Tracfone

Minutes disappear and service is poor. Recently, 500 minutes of airtime disappeared from my phone overnight, leaving me with less than 30 minutes. I’ve tolerated the occasional technical and service quirks but lost airtime is unacceptable. Reps tried to explain away the loss as if internet related; however, this is inconsistent with my data plan. The diagnostic checks seemed pointless enough, but after two weeks of entering various codes and reporting back, a rep finally asked if the few minutes remaining were «…enough or are you still missing some minutes?» Apparently, call center notes do not exist or the reps do not read them. Tracfone used to offer a low-​cost but valuable service. Now, Tracfone cannot account for losses and its reps not equipped to resolve issues. I’ve decided to go with another provider.

If you want a phone that breaks down every few months, non-​existent customer service and a lot of frustration, then use Tracfone. They are inefficient, lazy, inept and you’d think you are dealing with Comcast. Customer Service does not exist. Supervisors refuse to take calls and leave you on hold until you get frustrated and hang up. Tracfone hates to replace warranteed broken phones and will argue with you and take over a month to replace a phone. Then sending a used refurbished phone that breaks down immediately. People that use their phones for work are without a phone for over a month. They don’t care and won’t even expedite freight. Tracfone is cheap but you get what you pay for. Constant disconnects, trouble connecting, phones that don’t work and nonexistent customer service.

Tracfone isn’t for everyone and they don’t try to be, they are a niche service. But, it is a great option is you don’t use your phone constantly. I have been using tracfone for 5 years. I usually buy the 1 year service with 400 minutes that triples to 1200, and my number and any minutes I had on my old phone carried forward. Normally I just get a newer model phone with the minutes included. Always pretty easy to activate and transfer number and minutes to new phone. I have been opting for android smartphones the past few with built in wifi, and have been happy with the features. Also on androids they now split the minute into 1200 talk, 1200 text, and 1200 data. uh
This year I tried BYOP (bring your own phone) as a friend gave me their old Samsung note 4, it was not easy. They charged me $ 10 for BYOP program kit, an acceptable price. The first SIM I tried to activate online, and it failed. So I called them for a new SIM. They kept sending me the wrong sized SIM card, but after 4 tries and finally talking to a better informed assistant, I got the correct card and everything works fine. Make sure you don’t try to activate a BYOP phone online it may invalidate your SIM card, call their customer service to activate.
Their customer service has actually improved over the years, but they all speak with a Spanish anccent (Mexican company) so sometimes it can be very hard to understand. They also often ask you for the same information over and over, irritating to say the least. Another note is that their cumputer system seems very slow, so you may wait in what seem like long periods of silence while ther assistants wait for the information to process.
Tracfone also owns net10 where they offer a wider range of services,– I used that for a few years, but tracfone suits my needs at a better price.
I don’t recommend this service to everyone, but if your don’t use a lot of minutes or need an emergency phone, or phone for to carry while driving around, this is a great option. It uses the Verizon network and has great coverage.

Wow, about the worse customer service i ever experienced in my life, and I had some bad ones.
I called because I saw my minutes being reduced quicker than i actually used them for texting. They told me basically that i was full of it, and i could not chat with a manager, nor could i see my charges or billing. No real answers, minutes seem to be reduced even when texts don’t go thru? They went very fast.

have been a Tracfone customer now for almost 20 years — I like to prepay for minutes without being bound by a contract, since I hardly ever use my cell phone
coverage is good (actually provided by Verizon Wireless)
but customer service is sad — twice now my phone has been de-​activated without notice because of a problem with my credit card — they have my email address, home address, home phone number and of course cell phone number, and never bothered to tell me the phone had been de-​activated
to add insult to injury, the only way to re-​activate the phone is to buy more minutes, which I did not need — very sleazy
supervisor was no help when I pointed out that I had been a customer for so long and that I had received no notice of the de-​activation
so — i’ll be using up my extorted minutes and going to another company — soon