anything but trying to see if I could, awaiting resolution of this issue. This entire situation need not have happened.

All I wanted to do was to cancel the Lifeline Plan and activate the new phone with the 800-hour, $119.99 offer as a separate transaction. The entire problem arose when the Tracfone representative said that as soon as I canceled the Lifeline Plan to avoid continuous charges, I would no longer have access to the phone as of the date of cancellation. Since I never know what date the phone charges will be added and needed the phone, I was attempting to cancel as of the end of the month that I had paid for. It appears that there is no way to do this. It also appears that there is no way to credit the account for unused time. If this is true, this is a loophole that works to Tracfone's advantage. In simple terms, no matter how or when a customer decides to cancel, they will receive an extra month's charge. This strikes me as being wrong.

A review of my previous billing charges over the past three years will show that the service charges are not added on a specific schedule. Thus, there is no way to determine what date a customer has to cancel, in order to not to be billed. Will this nightmare continue? Will anyone ever answer me? Will this strange situation continue ad nauseum? What about of my own time and aggravation and escalation of the problem? Aha! PPPPPS 2:20 PM, September 19, 2010, as a final last try, I found a direct number for escalation service. I have been on the phone with what I assumed was a customer relations person who was going to help me. I have been on the phone with him, Jonax, with ID number **** for an hour and 25 minutes. He was nice but finally wore me out with verifying all of the details of what had happened after charging my credit account again for less service than what I had originally ordered.

And then finding out that the amount was wrong, he advised that he could not issue a credit but will then reorder the correct account number. I agreed at that point to take whatever he wanted to give me. It meant that I would lose the bonus extra 200 minutes from the bonus code and the 36 original minutes that I had lost from the first phone and the 10 free minutes that I was supposed to receive for signing up. On top of all that, the next thing I was supposed to do was to go back to the phone and enter hundreds and hundreds of numbers the way I had to in the first place when all the error codes came up. It was too much. I'm too old and obviously not smart enough to deal with Tracfone.

A total of five hours of frustration ending up with less than what I started within the first place, a company that I do not trust, that has private information on my credit card account. There was never a single, solitary word about any kind of minor compensation even maybe 10 extra minutes of free calls for the incredible inconvenience. The statement of account was updated the same day on September 19, 2010 at 2:42 PM. At 6:40 PM, same day, September 19, 2010I received a call from Tracfone in response to my email to them most of which was detailed above. The representative refused to answer any questions and spent 40 minutes interrupting me to ‘explain’ what had happened. As usual, it began with me having to answer the same questions that I had been asked over and over again even though the entire problem was laid out in my letter.

The representative Maria with ID number **** made it impossible to discuss the situation by explaining what had happened even though the problems were all occasioned by the inability of the previous representative to be able to do the simple initial request. In effect, I was being called a liar. When I repeatedly asked what would result if I continued to put in the number codes, I received the exact same canned comment. "Let me explain what happened" at which time she would try to say the mistake was mine. So now, back to the trenches, they're wearing me down. I finally had to say a pleasant goodbye. I can't imagine what the hours on the phone by the Tracfone representatives really cost the company.

On or about 2:45 PM CST on 16 Sept 10, I called TracFone and spoke with Sharla. The call ended at 3:48. My current TracFone plan was the Value Lifeline plan, which I have had since March of 2008. The monthly renewal date was scheduled to be 24 Sept 10 and there were 31 minutes left on the airtime. I wanted to keep the plan until 24 Sept 10, and have it cancelled then. But Sharla indicated that if she cancelled the plan, it would be as of today, 16 Sept, and that the minutes would remain on the inactive phone until I re-enrolled.

Since I had purchased another phone and wanted a new number, Sharla suggested that I transfer the minutes from the old phone to the new one, and I agreed (36 minutes). She then went through the activations process, whereby I entered codes, and the activation was completed. I also had a "bonus" code from the TracFone "savings book," that added an additional 50 minutes if I purchased over 200 minutes.

When she tried to enter the "Purchase minutes" information for the $119.99 800 minutes (365 days) promotion, the system would not accept it. She told me that because of the double minutes, I would receive 1,600 minutes to be used over 365 days (plus the remaining 36 minutes and the bonus 50 minutes; the offer is good for the month of September). According to this, she told me that I would receive (within 72 hours) a confirmation of the entire procedure. My old cellphone, now has 0 minutes.

According to Sharla, I should receive 1,600 minutes (800 minutes doubled), 50 minutes bonus, and 36 minutes from the Nokia phone which would total to 1,686 minutes. I believe that the intent was to have 886 minutes, but she insisted that the 800 minutes would be doubled. I went through the credit approval sequence three times, giving the same information over and over again, when she received an "error" in the "add minutes sequence." She also had me use the phone to input a number of "codes" which apparently were successful.

The bill to my credit account was to be $119.99 plus tax of about $9 bringing the total bill to just under $129. I agreed to the charges and she said that the minutes would be added and the account charged within 72 hours. That's the status as of 4 PM on Thursday, 16 Sept 10. Before I got to talk with Sharla, I had been on "hold" for 1 hour and 30 minutes, on my first call to TracFone. I let the music play, with the message repeating hundreds and hundreds of times. No one ever came to answer, and the line did not disconnect.

When I checked the new phone, it is now activated but there was no new number. The old number is active on the new phone. The 36 minutes has not been transferred. The 50 minutes is shown as units remaining, and the re-activation date is shown as 63 days from today, or 23 Nov 10. The phone now shows a new telephone number: total minutes remaining is 50. I went online and the Value Lifeline Plan has been transferred to the new phone. I had requested that the plan be discontinued and was told that it had been cancelled.

So now, I have waited the 72 hours that Sharla said would be required to straighten out the problem. I went to the TracFone website. The site shows the original phone as being inactive, and the new phone requiring verification, by putting in the number I was given (in the phone). The verification showed "Failed," so at that point, I dialed the number on the new phone. It rang, and a stranger answered. I then tried dialing my land line home phone and it rang. I have no idea what is going on.

So, here I am on Sunday, 19 Sept 10, with a phone that does me no good at all, and the website showing me enrolled in the lifeline plan. Here is what I feel should resolve the situation:

4. Begin the service date as of the date of first use of the phone. I have not used the phone for anything but trying to see if I could, awaiting resolution of this issue.

