TracFone has a rating of 1.1 stars from 358 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about TracFone most frequently mention customer service, new phone, and sim card problems. TracFone ranks 161st among Mobile Carriers sites.
I enrolled in auto refill because of a discount offer of $5.00 per month. After signing up, I did not receive the discount. I added my credit card information and the offer "magically" disappeared. I called customer service and no less than 3 people hung up on me when I tried to get the issue resolved. Now, I am trying to get a refund for my entire service and disconnect my service. Please be careful with this company. They are extremely unprofessional. UPDATE: The problem has been solved. I was given what was previously promised and 2 months free service for the inconveniences. All is well. Thank you!
I do not appreciate your bad cell service. Multiple times I have had to reset my kids phone just so it gets service. This last time was the last straw. Thank you for terrible service. I will be giving a bad reference every time someone asks. Hanna Nash - 1
Horrible, since separation from straight talk has gone down hill, wasted my time on repeated customer service attempts to try to connect phone to their own network and refusing to honor their 30day money back guarantee that was asked for on day 3 with still no service, customer service overseas and follows the same trouble shooting script that didnt work each time and forwarded to acct specialist,,, lol, the customer service guy online chats with the specialist while you wait on hold, every time had to do this as they said they had not tried that yet,,,,,, WHAT A JOKE
Tip for consumers:
does not give the full refund promised, keeps refusing will try connecting phone over hours finally got working after 14 hours of customer service
Products used:
straight talk phone and card
I have been a tracfone customer for 12 years and my phone (1 year old) quit working. It said"phone has been deactivated". Called customer service and they keep transferring me different people until they hung up. They said they couldn't help me if i couldn't verify my account. They said they needed a 4 digit number. I may have gotten one 12 years ago but had not ever used it and so I didn't know it. They said there was no way to verify I was the owner so they couldn't help me. I said ask me the second security question because I use the same one, they said if I couldn't answer the first one they couldn't ask the second. I spent a total of 12 hours trying to resolve to get my phone re- activated with no luck. Lost a years air time, 3000 minutes, 3.9 gig data, 11,000 texts. Having been told that there is no way for them to verify the account they couldn't help. I got tried of running around in circles with them have to go to a different service. They were NOT interested in helping solve the problem.
Tracfone does support for Total by Verizon. I cannot transfer my phone number to a different carrier because Tracfone cannot confirm my identity and give me a number transfer PIN. There is no Plan B.
I purchased a card for 1999 it stayed 60 minutes for talk text and web 90-day plan I gave them the pin on the back of the card they activated this phone from that pin and then proceeded to tell me I only have 30 days only a 30-day plan. This card was 1999 I gave them the pin on the back of this card which correlates with this card this card States 60 minutes for talk text and web 90-day plan it's a 4G light and 5G compatible. It is a card that I got from Walmart for this phone. They will only give me 30 days for the 60 minutes. The phone or the card says 60 minutes for talk text and web 90-day plan they are committing fraud if you use this company you will lose 2 months worth of service that you have paid for. I am warning everybody do not I repeat do not use this company don't use family mobile which is from Walmart which is TracFone they are both the same stay away from them they will take your money. You cannot talk to supervisor. Becausebecause supervisor will hang up on you. The first phone call I was on just trying to activate this phone 42 minutes the supervisor hung up no call back. I called back I was then on the phone with another guy for 16 minutes. This situation was never resolved they are still telling me in March I owe more money even though my card says 60 minutes for talk text and web 90-day plan. They will not honor those cards that they sell. Remember TracFone family mobile from Walmart they're both the same stay away from them. They are scamming everyone
Tip for consumers:
Family mobile and TracFone are the same same company I got both of them from Walmart they just cheated me out of two months of service and will not do anything about it stay away from them they are committing fraud
Products used:
Tracfone. Mobile family from wlalmrt
Got a text for a free phone upgrade from *******6437 I tried calling them for 2 hours after being run through the mill, I find out there is no free upgrade for this phone WTF! WHY WOULD THEY SEND ME A TEXT FOR A FREE UPGRADE WHEN IT WAS A BUNCH OF BULL? WHAT A WAST OF MY TIME. $#*!S!
Tip for consumers:
DONT USE TRACFONE
This company is the worst! The customer service is horrendous. If you made any complaints then they will erase your balance so that you would not make any phone calls. This company manipulated your balance and account to prevent you from making any complaints and calling their so-called, no-help, useless representatives, and managers. Be prepared to waste hours and go through 6 representatives before you get to the one rep that actually knows their job and how to do it. Their representatives refused to switch you to a manager so you could explain what happened. Then you might get someone if you are luky who claimed to be a manager and if you ask to speak to their supervisor and they claimed they are not allowed to transfer calls. Even if they can recover your balance, they will not give you as much as you had in your account before they erased it and you will be told you have to have whatever is left in the system. They manipulate your account, steal your balance, and force you to accept that because you can do nothing. Don't waste your time and money.
Products used:
Spectrum
After being a loyal customer for a couple of years, they switched to the Verizon network. I ordered my new SIM card, installed it, and nothing happened. I spent an hour on the store phone at Best Buy trying to get it to work. They tried so many codes it locked out my SIM card. Bought another one and nearly locked that one out, too, but I managed to get it to work with a 10 year old Tracfone I had laying around. Because suddenly my Samsung Galaxy S8+ phone wasn't compatible. This took another two and a half hours. Then they cancelled my service because I didn't pay, even though I've been on autopay since day one. Got the number reinstated. Will keep it long enough to move it to Mint Mobile. I couldn't understand tech support half the time, the other half they didn't know what they were doing. Tried the website today. It took them five minutes to ask me for my name and number after I stated my problem. After I gave it to them with no response, they said they were still waiting for it. Told them I already gave it to them. No more communication after that. 20 minutes of my day wasted. Worst experience ever.
