Desperately Need Prepaid Wireless Phone Help!!
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive July 2006:
Desperately Need Prepaid Wireless Phone Help!!
I used to have Tracfone which worked just fine, but the customer service was AWFUL and the website NEVER worked. Case in point I've spent daaaaays trying to purchase online their free phone and 450 minute plan, however, the promo code that they list and tell you to submit does NOT work. It ALWAYS says 'promotion code invalid'. So I'm ready to give up on Tracfone since nothing ever works. Once I'm actually set up, it works. It's just trying to purchase airtime and actually add it to the phone, that nothing works. Too much of a hassle!
SO! Any advice?? I was just on Cingulair's site and I find that way too confusing, too. Should I just visit a mall cell phone shop? Do those offer prepaid?
My needs are as follow....every day that the kids are in school and I am not at my home, I need a cell phone to be on, so the school can contact me in an emergency.
Otherwise, I want the phone for occasional uses as in 'I'm lost! How do I get to....' or 'I'm on my way home with groceries for dinner, please preheat the oven'.
So you see that I won't be using it very often, which is why I won't pay a regular monthly fee when months can go by when I haven't even used it.
Help please!! Thanks!
You can go into the cell shops in the mall and pick one up. I have no suggestions as to which one to use, but all of the major companies offer prepaid now. Good luck!!
I LOVE my Tracphone! I have had it now for about six years. DH and one DS have Tracfone, too, and love them. Other DS has TMobile (he always has to be different  ) and he has lousy coverage and the minutes just seem to "go away", but I can't convince him to switch because he can have the Razor phone with them. (Big deal! I have my little Motorola Tracfone from Staples for $39.00 and it meets my needs).
Yes, the customer service leaves a lot to be desired. There are long waits, and people that are very hard to understand. I think they are overseas. They're VERY polite, tho.
I have never had a problem adding airtime on line using a credit card. Are you sure your promo code hasn't expired? Also, if you buy an airtime card in the store, you can add the minutes right on your phone, very quickly. They usually always offer you extra minutes when you buy airtime online. Like 30 extra minutes for $5.00.
I buy the double minute card once a year for $129.00. It gives you no expiration date for one year, and any airtime that you do add during the year, they DOUBLE each transaction.
The cellphone stores in the malls, that I know of, don't deal with Tracfone. And yes, other carriers do now have prepaid plans, but the salesmen don't make commissions on them, so they push real hard to try to get you to sign on to a contract. They are usually two years, and you pay a hefty fee if you cancel before the contract ends.
I don't want another monthly bill, either. We did have a contract plan years ago, through DH's work. It was supposed to be $10.99 per month. However, by the time you paid roaming charges, per minute calls, and taxes, it was never under $40.00 per month. So, I LOVE my Tracfone.
Try buying an airtime card in the store, and follow the steps to add the minutes right on the phone. (You can also buy the card and redeem it online, but it's more steps). Good luck!
My son had TracFone and had terrible experiences. My bosses bought me a cell phone last Christmas, with T-Mobile, which you can get with either a monthly fee or prepaid minutes. Check their site for rates. I do know that with some levels of pre-paid minutes (I think the kind that start with $50 prepaid) they are good for a year and will carry over if you renew at a certain minimum level.
After doing a lot of research, Scott decided to go with T-Mobile. So far, I've been very happy (but I don't use my cell phone very often). Scott was pleasantly surprised that T-Mobile ported his cell phone number in less than 24 hours. He says he is paying less per minute, and he got a top of the line phone, takes pictures and all the rest of the bells & whistles, for about $60 after rebate.
The January 06 Consumer Reports says this:
"How good? A solid performer in many of the 18 metro areas, but marred by lack of service in some places. Also scored better than all the carriers but Verizon in responsiveness to customer questions and complaints.
Network GSM only. Many phones can be used outside of the U.S."
If you tell me what state and city or county you live in, I'll check CR to see if T-Mobile gives good service there. I know in my area (just outside NW Philadelphia), T-Mobile has shops in at least 2 malls I know of, is available at Target, and has a free-standing store near by.