This entire situation need not have happened. All I wanted to do was to cancel the lifeline plan and activate the new phone with the 800 hour, $119.99 offer as a separate transaction. The entire problem arose when the TracFone representative said that as soon as I canceled the lifeline plan (to avoid continuous charges), I would no longer have access to the phone as of the date of cancellation.

Since I never know what date the phone charges will be added, and needed the phone, I was attempting to cancel as of the end of the month that I had paid for. It appears that there is no way to do this. It also appears that there is no way to credit the account for unused time. If this is true, this is a loophole that works to TracFone's advantage. In simple terms, no matter how or when a customer decides to cancel, they will receive an extra month's charge. This strikes me as being wrong. A review of my previous billing charges over the past three years will show that the service charges are not added on a specific schedule. Thus, there is no way to determine what date a customer has to cancel, in order to not be billed.

Will this nightmare continue? Will anyone ever answer me? Will this strange situation continue? What of my own time and aggravation? As a final last try, I found a direct number for escalation service. I have been on the phone with what I assumed was a customer relations person who was going to help me. I have been on the phone with him, Jonax (I.D. #: **) for an hour and 25 minutes. He was nice, but finally wore me out with verifying all of the details of what had happened. After charging my credit account again, for less service than what I had originally ordered, and then finding out that the amount was wrong, he advised that he could not issue a credit and then reorder the correct account number.

I agreed at that point to take whatever he wanted to give me. It meant that I would lose the extra 200 minutes from the bonus code, the 36 original minutes that I had lost from the first phone and the 10 free minutes that I was supposed to receive for signing up. On top of all that, the next thing I was supposed to do was to go back to the phone and enter hundreds of numbers the way I had to in the first place. When all the error codes came up, it was too much. I am too old, and obviously not smart enough to deal with TracFone.

A total of five hours of frustration--I ended up with less than what I started with in the first place. A company that I do not trust has the private information on my credit card account. There was never a single, solitary word about any kind of minor compensation (maybe 10 extra minutes of free calls?) for the incredible inconvenience.

I called Monday and spoke to Alexandra in Columbia. Alexandra told me the department was closed since it was in the USA and it was a holiday. But on Saturday, Vonetta had told me it would be open. "Sorry," I was told, "Oh, and by the way, you will need the phone."

On Wednesday, Sept 8 I called. I provided the interaction number 1028919819. I was only provided 30 minutes! What! I purchased 200! Sofia, floor manager, now tells me I have to have the phone in order for her to check if I did not get the minutes! The original agent, Vonetta put in that the minutes disappeared. No, the phone froze and I had to pull out the batteries. Do they think I would spend 3 hours of my life on the phone with this company for 200 more minutes? I don't think so! Who has that kind of time!

The company is only giving me 30 minutes of my 200 purchased card. That is unacceptable. I could have purchased 30 minutes for a lot less than what the 200 cost me.

Again, I called customer service, and after approx 90 min the issue was resolved. I was treated courteously, but was on hold for very long periods in between getting various codes to put into the phone. An additional issue, still not resolved is that my phone is not allowing me to set up the voice mail. I was on hold so long (over 45 min) trying to get this resolved that I told the customer service person I had to hang up, (other obligations to attend to). I got a reference # and then later I went to their website and registered the issue of my voicemail there also. I have not heard from them at my email address. I have tried to get the voicemail to work again today as I was told maybe it would work if I waited for a few hours. It is still not functioning. I need this for my work, and at this point I may just take the phone back and get a refund for it, although the minutes I purchased can not be refunded. I have spent about $50 and several hours of my time on my day off trying to get a phone that works. Extremely frustrating!

When we try to place call the phone either says emergency calls only or restricted code 34. I have stayed on the phone with representatives from Tracfone as long as 4 hours at a time. Each time, I get the same results, they have me enter different codes and take the battery out and put it back in, I have done this so many times I can't count. After been on the phone with Tracfone for no less than an hour each time I call. Then I am either told that the problem has been resolved or that it will be in 24 to 48 hrs. the phone may work for a day or 2 and then starts the same process over. I have asked to be sent a replacement phone but the reps always have the same seeming scripted response that they have trouble shot the phone and that it works.

I would never purchase another Tracfone and would never recommend them to anyone else.I hope that this will resolve my problem with this phone. I need a replacement phone, since this 1 does not work. The representatives are rude and discourteous. I have even been hung up on. Of course the representatives are not American they are located in Guatemuela, outsourced work for cheaper pay I am sure. Why can't these companies hire people that or able to speak and understand English. If you are going to have an American based company the reps. should be American! Not from another country where customers can't even understand what they say. I need a replacement phone what is it going to take to get one. I am filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau here in LA. where I live and also in Fla. where tracfone has there Corp. office! Consumers beware. Do not but Tracfone!

I refused the offer, but they sent it anyway and then cut off my service on August 11th, even though I had service paid until September 2, 2010 and I still had 70 minutes remaining. I had planned on using the minutes and transferring the number to another company, but they cut off my service without notice. I called the company and after waiting 45 minutes I finally got a live person, who was rude and kept breathing very heavy into the phone every time I tried to speak. The very loud heavy breathing was very creepy and unsettling to say the least. I then asked for a supervisor, who made excuses such as, "it was probably the headset". I believe it was not the headset as the breathing occurred only when I spoke and was deliberate, as it could be heard by both parties.

After another 30 minutes I was told that Tracfone does not give out new phones, only refurbished ones and there was nothing they were willing to do. I filed a complaint with the BBB and the company called me and agreed to give me the phone I asked for, offered me a time card to replace the time and minutes that were taken from me, they also agreed to give me a FedEx mailing label to send the other phone back. I am in NYC and you can't put a big package into a mail box. I did not want to go all the way to the post office, wait in line, just to return something I never asked for. When the second package was delivered via FedEx, I found another refurbished phone, from the same warehouse the first one came from and it was not the phone I requested.

