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TracFone - Defective Phone

TracFone • Missing minutes • Activation problems • Can't get local number • Defective phone • Network problems • Lost the phone • Advertising, promotions • Rebate problems • Inside Trac --- News • TracFone Pays $50,000 for Violating Missouri's Do Not Call Law

Darcia of North Charleston, SC September 11, 2009

August 24, 2009, I was advised that my phone number, that I have had for five years, successfully ported from ATT. I was told to expect a new SIM card within 2-3 days. August 27, 2009, I purchased air time at a total cost of 32.24 with my credit card. September 2, 2009. My phone stopped working and I called Trac Fone for assistance. I was told that a new SIM was in the mail and that I would be credited minutes for my inconvenience.

September 9, 2009. My SIM card did not arrive and my phone does not work. I was on the telephone for 36 minutes without any resolution. Trac Fone's suggestion, "get a new telephone number." That means a loss of 32.24 because they will not transfer the minutes. I sent an e-mail to the Technical department and received the reply to call in for assistance.

I called back later that day in an attempt to work with a different technician and was placed on hold for 46 minutes without a follow-up. September 10, 2009, I called in at 11:16 a.m. and finally gave up on Trac Fone at 12:20 a.m. The phone still does not work and they cannot seem to figure out why.

I am done with Trac Fone. I purchased the phone as a low cost option for emergency calls only. If my life had depended upon using this service, you can draw the conclusion for yourself what the outcome would be. I would like to get my 32.24 back because Trac Fone did not deliver the service that was promised. I am going to attempt to dispute the charge with my credit card company. The 10.00 phone is no big deal, because it worked fine for the few days that I had it.

Michelle of presque isle, ME September 8, 2009

They let someone into my account and deactivate my phone for the second time, once in Chicago and now in New Jersey. They have tried to fix my phone and have left in on roam and say something is wrong with my phone. I have had it looked at through a local tracfone carrier and they say nothing is wrong with it. Plus they have stolen a couple hundred minutes from this phone and refuse to give those minutes back to me on this phone. Please help me

I have spend more than ten hours on the phone with their customer service people who you can not understand because they do not speak English very good. Plus I have lost the use of the only phone I have and have lost the money spent on the minutes that they let someone else have my time

Tanya of Covington, KY August 6, 2009

I ordered a "refurbished" Motorola 376 from their website. Half of the features did not work. I could not send pictures, or text messages to my friends. There was no protective covering on the inside and there were scratches on the back of the phone! I could not download ringtones either. I called them a week after trying to get the phone to work. I got people with very strong foreign accents (3!after being transferrd twice) They kept telling me to go to the "code entry mode" and add a series of letter and numbers- for 50 minutes! Then I was told to wait 72 hours and it should be working. It didn't. I asked for a refund. They insisted I send it back Fed Ex (another 6.00) I bought a new w376 and asked to have that number transferred to my new phone. The new phone has a screwed up camera! (Dark greenish tints to all settings!) I called a month later 7/17 and asked about my refund. They told me the phone was free because I got "double minutes". They had not been transferred to the new phone as they had insisted. I asked for a supervisor. He managed to give me the 102 minutes from the previous phone. He didn't give me the full amount of days that were left on the phone. (He didn't give me the 30 days that the phone sat in their Indiana returns center.) Maybe they need to hire people who speak English to communicate with U.S. speaking customers.

Tom of St Paul, MN August 5, 2009

Have a defective phone and have had tech support 6-7 times. They try to fix and I hang up and it does not work. Was told last week it would take one day, then 3 days. Emailed that I wanted a new phone and they called while I had the dog out. Called them back & noone will help.

Helmut of Newport News, VA July 28, 2009

My annual renewal with tracfone was due by July 25, 2009. On the 24th I sent an e-mail complaining about a software glitch with the phone. I can only turn the phone on while it is connected to the battery charger plugged into an electrical outlet. Once it is turned on, the battery lasts for several days so the problem is not the battery. Once I turn the phone off, it will never turn on again until it's plugged in. I discovered this after a plane flight when I had to turn the phone off for the flight. I couldn't turn it on again.

In my e-mail I told them I could go back to Verizon, they could fix my phone, or I could file a complaint. I wanted a response prior to my renewal date. No one ever got back to me. Today I called & spoke with Adriana at TracFone Customer service center (in INDIA) after I renewed for 30 days just so I could have service while the problem was being resolved. She was difficult to understand and refused to transfer me to someone who spoke better English or a supervisor. When I asked her for a number to someone higher up the ladder she just gave me the same service number I had just called.

I spent over 35 minutes explaining the issue and she kept insisting my phone or the battery was defective. I offered to buy a new battery but I wanted reimbursement when it didn't solve the problem. She said the phone was out of warranty so they would do nothing.I kept telling her that the battery could not be bad because I could talk for hours before the battery wore down. I wanted the phone reprogrammed or replaced. I asked for a case number to refer to this when I called again since she wasn't helping me but she didn't give me that either.

Finally I was given an interaction number which I think was a phony number because I tried to look it up under my ticket number on the website but the number was refused. I think she just gave me a number to shut me up.Call centers in India are one of the worst trends there have been in America. No one seems to get service from them. As a business owner I hear my customers complain about them all the time. I spent good money for this phone and feel it is their responsibility to fix the problem I'm having with it.