What happened with Scott with TracFone is that his phone died (a TF rebuilt), so he ordered a new phone from them. The first one was sent to the wrong address, so it took 3 weeks to get a new phone. Then, they delayed incredibly in porting his number from the old phone to the new one. After 30 days, he bought a cheap throwaway phone and minimum TracFone minutes, just so he'd have a cell phone. All in all, it took TF over 60 days to port his number. They told him on the phone they'd give him 300 free minutes to compensate, but actually only gave him 30 minutes. When I googled, there are hundreds and hundreds of complaints about TracFone, all about customer service, failure to turn phones on, non-operational web site, etc. Personally, I will tell everyone who asks that TracFone is a lousy, lousy deal.
We have pay as you go Cingular and LOVE IT! It's so easy to refill your minutes online, and we've never had to call customer service for anything. Often you can get a better deal on the phone itself if you order it online, but you can buy them at any store pretty much (Walmart, Target, Meijer..)
We weren't too excited reading about TracPhone, which is why we decided to go with Cingular in the first place. We've been on Pay as You Go for about a year I think.
Thank you, Ginny, for offering to check coverage on T-mobile. I emailed you.
Reds, do you have the 10 cents a minute/one dollar each day you use it charge, or the twenty five cents a minute/no charge on the days you use it?
Did you do EVERYTHING online? I found their website to be kind of confusing, too!
Hol, I'm pleased you continue to have good experience with TracFone. In truth, Scott had nothing but praise for them until around the first of this year. From then it was downhill all the way.
Kate - We have the 25 cents/min. deal because we figured that would work better for us and it has.
We didn't do everything online. We bought our phones at Walmart, activated it by phone, then we add our minutes online each time. They are added immediately, which always surprises me. You literally click "submit", turn on your phone, and it's updated with the new total. The online feature of adding minutes is easy to use, but not sure about the rest of the site.
Reds, when you say you activated your minutes by phone, do you mean you called them personally and went thru it, and they told you what to push on your cell phone, or did you buy an airtime card and follow the instructions on the back and push the proper numbers on your cell?
Personally, I'm looking for a do it yourself method where I don't have to contact THEM to add my minutes, which is what I've always had to do with Tracfone since their website never works!
Yes, sorry, it was an automated activation, meaning I didn't talk to a 'live' person. The phones you buy automatically come with $10 on the phone, but we also bought an airtime card when we bought the phones. The phone had instructions inside on how to use the automated service to activate your phone. It was very easy and only took minutes. The automation gave us our new phone #'s and everything.
With Cingular Pay as you Go you can: buy airtime cards, refill online, call and add minutes with a live person, or call from your cell with a special #. You can check your balance anytime with *777# from your cell.
Like I said, I've always added them online and it's a breeze. We only get minutes every 3months though.
Ginny, if I have one negative about Tracfone, it's this....youngest DS lost his nice Tracfone flip phone. It had about three hundred minutes on it, too, at the time. (Naturally! ) We looked high and low, and it was gone. Since I had bought him that phone, AND paid for the minutes, I wasn't about to reward him for losing it by buying another expensive phone. Therefore, I bought him a reconditioned, basic phone on line, for about $19.00. ( I never want my kids "phoneless" in case of emergency). I bought an airtime card, as well. I could have activated it on line, but I called because I wanted to know if we could transfer the minutes from the lost phone to the new one, if they still existed. They checked the balance on the old one, and no one had used any minutes, so they said we COULD transfer them. However, they said they would put them in reserve, deactivate the other phone to prevent fraud, and it would take 60 days to retrieve them, and transfer them to his new phone. When I asked him why, he said something about having to "verify" that he did indeed have the minutes. He couldn't port his number from the old phone, however, because we didn't have it. It was lost. So, we activated the new phone, added the minutes, got the new phone number and we were good to go. He gave me an 800# to call in 60 days to retrieve the minutes from the other phone. I was skeptical at first, but sure enough, we called in 60 days and he got his remaining minutes.
I like prepaid phones for that reason. If you lose it, or it is stolen, no one can run up a big bill on you. Tracfone's call center must be in India, because some of the people are very hard to understand. However, they are EXTREMELY POLITE!!
BTW: Always include your home number in your "phone book" on your phone, and label it 'home". I dropped my cell phone in a doctor's parking lot once. An honest man found it, called my house, and left a message saying that he had turned it in to the doctor's receptionist. I also added "husband" after my DH's name in my phone book, and "daughter" after my DD's name. That way, if I am unconcious somewhere, emergency personnel will know WHOM to call.
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