There was no time and minutes card to replace the time they ripped off from me and the only mailer in the box was the same as before, a USPS envelope, not the FedEx we had agreed on. I then updated my BBB complaint and another rep contacted me, agreed again to my more than fair requests and then, after sensing something wasn't right, I pressed her about the phone she was sending, and confessed she could not give me the phone I requested because it was for sale only and Tracfone will not give away a new phone no matter how inexpensive it is.

That was the last straw, and I told her to refund my money for the time, minutes, phone upkeep and cost. The company responded to the BBB by stating they offered me a new phone, which was a lie, and that I was rude and would not allow her to assist me any further. This number was on dozens of resumes I have been sending out and I have lost work due to this company. I will take my business elsewhere. There are a lot of businesses that would love to have a long time steady customer like me. Thankfully there is a lot of competition. I am very upset at the heavy breathing by the customer rep and I am suffering trauma due to this. I thought at the very least, I would have until the 15th of August to make my final decision as to what to do about my phone service, but they cut me off on the 11th before I could make any transfer and therefore all the resumes I have sent out are now useless. This has cost me a lot of money and lost job search time.

Hello! How is the Postal service supposed to know why Tracfone messed up? Go to he United states postal tracking and check for yourself. Here is the tracking number: ** I don't live in Indiana! Well, I asked to be transferred to a supervisor after a very long discussion that got nowhere except I needed to contact the postal service, for what? The order was sent to some "Victoria" in Indiana and I live in Iowa. It's on my credit card, yet someone in some other state has what we ordered. So, we are out the phone and the money. To no avail. We could not get the Tracfone people to correct the online order. This is just a sad way to do business. I have no idea who to contact from here as I have no idea what country these people are even in. Sounds like a foreign accent with every person they transferred me to. Upset and quite infuriated. In this economy we can't trust people will do their jobs and if they make a mistake, correct it honorably.

So the call ended. Four hours after that, still no phone number. Two hours after that, it finally had a phone number and everything was peachy.

I spent approximately 1 hour with a customer service representative who kept asking me for the same information over and over, repeating the same statements over and over and having me input several codes numerous times the representative said he would recommend I be sent a new phone as the one I had was defective because when I tried to make a call restriction #34 would show up on the screen.

I then made certain he knew the exact phone I had purchased with the unlimited double minutes for the life of the phone plus 10 airtime minutes. He assured me he had that noted the correct information and the new phone would be the same and would include the 10 airtime minutes, the unlimited double minutes for the life of the phone plus the 120 additional minutes I had put on the defective phone for a total of 250 minutes. He then told me to call customer service in 72 hours and give them ticket #** and they would tell me if I would be receiving a new phone or if the one I had could be fixed.

On August 23,2010 I called from home phone again to customer service with the above ticket# and was told a replacement phone had been mailed on 8-20-10 and I would be receiving it in 3 to 5 possibly 7 days. At this time I wanted to make sure I would be receiving the same phone, unlimited double minutes and 250 minutes from the defective phone. She would only reply "you will be receiving a LG290", I repeatedly told her no that was the incorrect phone.

After being on the phone for a very long time she would only say she did not know, I would find out when it was activated and then gave me ticket #1021924769 for reference. At this point I was so frustrated with this representative evading my questions that I hung up. I then emailed Tracfone's Customer Service telling them in detail about my conversation and what I was concerned about. I asked that they make sure I would be receiving the same item that I had purchased at Wal-Mart. They replied only thanking me for my business and stating they were sending me a replacement phone and if I had any further questions to call the customer service number.

I received the phone on 8-26-10 and called customer service again from my home phone with ticket #1021924769. At this time I told the representative that I had received the LG290 without a camera and not the T301G phone with a camera. This issue was never answered in our lengthy conversation. I then told her I wanted to know before we went any further that since I did not receive the same phone would it have the unlimited double minutes and would my 250 minutes be transferred over. Again and again she would reply with something that had nothing to do with answering my direct question.

I asked why with two reference ticket #'s did she act like she had no knowledge of anything I was telling her and she could not answer my questions. She would not answer if she could pull up previous information regarding what I had been told. She said I would just have to activate the phone to find out if the 250 minutes would be transferred or not and if this phone would have the unlimited double minutes or not. I told her that was not acceptable to me. I asked why if they had the technology to activate, program, deduct money, add applications etc etc could she not tell me whether they were transferring these items over to this replacement phone?

I am sure she knew at this time, as did the previous representative I spoke with, the exact answers to my questions and were providing me with written responses that they were required to give to all customers. No response in fact by this time she had become very short and discourteous with her responses. I asked to speak to her supervisor when she came back on the phone she said I was speaking to the department that handled complaints and these types of situations. At this time she said I would have the same plan, 250 minutes, the same days of service (they would not deduct the days waiting for a functional phone and service)and unlimited double minutes would be on this phone.

I asked 3 times if she was sure and she replied yes. So she supposedly activated the phone and then thanked me for my business. I stopped her and told her my phone still did not work. She got off the phone, came back and told me I was in an area that did not have service so therefor I would be unable to access the web and it would take up to 72 hours for all the transfer to take place. So now I have LG290 phone without camera and was not capable of internet services instead of the T301G with camera and was able to access the internet. I once again hung up after getting nowhere with Tracfone's customer service.

I was not surprised when after 72 hours nothing had changed. The phone still did not work. It was activated but showed it was roaming and I could not make or receive calls and was unable to get the actual phone number for this phone. I researched the LG290 through Wal-Mart with my zip code and it showed this phone would not work in my area! I believe I bought a phone that was being marketed in an area and was sent a replacement phone that Tracfone knew would not be operable in that area. I believe they also have made their customer service process difficult and lengthy enough most customers would just grow tired of dealing with them and drop the entire issue.

I have returned the replacement LF290 phone, battery, charger and instructional material to Tracfone and will be returning the original T301G phone to Wal-Mart. The 120 minute phone card is non refundable so I'm out of luck there. At this point the money and time wasted is secondary to the fact that Tracfone is deliberately defrauding consumers regarding their product and services. Apparently they have been getting away with this for some time according to the numerous complaints involving my situation and others that closely resemble mine.

