My son has used TracFone for over 3 years, and has generally been quite pleased. In February he bought a new phone from TracFone because his old one stopped working. Since February 15 he has been trying - unsuccessfully - to get the new phone activated and his old number "ported" to the new phone. He has spent at least 20 hours on the phone on this, been disconnected from customer service at least 8 times (and you can't reach customer service after 6:00 p.m, Monday-Friday only). They have sent him 3 new sim cards, and are unable to activate any of them.

He finally bought a second phone with a totally new number to at least have a cell phone while he was trying to sort this out. Today something happened. Possibly in the process of trying to port his old number, they shut off his 2nd phone. He has, in the last nearly 40 days, called, written, complained to the FCC, emailed - no success. And, TracFone never, never, never gives refunds. At one point they offered him, in an email, 200 free minutes "for the inconvenience", but when he talked to a service rep, the work order was for only 20 minutes.

He is beside himself, but still reluctant to give up the $100 he paid for a year's service plus the $60 for the phone. He did promise, though, if it isn't cleared up tomorrow, he will go out and by a T-Mobile phone (the service I have).

After this started I did some web searching, and have found hundreds of similar stories about TracFone.

I think this may be the first time I have complained about a specific business at Momsview, but I am so angry for my son, and so don't want anyone else to get caught in the TracFone trap.

By Vicki on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 07:26 pm:

What a mess. I hope he gets it all sorted out.

By Karen~moderator on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 07:36 pm:

I'm not familiar with TracFone, but you can be sure, if it ever comes up in conversation with someone, I'll remember this story. I'm sorry he has to deal with this, Ginny. Companies with customer service like that are SO infuriating!

By Cocoabutter on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 08:13 pm:

If you Google TracFone the 2nd result is a customer complaint website. I also tried searching TracFone on MSN and Yahoo, but Google is the only one that came up with a negative result right away. There is an interesting blog entry I found detailing one guy's adventure with trying to get TracFone to work in the Los Angeles area.

http://www.moremayo.com/rants/tracfone.shtml

I haven't had any experience with TracFone, but I did have a pre-paid account with Alltel for a while. I was supposed to be able to enter info into the keypad on the phone and get the cost of my new minutes debited from my bank account. But, it rarely ever worked that way. I would enter "20" for 20 dollars, and it would not register the "0" so it thought I only wanted 2 dollars, and it would tell me that I needed to enter in an amount not less than 20 dollars. I went around and around with this thing, until my dh finally bought a Nextel phone last year.

By Kate on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 08:37 pm:

HATE HATE HATE HATE *HATE* TRACFONE!!!!! It would take me WAY too long to relate MY horror stories. The one good thing they did was screw up adding my minutes and gave me an extra 100 minutes I didn't pay for, and I didn't do anything about it (normally I would have) because it is so IMPOSSIBLE to get anything done RIGHT that I didn't want to take the chance of them DELETING all my minutes or something! Plus the fact that it's so hard to get hold of them and they are in Pakistan so they have difficult accents and the whole thing is just awful, awful, awful!! I ALWAYS get emails from them saying my year is almost up, renew now, and this began ONE MONTH after I bought the year!! The other day I got a phone call on my landline saying my year was up in three days, and to renew. My year is up in JUNE. They have my landline phone number connected to the wrong cell customer, and they have my email connected to a DIFFERENT wrong cell customer!! I have NEVER been able to activate via their website, I ALWAYS have to call them because their site just doesn't WORK! ARRRGGHHHHH!!! Good luck to your son!! I feel his pain!!

By Pamt on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 11:40 pm:

I had an excellent experience with Tracfone, but recently switched to Net10 (more minutes and cheaper) and have had a VERY similar experience with them. Hours on the phone, no refund but a promise of more minutes which does me no good since I can't even turn my phone on!!! They were supposed to send me a new battery on March 6 by DHL Overnight and I still haven't gotten it because DHL says it was never sent to them. And...customer service is based out of an acoustically challenged warehouse in India with tons of background noise. It's even to drive me insane. I have now been without a cell for almost a month and my blood pressure climbs by at least 20 points whenever I try to call and resolve this. ARRRGHHHH!!!

By Dawnk777 on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 12:04 am:

Gosh. No Tracfones for us! I know a person at work uses it and I don't think she has had near the trouble. I'll keep my service with US Cellular. Once we were charged for roaming and DH made the call within our home-calling area. We called them up and they fixed it right away!

By Missmudd on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 03:37 pm:

Been there, done that. Still have my tracfone but if you are expecting customer service, wear a good pair of shoes cause you will be waiting for a long time. They have driven me crazy more times than I can count but I am a cheapskate and it is cheaper than a normal cell contract. I am with Kate, could relate horror stories but my fingers would get tired

By Insaneusmcwife on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 03:57 pm:

I've never used and probably never would have used tracphone but thank you for the warning. I have nextel and while it has had its problems I am happy with it so far. I hope he gets this fixed soon.