Jitterbug Smart Reviews

My 83 year old mother purchased the phone and wanted to transfer her landline number to it. All reviews say this is easy to do. The first Jitterbug had an issue and was unable to be activated even with support help and was returned. The second phone was pre-activated for her and she was told that it would take three to five days for her number to be transferred. We have been working for THREE weeks now to have the landline transferred to this phone and we were told more than a week ago that they accidentally assigned the landline number to her GreatCall life alert which is run by the same company, and that they would correct it and it would again take three to five days.

I purchased this phone from Amazon and I made a 20 minute call then I was billed for $110 so I returned the and didn't pay the bill either. They have billed me a couple more times and the bill went up to $139 then the next bill $160. I never agreed to these outrageous amounts so I'm ignoring these bills and they will NOT GET PAID!!!

I purchased a Jitterbug Flip phone from Rite Aid for about $100. I am not a technical person and only bought this phone because there are no payphones around anymore. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a cellphone at all. I am disappointed with the hidden fess added on to my monthly bill. It is about $10 more than my advertised plan each month. This is really hard for people on a fixed income. I am sorry I bought it, but now I have so much money invested in it, I will keep it. Otherwise, I really like this phone. It is easy to use.

I purchased the Jitterbug 3 for my Mom's use under T-Mobile. I was unaware that the Jitterbug products only work with the Lively subscription plan. T-Mobile paired the phone and some features worked while other didn't. When finally speaking with a Customer Support Rep, the Rep told my Mom that since she was not a Lively customer "they were too busy to assist her and they didn't have time to deal with her".

Very honest company, recommended them to my friends and family. Quick service, I support any seniors buying this phone, Great for seniors, great service. Thank you so much. Great calls. Easy phone to use.

This one's sort of a no-brainer. The LARGE SCREEN and EASY VISIBILITY of the Jitterbug Smartphone make this THE phone you want to have in an emergency -- when you might not have the ability or the attention to look at tiny type.

It is ok. Used for a bit and it served the purpose but it was to simple for me. Need more features, Little more in depth stuff. Probably good for a very simple application. If you are looking for extremely simple this is probably your solution.

My husband got this going for me since he works during the day and he is afraid something will happen to me. He and I are very happy with this service. It is a great peace of mind. I would recommend this to anyone needing peace of mind also.

I have owned the Jitterbug Smart Phone 2 for one year. In that time the phone has worked as I expected except for the phone message device. Approximately 6 months after purchase the phone ceased taking messages. I had to ask friends to use the text service instead to insure that I would get vital messages. With advanced arthritis, texting is difficult for me. Twice I have called the Smartphone2 support services for repair of the messaging device. Both times technical help worked with me for approximately 2 hours to restore the messaging service. Neither time was successful. Now I have requested support a third time. This tech tells me I need to have a second phone in use in order for her to offer support.

I've been with Greatcalls 5 years using the Samsung Jitterbug Touch3 that I loved. I've only been using this Alcatel Jitterbug Smart2 for 3 weeks now, but activation did not go as I thought as NOTHING came over from my Samsung Jitterbug Touch3 as I was promised (so much for the Cloud), I had to reload Apps, set up all of my contacts, copy pictures from old to new phone, etc. And setup all of the emails I had on the Samsung touch3. (Not sure why they ditched Samsung for Alcatel).

Purchased for a elderly friend that need to get rid of her land land because of price. I call Great Call and set her up with what we thought was unlimited talk and no text for 19.99 a month. Her first bill was 200 dollars. When she called they said she went over her 250 minutes. So obviously they do not tell the truth with the packages and she had to up her plan to 45 dollars a month to get more minutes. I will report to AARP and consumer services and Attorney General and whomever will listen. IT IS NOT RIGHT FOR GREATCALL AND JITTER BUG TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ELDERLY CITIZENS.... SHAME ON THEM.

I have the Jitterbug phone with the 5 Star alert service. This is my only phone and it stopped working on Friday. I'm elderly and in poor health. I tried to contact GreatCall via internet but there is no live chat. I wanted to buy a new phone and activate it but there's no way to do this online. The website says if you are an existing customer you have to call them to purchase/activate a phone. How are you supposed to do this without a phone? I went out to the store and bought a phone, but there's still no way to activate it without calling them. I now have to wait days without a phone or any way to notify anyone if I have an emergency. Very, very poor service for a company who advertises themselves to provide emergency services for seniors.