I thought there were laws to protect consumers from fraudulent advertising and businesses that are unwilling to provide working products and honest services. Is the reason nothing has been to address this because their call center is out of the United States? I simply can not believe a business such as this is allowed to operate in such a manner. I will also being be filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau, my representatives in Washington, D.C. and the President and CEO, Mike Duke, of Wal-Mart. I thank you for your time.

I totally blame the inept technicians for this. They do not speak or understand English well, read from a script and are useless. They may even be malicious. No one has been able to resolve this ridiculous scenario, and the so-called supervisor actually disconnected me. I filed a complaint with BBB, who give these dopes an A +rating. I'll go everywhere else I need to go. I have a landline, the mobile is for emergencies.

So, I called customer service (outsourced, you cannot speak to an English-speaking American) and they tried troubleshooting; then they transferred me to tech support. After many calls, taking about nine hours, and asking for a supervisor, they agreed to send me a new SIM card for phone #2. It took that long because they would hang up accidentally and/or I got a rep who didn't understand and I had to call again. Oh, and if you use your Tracfone to call them, it uses your minutes.

So, while waiting for the new SIM card, I found out that my phone #1 was not able to receive incoming calls. I decided to wait until I got the SIM card for phone #2 and call from someone else's phone (landline) to resolve both problems. The SIM card came and I installed it. You still need to call them to program the codes to get it to work. I called them and got a rep that seems to understand and speak good English. We programed phone #2 and it turns on. Yay! So far, so good.

I proceed to mention about how my phone #1 hasn't and isn't able to receive incoming calls. He "researches" and tells me I cannot keep my transferred phone number since this is the primary phone on my Sprint account and we kept the same phone number for #2 that we just fixed. I said that doesn't even make sense. I already have the number assigned to the phone and I've been making calls with it! His reply was, “Oh, you can make outgoing calls?” Was he even listening to me? Up to this point, I've been on the phone for an hour already—I've been patient, but I'm losing my cool.

He has tech support still waiting on his line and he puts me on hold many times to talk with them. While waiting for him, I noticed #2 phone now says “SIM not registered.” Can you believe it? He comes back to me and says, "In this case, your phone #1 will not be able to get incoming calls.” In what case? "The case that I transferred them online." What? Do you feel my frustration? I am not even going to start over with the #2 phone either. That was my breaking point! I said, “I give up and I'm sending these phones back. I wanted to speak with a supervisor.”

The supervisor explains to me she needs the order number from the purchase order. I said I am not at home and I did not intend to send them back when I called, so I don't have it. I have worked in customer service for many years as a phone rep and I know that if she doesn't have access to the records, they can call the correct department to get it. She could at least email the request. I told her I expect her as a supervisor to be able to get that information and process my refund request. She tells me, she is not a supervisor! Sigh.

She transfers me to her "supervisor" Angelie. Angelie asks me my name and tells me I have to have the order number to process a refund request. I say that she needs to take initiative to contact whoever and get the info she needs to assist me. Isn't that customer service? So, she says she will escalate and get the order number. It will take 24 to 48 hours to process. Thank you. But now she wants to know how much I paid for the phones so that she can request the refund. I say, “I don't remember—it will be on the paperwork with the order number.” She insists that she needs that info to further assist me. I asked for her supervisor; she says she's the manager and has no boss. I asked for company owner or president information; she does not give me any other contacts for Tracfone.

After realizing she was not going to give me any contact info, I gave her my summary of expectations. I wanted them to send me the instructions to send the phones back for a refund and I wanted the info sent to me by email. She asked for a phone number to call me back. I said I do not have a working number and I'm not going to put out someone else’s to use their landline. She stopped talking to me and after several hellos from me, she said, “Thank you for calling Tracfone.” That was her signal to say she was done. I guess their policy is to not hang up first.

After thinking about the call, when I got home, I decided to email the Tracfone customer service. I wrote about my conversation with Angelie and mentioned I didn't have confidence in her resolving my problem. The next day they replied saying they needed to speak with me to finish the process. By now, I have gone back to Sprint and renewed my contract. So I email them my phone number. I was called within the hour and what do they ask me? What are the serial numbers of the phones? I couldn't believe it! I asked them what else do they need because in my email to them I wrote at the bottom my name, address, Tracfone numbers and serial numbers. She said we need the serial numbers. I said read my email and I hung up. Yes, I was rude. I then sent an email to them and said don't call my number again.

Today, I got an email with the address to return the phones (my expense). They say it will take 30 days for refund. The 186 remaining minutes on the phones will not be refunded. I think they could have at least paid for shipping back to them, if not the minutes. I used all my minutes to call them and had to purchase more.

I said all this to say if you buy a Tracfone and it works, great! If you need customer service for any reason, prepare for frustration. They read from script and don't pass on information from one rep to another. If you get transferred, you have to tell them your name, serial numbers, and detail about what the problem is again. If they listen, you might get an appropriate response. Otherwise, you have to rephrase to get them to understand. Good luck. Oh, and I did get company contact info from the BBB. That's my next step!

In doing so, we discovered it still wouldn't work. My daughter called TracFone again, gave them the information four different times and was finally told the minutes had been applied to another phone. We have no other TracFone so she requested that they put the minutes on our correct phone. They refused saying that would put the other phone in jeopardy of being disconnected. We don't care. It's their mistake, I paid for the card and have no other phone.

What can I do about this? I have not worked for 19 years and I'm in renal failure so I need an emergency phone. Can they just take our minutes like this? Now I'm out the money I paid for the 90 minute card, the phone is useless and I refuse to buy another card. I shouldn't have to.

She told me at least three times my minutes and number was lost. I asked to speak to a supervisor but was told they would tell me the same thing and there was not one available. I asked more than one but got the same answer, not available. I went back to Sams where the rep got on the phone and everything was taken care of. This cost me 2 hrs labor and about 40 miles of gas. Now I am not a happy camper.

Unfortunately, I was honest and said that he had given me too many minutes. After an hour plus on the phone, he managed to wipe off all the minutes and service days on both old and new phone. The third person said that I would get all that was owed to me within 72 hours. Since the second helper had managed to add and subtract 1,225 minutes in a flash, I thought this was ridiculous.

