Complaint Review: TRACFONE TRACPHONE - Florida

Totally agree. Tracfone uses their advertisements to brainwash, as any corporation. The volume of customers they have keeps them where they are... many of these customers are your "typical" consumer, not your intelligent one. To be completely objective, Tracfone's customer service is the worst in the industry. It's a corporate situation... as long as enough $ rolls in, forget about the complainers. The experience with Tracfone on this end is similar to yours and so many others. Tracfone does not respond to customer issues. They may send one email response for every ten complaints you email them. The problem is that the public is "on automatic" - influenced by advertising and brainwashed into thingking they've got the best deal going... and the old "father figure" guy in their commercials is very strategic... really helps with a reliable image that "soothes" the truth. Tracfone is a ripoff, plain and simple. Notice how when you contact customer service on the phone, they don't answer - you never speak to a real person... they are always experiencing "high call volume" Minutes on your phone gone... you call again, more minutes gone. Do you think for a minute this isn't part of the plan? In short, the public chooses to remain asleep and corporations like Tracfone rake in the dough. The corporate world is an evil one, but we know this, don't we?

The cheap phones in a box at walmart or target work quite well. I've had about 5 of them over the years, tracfone,virgin mobile,net10. Never had a bad phone except for a net10 Nokia which i recieved a refund on (after 3 weeks). Remember your buying a cheap phone at a cheap price and if you require special assistance you're stuck dealing with a call center in India. It's easy to tell people to go with a national carrier like Cingular,Sprint just remember that these phones are for people that dont want a 2 year contract or have less than good credit. Pay as you go is becoming the way of the future thats why the prepay phone shelves at walmart are empty alot of the time, demand has surpassed availabity. Also as an ex Sprint customer.. My Sprint phone died just after the first year of a 2 year contract. The sprint store did nothing except tell me tuff luck and to buy a new phone @ $90.00. The big wireless companys aren't any better you know.. When your cheap phone in a box does die, toss it and pay $20. for another one. Cant go wrong IMO.

I also bought a TracPhone off a hanging display at Target a month ago...and it lasted ONE hour after I set it up. I put it back in its original wrapping, took it back the following day and received a complete refund. Like Steve, I will NEVER buy another cell phone like that again!

First off, I have been in the wireless biz for over 12 years, from its infancy if you will. Now, from a consumer perspective let me offer some advice. 1. Never buy a phone in a box hanging on a rack from a major retailer like that. Where you have to call a number on a card to activate the phone or add minutes. This "phone in a box", like copiers and printers, they dont make money off the phone, they make it off the minutes (or toner whichever the case may be) They lure you in with the cheap phone price, then rake you over the coals when you want to refill the minutes. Better (and cheaper in the long run) to pay more for a phone and get a better plan from an actual wireless retail store. 2. Never buy a phone with service over the internet. Wireless phones and plans should be bought in person from an experienced sales rep. Mainly b/c you need someone you can contact or a place to return the phone if it goes bad (instead of mailing it back out into oblivion where it came from). 3. (my opinion) never buy from an airtime reseller. I probably shouldnt say this, b/c tracphone generates alot of revenue for the company i work for. But, they dont actually own any towers, switches, trunk groups, etc. They resale airtime from actual carriers. You are probably actually using ALLTEL or Verizon wireless when you use trac phone. So they are buying this "airtime" from them and reselling it to you at a much higher rate. They probably dont make money on the phones (they really are expensive), just airtime. So they want to sell them as cheap as possible to get as many in circulation as possible. So if you have a phone problem, they probably want you to take it up with the manufacturer, b/c in essence that is usually who the warranties the phones anyway. Hope this helps Steve