Purchased this phone for my 94 year old dad 2 months ago. Have had nothing but problems ever since. 30 percent of calls are “dropped” and the phone frequently says no service when in good cell service area. Called Great Call customer service and after very long and frustrating waits I was told that the issues we were experiencing were not uncommon and they were trying to find a solution for them, but couldn’t help solve the problems now. I bought this phone to make it easier for my dad to call me but instead it has caused him tremendous anxiety because he doesn’t get my calls and I have trouble contacting him. Just bought him another type of phone with Sprint service. Do not buy this phone until issue fixed.

I'm a senior citizen and cannot pay this kind of money for something that is not reliable. I need to get something I can rely on and the Jitterbug phones do not seem to be it, please refund my money so I can go on my brothers plan where he gets free phone for me and put on his service so I have what I need especially where family member is in hospice. I need reliability.

said she'd let the right people know. I would have just chalked it up to the Covid-19 miasma, but since the other options were working, I doubt that had anything to do with it. Conclusion? The phone works fine, the recording tree didn't work over a 3 or 4 day period, not a good indicator for a company that deals in phones!

Updated on 03/20/2020. Here is an Update with nuisance texting from PELA. You sent a suggestion on 3/13 to "text back to STOP." Well they either DON'T read or DON'T care. Received messages on 3/14 and again today on 3/20. If it continues are you going to continue giving me a "credit" to offset the nuisance texting?

Can't download files & voicemail does not work properly. My wife and I transferred our cellphone service to Great Call during October 2019. We got two Jitterbug II Smartphones. Since then, when we call each other, we do not get the other persons voicemail. We get our own. That's worthless. I need to leave her a voicemail, not leave one to myself. We've called this issue in 3 times and, while customer service is courteous, they can't get Verizon to fix the issue and no one follows up with us. Dead air from Great Call.

I have been with Jitterbug/Great Call for over a year and I have added 2 phones since then. I have had nothing but terrible experience with customer service until today. February 11, 2020 between 1 and 2 pm. A man named TIM spent the time to listen to our problems. Helped us connect to our wifi so that we wouldn't go over our usage. Hopefully ALL the problems we have been having with billing and over usage will be solved. Thank you Tim for making me decide Great Call may not be so bad after all.

My mom had a phone and was on my plan. I saw 17$ per month advertisement from Greatcall. I thought I save money. I bought a phone for 100$ and got a plan for my mom from greatcall then I found 17$ has no data. They wanted 50$ to give her unlimited data, but this was way more than I was paying before. After some negotiations I got for 25$ a plan that included limited data and calls. But one month I was charged about 250$. I called and greatcall told me, "Your mom used extra data." Extra data 250$!!!?

We purchased the Jitterbug at Best Buy and proceeded to call Great Call when we got home...what an ordeal! They me on hold for over 20 minutes the first time I called. Then Bill answered. What a jerk. He was condescending but I wanted to do this for my mom so I continued the conversation. He asked for my number in case we got disconnected. Well we didn’t get disconnected, he hung up on me! I called again and was on hold for over 25 minutes! I was fuming by then and the girl on the line was not much better. In the middle of the call I thanked her for her time and decided this was not for my mom. She has been happy with Metro Pcs, so she is staying with them! Thanks Bill for being a jerk. This would have been more expensive for my mom a month than metro pcs, but we wanted to try it out. You saved us from that hassle!

I have had my Jitterbug for four days and it’s still not activated. Despite nearly six hours on the phone and a replacement customer service has not been Able to help, claiming bad data entry on their and and network problems. I’m more than done.

Great concept but needs improvement. The location of the 5* when unlocking the phone causes my elderly mother to accidentally call the police. Unprompted the last two days the phone has blocked Contacts, Dial Pad, messaging and history. The Customer service folks are patient and friendly and walked me through unblocking, but it was a temporary fix because it blocked them again. Volume is not loud enough.

I have used a Jitterbug phone for about two years without a problem. About a month ago I decided to upgrade to another phone and another carrier. I contacted GreatCall and asked them to close my account and port my number to my new phone. Neither has happened. I settled for a new number on my new phone and continued to contact GreatCall to request that my service be discontinued to no avail. I have called and emailed them asking for their help. They have been courteous and they insisted that my account was closed nearly a month ago.