The next fellow said that nothing could be done beyond the 300 minutes which I did not have any more. More time on the phone trying to talk to a supervisor who seemed to think that I should get all I was due. I was told to give her an hour and minutes and service days would appear on my new phone. That came and went and the next person said give to it 24 hours. It was in the system and there was no reason for it not to appear on my new phone.

The associate at Radio Shack told us that TracFone is discontinuing all its coverage in Canada. This is unacceptable to us, as we travel frequently in the Canadian provinces which are so close to our state of Maine. What is the reason for this?

Also, it is a pain in the neck to have to buy more minutes than we will ever use, even buying the minimum possible. There needs to be a plan for older users like us who use cell phones mainly for emergencies and when traveling.

Called them with my ticket number and still had to start from scratch. They said the phone would be working in an hour. So 24hrs later it still isn't working and doing the same thing. Back to square one. Another 2hrs on the phone and finally they tell me they will send me a new phone with the Sim card already in it. They said my minutes 150, days of service 207 and phone number would be on the phone already. Of course it wasn't. I called again. Go through the story again. I'm told by the rep there's nothing they can do because I deactivated my old phone.

So the minutes are gone and I need to buy more airtime. I said hello I didn't deactivate the old phone, you guys did. Went through the story once more and still didn't get anywhere. So here I am 2 weeks later and my son still doesn't have a phone or wait yes he does, he has mine which isn't a Tracfone. So after reading the complaint board, I've decided to cut my losses and take the $70.00 vested up the hind end. In closing I would like to say "Have a nice day and thank you for being a loyal tracfone customer."

In addition, Tracfone sent out a promotional advertisement that if I purchased the 200-minute airtime card, Tracfone would give me an additional 50 bonus minutes. I took advantage of that promotion and figured that because I had the "Double Minutes for Life" program that I would see my minutes increase from the 200. I purchased to 400 minutes plus the additional 50 bonus minutes from the promo. To my amazement that did not happen. I only received the 200+ the 50 bonus minutes for a total of 250 additional minutes. I called 1-800-867-7183 and contacted a Tracfone representative. I explained the problems to Jeffery and through a series of questions, answers, and more questions and answers

He informed me that his supervisor said that because the contract was on the old phone and not on the replacement phone that the "Double Minutes for Life " contract wasn't any good. The only way for Tracfone to honor the "Double Minutes for Life" contract was if within the first 90 days of service from when I purchased that contract, that my phone broke and I called Tracfone and they sent me a new phone. When my wife called to transfer the minutes and same number to the new phone nobody explained that to her from Tracfone. So really "Double your Minutes for Life" means the life of the phone not your life or mine. Please note, it cost more money back on 12-20-2009 to purchase this program from Tracfone.

I wasn't satisfied with the answer I received from Jeffery and asked to speak to his supervisor. Jeffery refused the request by saying that the information he gave me was accurate and within the company's guidelines and therefore, there was no reason for him to transfer me. I then reminded him that because he was from another country and was representing an American based company that I, as an American, had the right to request and receive consultation with an American representative. Jeffery said that there wasn't anyone that he could transfer me to in the USA and the only supervisor available was the one he had already consulted with.

I was furious. I first explained that I was not directing any of my displeasure towards him as an individual, but that I was very dissatisfied with the whole situation. I told him that due to this current situation that both my wife and I would no longer continue service with Tracfone at the end of our purchased minutes. I also explained that the members of our family would be informed of what had transpired and that Tracfone might also loose my family members as customers in the future.

I am an independent contractor. My clients cannot reach me at my contact number because TracFone failed to provide continuous service. Four days of work lost in the short run. Clients used my previous number since 2004. Who knows how much work I will miss if they do not update their systems with my new number.

This problem started on July 6, 2010 and it has yet to be resolved as of August 4, 2010. It is obvious that TracFone's business practice is to annoy and avoid fixing a problem they created by selling a phone with a SIM card that cannot accept portability (something you have a legal right too). It is obvious that TracFone does not wish to comply with this law so has chosen to effectively harass customers rather than comply.

Most customers will give up and choose another cellular provider. I encourage others who have experienced this problem, and Tracfone's strategy to avoid fixing their products problems, to contact the FCC via their website and file a complaint under the telephone number portability section. Also contact your state Attorney General's office and advise them of this unlawful business practice and fraud. The phone that you are sold in a K-mart, Wal-mart, or drug store is required by law to allow you to 'port' your phone number. It is apparent that it is cheaper for TracFone to put you on hold, lie to you, stall and delay, until you give up, than to sell a product that complies with the law.

You will lose your phone number, you will spend hours on hold, your e-mails will not be responded to, you will be lied to, you will wait to be sent replacement components (SIM Cards) that were never sent, you will deal with people who do not speak English, the information you give them will be recorded wrong, the minutes you purchased will expire. Friends and family will not be able to reach you, important phone calls will be missed. you will have to purchase another phone (make sure it is from some other company other than TracFone).

In conclusion, I lost a week of work because I work in the field and I needed a phone to be in the field, overpaying for a phone. My new phone is not active with SafeLink anymore so I did not receive my free monthly minutes.

They kept on trying to say that it was applied to a third phone on our account. We don't have another phone, only the two. No resolution. I couldn't understand the customer service rep because of her broken English. They just will not listen, so I'm now out thirty bucks for airtime that we can't use. This company is nothing but a ripoff. We lost like eight hours spent on the phone, trying to get the issue resolved, and also the thirty bucks.

We then tried to reload her account on my MasterCard. It went through to a number that was not working. It went to what was the phone's original number. So no service was given on her current number. So first my daughter tried to get the problem resolved but the customer service rep could not understand, I then got on the phone to explain the problem. An hour later, I was still explaining with no answers. I finally got frustrated with him and asked for a supervisor. I won't even go into the incompetence of the customer service rep.

Okay, after 2hr 14min 32sec, finally they had to give me a new, because the 3rd and current number was not apparently one of theirs. Whose was it and why was it used then? That was a problem in itself due to the fact that my daughter uses virtual school and it's all tied into her phone number. She also does photo shoots and advertising has been done with the 3rd number, so at this point, it's costing me money. The next problem we had to use my T-mobile cell phone and that cost by the minutes, so more money used.

