Here is the letter I wrote Straight Talk's president:
I spent a combined total of 4 hours on the phone with Straight Talk between Friday and Saturday, May 21-22, trying to get my phone activated and mostly trying to get back my original phone number. I feel deeply angry that you changed my phone number.
Your company policy of changing someone's phone number just because they ran out of money to refill it is shooting your company in the foot! You just lost your most devoted customer.
I personally brought two people into your plan, and I have, in the past, recommended it to tens of my friends and family. I will never recommend it again, and instead, I am spreading the word as rapidly as I can what inferior service you offer.
You obviously have no comprehension of how important company loyalty is, to their customer, not to mention customer loyalty to their company. You INTENTIONALLY CREATE a MAJOR HASSLE for your customers by changing the phone number if they run out of minutes. I felt treated like a criminal just because I was having a financial crisis and could not refill it. Your policy is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! You are going to lose major business over this, and I am going to notify every newspaper, newstation, and blog that I can think of to tell them how inferior Straight Talk is.
In the past, I was a faithful customer of AT&T Go Phone for about 5 years. I went thru a lot of difficulties, such as joblessness, homelessness, etc, due to a medical condition. Throughout that time, the ONE bill that I paid above ALL others was my cell phone. The only time it stayed off was when I was in dire financial straights and absolutely couldn't buy more minutes, and then only for a few days. That phone was my lifeline...to jobs, to assistance agencies, to friends and family...not even my car insurance came above my phone.
But now that this has happened, I am looking as rapidly as I can to switch to another carrier. I think you disrespect and devalue your customers by making them stay on hold for ridiculous amounts of time, and by changing their phone number. Now I had to contact all my friends, family, and business associates with my new phone number, and waste 4 hrs of my precious weekend calling Straight Talk.
If you REALLY value your customers and if their calls are REALLY important to you, as your representatives and your recording say, then you will change your unethical policy of changing someone's phone number when they run out of minutes. You don't motivate me to run out of minutes. You motivate me to run the other direction and find a respectable cell phone company.
In addition, one of your representatives said they were going to send me to another department, when all they really did was to put me back on hold, just because they didn't know how to handle the call. Another representative said please hold for a few minutes and then hung up on me. There was just dead air space until I figured out I wasn't on hold, but that the call was disconnected. Two different supervisors gave me permission to get my original number back, yet each time I called, there was some snafu and I was told to call back. Finally after about 5 phone calls to Straight Talk, when I was denied my phone number yet again, I gave up.
Straight Talk, you won the battle...you punished a devoted, loyal customer by changing her phone number. But you lost the war: I am not going to be a future customer, and I am going to do everything in my power to damage your business.
You know what angers me the most? My husband is in prison, and we live phone call to phone call. It was already hard enough not being able to talk to each other for the 5 days my phone was shut off. But now that you forced me to change my number, I have to wait about another two weeks until he gets the new number on his approved phone list in the prison.
Every time I give out my new number, it will be a reminder of how badly Straight Talk treated me. Is that what you want? Angry customers? A healthy business tactic is to create a win-win situation for all parties involved. You need to change your policy of changing people's phone numbers. Your current policy is so unethical and disrespectful of customers.
Dave
USA#2Consumer Comment
Wed, December 07, 2011
I've been round and round with StraightTalk and they keep telling me that it'll take up to 24 hours to get my phone number back but then I call and a supervisor tells me that she corrected it and that it is "Pending" - How did you get to customer service in the US?
OHara
Roswell,#3Consumer Comment
Sun, November 14, 2010
I have a similar story. I bought my Straight Talk phone at Walmart along with an airtime card. I bought it in mid-July. I had read about losing your phone number here at Ripoff Report and realized I could never let that happen since it is a phone used for business.
In August, I bought another refill card at Walmart and realized I could forget to buy the card since it was an odd date. That would mean I would lose my number which is printed on my business cards as well as other collateral material. If I lost my number, I would have to have all that re-printed at a cost of hundreds of dollars.
I called in and was quickly put on bank draft. So good so far! The draft for September went through with no hitches but in October, my service went off because I had "run out of minutes." I called in and after talking with someone in India or Bangladesh for about 2.5 hours, I was told the bank draft would not go through. I gave them my information again and was told it went through but my service was not restored. A couple of days later, I called again and this time, talked for another 2 hours with a lady with a heavy Hispanic accent. She told me my service would be restored and I would have the same number. The service was restored for a short time but I had a new number.
A couple of days later, the service went off again and I called in. This time I spoke with a very nice lady (Julie) with an American accent. Julie was the epitome of efficiency and politeness. Within 20 minutes at most, she had my service restored and my old number back (Hooray Julie! I think I love you!)
Well, I was still hopping mad. I had spent nearly 5 hours of my time trying to get this straightened out. I went to my bank (in person!) to find out why the charge had been denied. There was enough money in the account to cover the bill for a year or more. The lady at the bank was able to pull up an account history and see everything that had happened since the first of this year. In fact, Straight Talk had made no attempt to draft my bank account. It was all a lie! Why, I have no idea but there must be some reason behind it.
I wasted almost 5 hours of my life trying to straighten out a problem that was a lie all along. I'm in sales so that wasted time could have been used to make sales commissions. In all, this problem may have cost me thousands of dollars in lost sales opportunites, not hundreds for printing business cards and such.
This is unnecessary hassle I just don't need and money lost I'll never be able to recover.
I remember when I was looking for a phone and provider. I looked at them all and chose Straight Talk because it seemed to be the best value. I literally spent days researching phones and service providers. In the end, it was one of the worst deals I've ever made. I'm waiting with bated breath to see if they screw me up in December. I'm kinda expecting it.