Howard of Deer Park , TX July 27, 2009

Terrible product nice customer service although unable to fix the problem with my phone . I am unable to hear the other person on the phone.repeated attempts to fix with teck support has me out a good sum of money and very upset .

Nina of Culbertson, MT July 24, 2009

Starting on June 9th 2009 we called TracFone to ask if they still provided batteries for their phones, they do no and suggested that we buy batteries at Radio shack or better yet since our old batteries would not hold a charge, that we should buy new phone, which we did, thay would then tranfer all our minutes to the new phones and then inform us that we needed to buy more minute cards to get the new phone activated, which again we did, then they tell us that by activating the new phone that we would lose our 99.00 double minute cards that we had for life.

They then suggested that we keep our old phones and just replace the new batteries out of the new phones and that they would activate our old phones, my husband finally got his old phone activated and lost his double minues anyway, then they tried to activate my phone and said that it was obsolete, that they would send me a new phone overnight with all my minutes and double min card already installed, we agreeded to this , this was on the 9th of July , then the phone did not appear as promised and we called on the 11 of July, they informed us that our address was not correct(where we have lived for nine years) that UPS nor Fedex could not find us, then we called again on Jly 12 and they would send out another phone to our address that they found and that was over nine days ago,

we called again today July 24th 2009 and spoke to another supervisor and she said the phone had not been sent out yet and that she would send out one today AGAIN this has cost me jobs and no one has been able to contact me if I'm away from my house HELP I can't get these people to understand anything I'm very upset and expressed my anger today and do not enjoy this What can we do?

Alexandra of Port Townsend, WA July 24, 2009

First transferred to TracFone in Jan. 2007, when AT&T went away. They said they could port my number ... fine. In fact, the number never was truly ported until July 17, 2009!

During the intervening years, people could call me using my supposedly ported number, but that number did not appear on my phone. I always had to call up Tech Support to get purchased time added and explain ad nauseum that no, the number that appeared on my phone was not my "real" number. Also could not get Voicemail set up, but I had decided I could live without that feature.

Suddenly, on May 29 of this year, a "Sim Card Registration Failed" message appeared and the phone stopped working. Spent 2 hours talking to various Tech Support people, finally to a supervisor who was able to give me codes to enter to get my phone working again.

On June 18, same "Sim Card" message appeared. Spent much time on phone with Tech Support who said they'd have to send me a new SIM card. Card arrived on June 29 and, when I set it up, original phone number still appeared on the phone, even though letter included with card stated my Port Request had been completed.

Called up Tech Support and was told they'd have to send me yet another SIM Card! Then someone from the Portability Dept. called and told me they could not, in fact, port my number since it was inactive. At that point I lost it, stating that I had been using that "inactive" number for almost 2 1/2 years with my TracFone, reiterated my many calls and issues, stated if they couldn't port my number I just wanted a refund and to get away from "you people," and slammed down the phone.

About 1/2 hour later the guy called back and he said it turns out that in fact, I COULD get my number ported after all, and they were sending me yet another SIM card which would arrive in 24-48 hours. I had to laugh at that and told him it usually took 10 days (this one took 8). But, sure enough, when the card arrived and I went through all the coding, for the first time my correct number appears on the phone.

Now I'm in the process of trying to get them to extend the expiration date of my minutes, since my phone wasn't working at all for 22 days, and 7 more days with only the incorrect number.

If this can ever get settled down, the service is costing me less than 5 per month, but I guess I need to be including many gray hairs and heartburn in the cost! TracFone is not for the faint of heart!

Ross of Lavonia, GA July 22, 2009

We have been faithful Tracfone customers for about 6 years. We have never received this much trouble from them. Back in April of this year my daughter began to experience problems with her phone. She could receive calls; however, she had to make calls twice. If she made a call, she could not hear it ring, nor could she hear the person answer on the other line. We called to have the problem fixed. We were given a reset code. The code failed and Tracfone actually sent us a refurbished version of the same phone.

We encountered the same problem with the repacement phone. Once again, we called Tracfone to fix the problem. We were given the same reset code that had not worked last time. We tried to reset it 3 times. When we requested a different model of equal value, we were told that it could not be done. We spent around a total of 4 hours speaking to them to try to resolve the problem. The customer service reps. continually failed to understand the problem and told us bogus answers such as we had no service where we were. I have always considered 5 bars to be strong service. To top it off, my daughter and I were hung up on 5 times by a manager and 4 supervisors. I am fed up with the service that Tracfone has provided and they have lost my recomendation and my business.

Homer of Vancouver, WA July 11, 2009

In three tries I've spend 2 1/2 hours on the phone (land line) trying to get my cell phone to work. It worked two months ago when I had Wal-mart call to activate it. I've kept it charged, but on the last two weeks, it won't send or receive calls. I know this because the first two of the three calls, they had me try to call and receive one. Each time I was asked to do the same thing, checking sim card #s, serial #s, etc. All led to the same place...nowhere.

After the second call, I was told that someone higher up would call me within 48 hours about possibly sending me a new phone. After a week and no call, I made the third and final call just now. I explained and described the two previous calls, and I asked for some way to talk to the aforementioned "higher ups." He said that I should buy another cell phone. He refused to check on my previous request. I'll avoid using words to describe what he probably wanted to say to me. I'll, also, avoid doing it myself! I can NOT imagine how this company can stay in business, unless maybe other customers are lucky and their cheap Tracfones works. I DO wish them luck!!

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