The problem was finally fixed and we agreed on a new number because there is no other choice. I can not tell you how stressed I am at this point, but it's over. Wait!-- it's not! An hour passed and my daughter came to get me, woke me up to tell me the phone was turned off again. I told her to call and give the case number. She came back into my room and here we go again. After 45min 52sec, another new number.

During the first phone call with the supervisor I asked for some restitution and I was offered 3 days' service. I said no way, then he offered 15 days. I laughed and said a month; he had to check with another department. He also asked me if I was sure I wanted to ask for a month. At this point, I was boiling ma. They owe me a year at least, and ten some.

Then I called yesterday to ask a simple question if I could get a book of instructions for usage of my Tracfone as the instruction booklet that came with the phone only explained how to basically hook it up. And that was a 2nd nightmare. Another rep. could barely pronounce English and I had to repeat things 3-5 times. He would try to answer a simple question of how I retrieve my messages from missed calls and nothing worked that he tried. Much less, he would start over and over with the same methods we just went through.

Until after about 40 minutes, I said this is ridiculous and good-bye and hung up without resolution. He never would let me speak to a supervisor. I'm so fed up with your lack of customer service, I will warn my friends to stay clear of Tracfone.

This scenario started in Feb '10 and did not get the phone to work until late March and nearly 14 hours of frustrated phone calls. New phone worked fine with old number and transferred minutes for 3 weeks and then was deactivated when I was on an emergency trip to another state. Unbelievable! More hours on phone, more frustration, finally phone was reactivated. Some weeks later, the phone was deactivated again. At that point, I asked for another model phone. They told me it would take special permission and that would be 3 days.

Thus I called back and was told permission had been granted for the same model phone, unbelievable amount of run around. Because I had so many minutes, I just went to nearest store and purchased another phone and transferred everything over. I still do not have my address book back to normal and as of today, I'm going to Verizon. The customer service and the untold amount of "let me check w/my supervisor" is terrible. Nothing is recorded though, we were assured countless numbers of times that we wouldn't have to repeat the whole story - that they were making notes. Never happened. Once when we were connected to a supervisor, he was very combative.

Every call was always more than an hour. My family used to be happy w/ Tracfone but like many companies, they have gone in satisfaction. The reps are in other countries, difficult to understand, though we had some polite ones who seemed to have a sincere desire to help. But, alas, whatever they did never worked. It is with great relief that we note others dissatisfaction with Tracfone and cannot understand how they could be so highly touted for their customer service.

I would like to be reimbursed for my time spent on the phone, time away from my children and the time I spent going to and from the store to purchase and then return the new phone. I expect to be paid a total of $25.00, $4.50 for gas and the remainder for my time. I was a customer and I am not any more. Your business will no longer be supported with my money.

Since this has happened. I purchased a Verizon phone, came home and activated it, without any customer service help and was using it within 15 minutes!

When making calls to the phone, it goes immediately to voice mail. They have sent me two new SIM cards and the problem still remains. I have been calling practically every day. I spend hours on the phone during the day and then go home at night and spend hours more on the phone, to no avail. The thing is I have 1,000 minutes left on the phone and need to either get the phone working or my money back.

I have been on the phone practically every day with their customer care. Every one gives me a different story. My phone still doesn't work even with this second SIM card that they have sent. I spend hours upon hours on the phone with them. I keep getting instructions to call back again in 24 hours. When I call and give either my serial number or case or ticket number, the customer service representative doesn't see any information on any of my previous transactions.

I purchased this phone on June 21 2010. They have ported my number like 3 times now. I need my phone to work. Can some one tell me what's really going on?

Never mind that it was permanently destroyed. Finally, after several attempts (which included several phone calls by my wife and myself), they still could not figure out how to transfer the minutes. I finally gave up and (stupidly) bought 120 new minutes for $20.59. Amazingly, it took additional calls to tech support to get even those minutes on the new phone. Probably due to the fact that the new phone was associated with our apparently tainted account. In other words, it would have been easier to just get a whole new account. It's just that we wanted to keep the phone number.

A short while after all of this, my daughter somehow supposedly opened the web browser on the phone unintentionally. Very easy to do as the browser function is connected to one of the main buttons and could easily be activated by mistake with one button. It is my opinion that TracFone does this intentionally. Apparently, TracFone charges for web browsing by the time unit and not by the kilobyte like all other wireless providers. This equates to being charged even if you are not actually browsing. In the case of my 12-year-old daughter, no browsing was ever done. She just pushed the ** button and wasted away all of her minutes while doing absolutely nothing (sleeping in fact) related to browsing the web.

After this happened, I was outraged and tried to get TracFone to make restitution for this apparent design flaw in their products. They were totally unwilling to budge on this, so I disputed the $20.59 charge for minutes with American Express. About a week ago, I foolishly decided to, yet again, purchase another $20.59 block of 120 minutes. For the first 5 days (or so) the phone was working fine. As of today, the phone has been deactivated. I have come to find out, it is most assuredly due to the charge back.

I am now in an e-mail back and forth with TracFone and they have even called me on my home phone. In the call, the "robot-like" customer service representative is telling me that to have my service restored, I need to send them a money order in the amount of $20.59. This, I can assure you will never happen.In dealing with TracFone, I will summarize by saying, buyer beware!

The latest incident was three days ago when I tried to reactivate my phone and buy minutes. I was on the phone for well over an hour and was transferred from department to department. On the last transfer, the girl simply put the phone down and left me on hold with no response for over 20 minutes. I called back and went through almost the same thing but with the original representative trying to get through to other departments and was unable to do so. I was given a ticket number and was told to call back in 48 hours. I called back in 48 hours and was again transferred from department to department to department.

Again, I was told they couldn't resolve the problem. It was something on their end that no one could fix. I was given yet another ticket number and told to call back in another 72 hours. It has become a nightmare dealing with them. I dread the due date of the minute expiration. I don't know what my conclusion is but I am beginning to think that the best solution to Tracfone's unacceptably poor customer service is to adopt the mindset of total disposability. From my research, it's a primarily Mexican owned company with no call centers in English as a first language countries.