We purchased this phone for my mother who turns 90 this year and was starting to have challenges with her iPhone. So we bought a Smart2 thinking it would be a friendlier alternative. We were mistaken. Example: in order to place a phone call to a stored "contact," starting at the Home screen, it takes 6 screen taps before the target phone starts ringing. The iPhone took 2. There are no speed dials and the menu tree doesn't really translate well to a 90-year old who grew up in simpler times. Further, the buttons are cumbersome and it's easy for an elderly person, slowing down, to accidentally press and hold the wrong one. So she was constantly turning the ringer volume off or bringing up the "reboot" menu. As far as the main interface, she was constantly getting caught in the "Options" menu as well.

Well, it’s been five days since we bought and activated a phone, and we e. Even online with service five times, three with a supervisor, trying to get number ported from another carrier. They did not ask for or submit complete information - twice - but didn’t tell us port has been rejected until we found out they had not asked us for all the info needed. One of the customer service supervisors admitted that CS had “failed.” Yet here we are, without a fully submitted/ accepted port request for my 84 year old mother in law, and after untold hours trying to get to the bottom of it all. I’d give them a zero if you let me.

First of all, it doesn't always do what I want it to do. I accidentally hit the *5 button. Operator came on but couldn't hear me when I tried to tell her was an accident. Most concerning, the way it sucks the life out of the battery. 99% at bedtime, checked in the AM 40%. I didn't check in the morning one time, was downtown at twilight and was horrified to discover when I checked that the battery was at 1%. What if I had had a car breakdown? Stuck downtown after dark and no way to call AAA? That's dangerous. It's not a pleasure to use. Every time I do, puts me in a bad mood for hours. I HATE it. ANDROID is a vile, stinky OS. I think I'll throw away the $100+ I spent on the wretched thing, buy an iPhone. I am a Mac user/Apple platform person. I really made a mistake in not sticking with Apple products. The refurbished iPhones sold at Target should work just fine,.

Bought this phone Dec 2019. Had volume issues but realized the volume control was on low. Then I accidentally erased a few apps trying to move them off the HOME screen, not knowing what I was doing, lol. Jitterbug helped me with these problems & got everything back on for me. I needed to read instructions first (which I found just as easy as using the phone)! I only wish the plans had better options & $10.00 cheaper for our plan we got. I am very happy & satisfied with the phone, it is just SO EASY TO USE. I use the text a lot & never had a problem with things automatically erasing (like a reviewing did), or any other of those problems, sorry they did. I have no problems, in fact I found out how to do a certain task with it - that the Jitterbug people said was 'impossible'. lol. I really like it, my husband has one too & is just as happy with his.

Won’t capitalize first letter when texting even though there is a setting to do so. Cannot forward texts to others. Cannot access voice mail from another telephone. “Notes” disappear. Sometimes won’t allow me to answer the phone. The incoming call screen goes blank but the phone keeps ringing. I had a Jitterbug Smart before this Smart 2 and it was a much better phone, easy to use. It seems as tough my Smart 2 was a beta version, untested.

This company and its phone are probably the worst on the market for seniors, or anyone who is considering them. We've had two Jitterbug Smart phones since 2017. The first phone lasted a year, then just died. So, we called and asked if there were any discounts on new phones and they gave us a hefty discount on a Smart 2. 97 days later it gave us a message that it was "Corrupted". GreatCall said it was 7 days out of warranty so they could not provide another phone unless we purchased another. All the so-called technical help would not get the phone working again. 97 days!!! To top it off, because we cancelled the account only days after making a payment, they do not provide a credit for the 20+ days we have left in the payment period (you pay ahead for future service, not for past service). So, crappy phones and they steal your money if you cancel. Not a "Great" company.

Bought a Jitterbug smart phone for my Mother-In-Law Xmas 2017. She was intimidated but we finally got her to agree to try it. Called Greatcall and they said they no longer service this phone and transferred us to the sales dept to buy a new one! What in the??? Feels like you are taking advantage of Senior Citizens. No other phone company would not service a phone that is less than 2 years old! Bought the phone through Amazon so we can't return at this point. My hope is that Greatcall will make this right!