I doubt that any consumer complaints will make any difference whatsoever. I think a possible solution for me, and perhaps an idea for others, is to buy another cheap Tracfone for $10 and to simply donate the non-working phone to the armed services or somewhere when it fails to work instead of going through the hell of customer service just for the sake of rollover minutes and continuity of the existing phone number. It's simply a throw-away-phone from a couldn't-care-less company. I think if we want better customer service, we're just going to have to pony up to a 25c a minute plan from an American company.

So, being a Saturday, of course their customer service line couldn't handle any more calls at the moment and that I should try back later the first three times I called within about three hours. Then I finally get through (after being on hold for 45 minutes) and the guy has too thick of an accent for me to even understand what he's saying. Then he gets frustrated with me asking him to repeat everything and hangs up. So I go through 3-4 more times of "sorry all our operators are busy," then finally get through again six hours after originally trying to get this resolved.

This person was unable to help me too, saying "sorry the validation claims department isn't open on the weekends, call back Monday." I say, "you mean a customer service department for a multi-billion dollar company has no validation department on the weekends? You've got to be kidding me!" I asked to talk to a supervisor and the supervisor tells me all the same ** that the first guy did and again in broken english as well. He did offer me ten whole minutes to compensate me for my troubles. Wow, ten whole minutes for the whole weekend!

This is just horrible customer service and I'm really sick and tired of companies being able to get away with this ** while raking in billions. They know people who use pay as you go sometimes use these phones as their only lifeline to opportunities yet they simply do not care! I'm not putting up with this and at this point, even if I do get my minutes back, I will use them and throw the phone into the pacific ocean and take my losses. Everyone I know will be hearing about this and I will never recommend this company or phone service to anyone, in fact I'll be sure to tell them how much they don't care about their customers.

I am expecting numerous job calls about employment I have interviewed for recently, and I shut my old phone off from a previous residence and gave everyone I knew my new number already.

I called again on 7/13 and was told there was a problem and it would be another 24 to 48 hrs. It was the same story when I called on 7/15. On 7/16, I emailed the company and told them I wanted a refund for the phone and the minutes. I was told the minutes were non refundable and I had to return the phone to the store, and that my phone would be activated in 24 to 48 hrs.

On 7/18, I sent another email stating that a supervisor needed to contact me. I was insisting on a full refund due to the fact that this situation was completely their fault. After contacting TracFone 5 times and being told 5 times that the phone would be activated in 24 to 48 hours, I no longer wanted their service. I had paid for a service that was not received. Today is 7/20. I still have not been contacted and have no service.

The latest e-mail from them says that they are going to remove my new SafeLink phone, and that I should apply for a new one! These people can't seem to understand that we're talking about two separate phones here. When I asked if I could speak to someone in the US, they gave me the runaround and hung up on me! So much for customer service from India!

A week later, the minutes got transferred, but the phone number did not. The phone number showed up in the prepaid menu as that phone number, but when you dial it, it rings on my old phone, which is now a minute-less phone. Hours on the phone with "customer service" (and I use that phrase loosely), and it turns out, it's "impossible" to transfer the number to a new phone, for a variety of reasons that seemed to differ, depending on which representative I was speaking with. But if I buy another phone card, they can transfer the minutes back to the old phone.

I asked them to front me the minutes for the old phone, transfer back my minutes then deduct the minutes they fronted me after the transfer. They can't do that because it's "not in their system". When I said that I didn't want to give them any money, on the faith that the process of transferring the minutes back would work, they told me there was nothing they could do, because it was "not in their system".

I asked for a refund. I said fine, I will send the new phone back, just give me a refund on the phone, and my minutes. They said, and I kid you not, they couldn't do that because it was "not in their system". They would not transfer me to a supervisor. They would not help me at all. I flat out asked, "what do I need to do, to either get my money back, or use my old phone number".

The only option was to buy something, over the phone, right there. They told me either I had to get a new phone number, or buy another phone card. If I did buy a phone card, and transferring the minutes back to the old phone didn't work, I know now they wouldn't issue a refund. Why would I give them another $20 that I might have to eat, along with the $30 for the phone, and the 650 unusable minutes? The whole thing was nonsensical.

I stayed at least four or five hours on the phone, with a bad phone connection on their end, and at least two of the people I talked to kept inverting the numbers I read them, which made the whole process take twice as long. They do not issue any refunds at all for anything, because their computer screens tell them not to. So if they make a ** up during any process of activating, upgrading, or transferring anything, you have to eat the cost. Nice business model.

After 1 1/2 hours, I checked and still did not have the 167 minutes (my phone already had 91 minutes on it). I called Tracfone again and explained the situation to the rep. While I was speaking, 170 minutes suddenly appeared on the other phone (the one that had been deactivated), with an expiration of 158 days. The rep said apparently the transaction had been reversed and that it could not be changed without my phone being deactivated. I carefully explained to her what I wanted (the original transaction), and she repeatedly gave me the same information even though I was asking a different question. When she said she'd talk to a supervisor, I politely but firmly said I wanted to speak to a supervisor myself. After a couple minutes, I was connected to a supervisor, who listened to my explanation.

Two hours later, what I came away with was the phone with the 170 minutes was deactivated and I was told a new SIM card would be sent to me for my phone, at which time I would be able to add the 167 minutes. I don't understand why this transaction was so complicated; even if the first transfer was made incorrectly, it seems that a correction should be fairly simple. Although I shouldn't anticipate a problem, I have little faith that the transaction will go smoothly when the SIM card arrives.

I've had a Tracfone for a few years and got one for my elderly relative. This is my first real problem, but it is a significant one. I also get weary of hearing reps repeatedly thanking me profusely (scripted, not sincere) and with some language barriers. Reps should be trained to speak without scripts and to ensure they understand customers.

I sent it back waited another 10 days for my replacement phone. Activated the "new" one but didn't get my double minutes when the minutes transferred. I was told by Lisa (which I barely understood) that the replacement model did not come with the double minute plan and I would have to purchase a double minute card. After 2 1/2 hours and three supervisors and threatening legal action was my issue resolved.

Once my wife and I returned the children I checked my checking account and Tracfone had charged me for the minutes but I never received them and Tracfone had deactivated my phone. Once I realized that the phone was deactivated I called customer service and talked to a rep who could hardly speak English. We had a difficult time communicating, but she did say that she would reactivate the phone in a few minutes and add the 60 minutes I acquired. We had spent about 45 minutes on the phone.

The Tracfone was never reactivated and I never received the minutes. About two hrs later, I called and spoke to another service rep for almost two hrs. I told him of the situations and he said he would talk to his supervisor and to hold for 3-4 minutes. We did this about eight times during our conversation. I was sure he was not talking to a supervisor, but waiting on other customers during the times I was put on hold. He didn't realize that I could hear him during those times. He was blatantly lying to me all that time. I got fed up with him and told him that I could hear him talking to other customers while I was on hold. I asked him his name and he hung up on me. I have yet not gotten the minutes I have been charged for and my phone has not been reactivated.

So I asked them to reactivate my old phone so I could use my old number on that and transfer remaining minutes back to old phone. They said the department that moves minutes was closed and that I should call back in the day time. They said they can't move my phone number when they claim in their advertising that's a big point: “Keep your old phone number.” Right now, I don't know if my old phone will still have old number. I lost my evening on the phone with these people. This is heavy mental frustration.

Well, they were supposed to also transfer the number from the old phone to the new but for some reason known only to TracFone, they still haven't gotten this done. I have spoken with supervisors who have become rude and snotty on the phone. One of the 'customer service' employees refused to tell me the name of the CEO of TracFone, telling me that it was confidential information! I just laughed at her and argued with her, but to no avail. I finally told her that I would simply look it up on my computer, which I did--and I did find it along with lots of information about this company. Only the administrative office is in the U. S.

Anyway, here it is over a week later, and I just now received a new SIM card and it's in the phone now. I am supposed to be calling them, but I am trying to avoid it by putting it off. I have never received such horrible treatment from any cell phone company as TracFone 'provides' to its unknowing customers. The last time I spoke with them, I had made the call four times in one day, and was disconnected from one of those, so it was actually five times--including a rude supervisor. I was consistently put on hold, while they 'checked with another department' on that issue, etc. Then, they come back and tell you that the phone will be changed over in two hours. After four hours of no change, and calling them back, they then tell you that you have to wait 48 hours.

I have never experienced such abuse and they really don't care. Not one person at this company cares about any customers, as is very evident from the comments I have read here. You never get anyone you can understand, and you are constantly transferred to that mysterious 'other department.' The amount of time you spend on phone calls and being put on hold is completely unacceptable, and this company needs to be reported to the Consumer Affairs Department of the United States. Someone wrote a comment that stated that TracFone handles the U.S. Government phones. Impossible! It's a company in South America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina. Look them up online. You will learn a lot about them and you won't like what you read.

I finally got myself away from them. While I have to pay a monthly bill, I sure don't have the headaches and grated nerves that I have, each time I have to handle a transaction with TracFone. I would never buy another phone from them, but my husband, who doesn't handle any of the nonsense stuff, likes the phones. He rarely uses his phone, but didn't want to add more to the bill that I have with TracFone. I should make him do his own calling and I'm sure after just one experience, he would be more than happy to go with a competitor. Anyway, this company is probably the worst at customer service and complaint handling.

I also write the complaints to them, and they think the notes are from my husband even with me stating very clearly that it's me writing for him. They are a terrible company and I would never go near them again and I will still work at getting my hubby away from them.

A landline! Who has a landline anymore. Wake up TracFone, welcome to the 21st century. So anyway I finally gave up, after entering endless "codes" to no avail I told the rep, Filipino I think, forget it! I'm worn out. I'll lose the 564 minutes on the old phone and buy more minutes for the new one. If there were any viable alternative to TracFone I'd switch in an instant. I just want a phone for the occasional call that doesn't cost me $100 a month like my old Verizon service and has minutes that don't expire, no daily usage charge and good customer service. Ma Bell would have done it right. Stupidest thing the government ever did was breaking up the company.

I called Tracfone and tried to resolve the issue and it was difficult at best because you always get a foreign speaking person and there is a tremendous amount of background noise so that you cannot hear even if you could understand the person. Finally I asked to speak to a supervisor and finally I got a person who spoke understandable English! He took the serial number of the phone and after having me on hold for about 15 or 20 minutes (which had happened every time I had called) came back on the phone and told me that the phone that I had purchased was not set up to be used in this area that they would send me a new phone.

That has been more than three weeks and we have yet to receive a phone! In the first place Wal-Mart should not have been selling phones at this location if they could not be used in this area! It is a rip-off all the way around. I am so sick and tired of the whole situation. My husband and I are both retired and do not need this kind of aggravation! Can you please do something about it? We paid for a phone and a phone card that we have not been able to use and we have been about 6 weeks or longer without the use of that phone.

Friday 6/11/2010, they had not resolved the shipping, so I asked them if I purchased a new phone, could I get my minutes and number transferred plus they were going to give me an additional 120 minutes for my inconvenience. I purchased the new phone add they proceeded and transferred my phone number on to the phone I purchased. Then they told me I couldn't transfer the minutes because they could not verify the minutes until Monday. I have been a loyal Tracfone customer for 5 years and I will never use them again. Since 5/27/2010 I still can't use the minutes I already paid for. If they would just tell me what they can do I could find a solution. I get a different story every time I talk to them. I have bent over backwards to work with them to no avail.

All their folks are somewhere on the other side of the world. Forget the language problem (their English is not our English), but their ability to resolve problems is apparently related to their lack of training and understanding. I'm convinced that's intentional. TracFone certainly knows this otherwise, it wouldn't take three weeks (so far) to make a number change.

Early spring, I decided to order a new Motorola phone. I received the phone, called customer service to activate phone and was told the phone has expired. I have been using the phone since early fall of 2009, and as of 6/10/2010, I am still using the phone. I have spent the last 30 days trying to get this issue resolved, to no avail. My minutes, over 200, will expire 6/12/2010 and TracFone does not care. Customer service is done in a foreign country, India, Pakistan, or such and very heavy accent. I have hearing deficit and could not understand person and they are unwilling to work with you via email. Save yourself some money, time and most important, frustration, and go with another provider. After over 10 years, my husband and I will seek other cell phone providers.