Products used:
Tracfone service
I've used tracfones for a number of years. Generally buy their phones as they are easier to activate. My current tracfone is prepaid for another year. I live in a rural, mountainous section of my state, so I wanted a 2nd phone on a different network. I have a drawer full of old tracfones, so I figured that I would try one of these. Despite having service with tracfone for many years and prepaid for a year more on my current phone, they would not unlock it. Tough luck VERIZON (who bought tracfone) I will NOT be renewing with tracfone. Switching over to the AT&T /T-mobile network. I would have liked to keep the Verizon network along with another network, but if this is how they treat their long term customers I'm done. They wanted to charge me MORE money to unlock then the cost of this old replacement phone. There is no reasoning with their brain dead, hard-to-understand lower echelon. Happened once before when my expiration date came up and they took all my texts & minutes never bothering to check the YEAR of expiration. Couldn't reason with the morons then either until I got an ENGLISH upper echelon mag who grasped what happened. Haven't decided if I'll burn up my time or just trash it for another carrier. My new replacement phone for my 2nd carrier arrives today. Tracfone Customer Service? Once again proved how worthless they are. Good Luck Verizon.
Tip for consumers:
Tracfone Customer Service is absolutely useless and hasn't gotten any better since Verizon bought them
Products used:
Different Network
They deactivated my minutes when I changed my phone number. They said this normally does not happen, but her 'tool' would not allow her to confirm the 3,000 minutes I had remaining.
As tracfone customers for 10 yrs plus,their customer service is terrible.will not be renewing next year. I wanted a refund and told absolutely not..
My phone was not Receiving or Making calls. Day One-Spent 4 hours and 6 Agents\Techs to resolve the problem. One of the Agents\Techs Erased my Current Usage and voicemail password. Had nothing to do with the initial problem. My actual account data balance recorded as of 1/5/23: Voice 790, SMS 5086, Data 4.79. I finally got a Tech who knew what she was doing and resolved the Receiving & Making a call problem, and only restored voice usage, more than what I had stated & reset voicemail. Day Two-2 hrs. Later I provided the Agent with my actual account data balance Usage. He said I would be compensated Voice 1195, SMS 1000, Data 2GB. And that this was going to be a one time exception. Now you are telling me 'this is a one time exception', when it was Tracfone who was responsible for Erasing my Usage and now will not restore what they were responsible for losing. The decision for Tracfone to arbitrarily apply incorrect balances to my account is unacceptable, especially when I had provided them with the correct/actual balances that were Erased. Shorting my account is not a fair compensation for the loss of service that I experienced. AW
I recently wanted to renew my plan with TracFone. I looked thru the plans, all the prices had increased. I found one plan that was what I needed and the best price available. I went thru the process of filling out all the information but the order would not go thru. I called customer service. I was told the plan I was looking at was not available for my phone. There is no information on the plan site to tell you what phones/plans go together. There was one plan recommended. Price was a bit higher than what I had tired. There was a special that gave 3x the minutes/text/mb. The representative said that was not so. Only 30min/30 text/. I told her I was reading straight from the plans offered. She insisted that was not right. I said that would be false advertising. I kept her on the line and went ahead and filled out the information for the plan. It did go thru and it still said 90 min/90 text, etc. I took a screenshot of the page for future reference. So be careful about the plans and about what the representatives tell you, and what it shows on site. Take screen shots of what you see. I have had previous problems with this company but must admit the price is what keeps me keeping it. The towers in my area are at a distance so calls do drop. I use my phone rarely, don't need much. But I do ask that a company be honest in what they advertise.
Products used:
I have a Blu smart phone, previous purchase.
Tmobile 5 g operates at 3.5g lower than 4 g and slower. Tracfone uses this and calls it 5g it is not 5g.
There switching people to wifi calling and charging them minutes to make calls over there own wifi.
The only way you can call away from wifi is to buy data and minutes both now to make calls.
The above all adds up to a complete and total rip off for the people this is like a scam but even when you call racfone and wait 2 hours to talk to a agent you pay tracfone for the minutes and data if no wifi
Is near for you. Might as well get a old cell and put google voice in it for free. The things that Equity
Groups are doing to America is wrong and mostly not legal. Why do I mention these here with tracfone
Because it is one of them that bought tracfone and the Government rolls over for them on command
Why because the Federal and state workers all have there money, 401k's ect making lots of money
From this. Giant Scam right how does this get fixed and when did America become a bone yard for
Scam artists. Makes me wonder who is really causing all the other fraud going on, SSA, unemplotment
Being stolen medicaid and medicare there all paying money to scammers. Let me say Blackrock Group
Was busted cheating Medicare our of 250 million the fine 60 million the 190 million a bonus given to
Mr Fink that is wrong. Why would the Government not demand the 250 back and 60 out of there pocket.
Tip for consumers:
Go to a real cell phone service that dont have wifi only service
Products used:
lg phone and a Nokia cell phone
This is supposed to be an easy phone but they put too much smart phone crap on it and made it so complicated it is nearly impossible to use. If I wanted a smart phone I would use one, I want a phone that works. This came with a voice that took and hour to figure out how to shut it up. It doesn't get a signal where I live like my old 3G did (same ATT tower). I cannot save contacts to SIM so the first time I wash this or drop it in the creek I lose everyone, it has very difficult and complicated voicemail. Everything is nearly impossible to find that I need, and I don't need much. What I need is a PHONE, not a computer! And I cannot hear it and have yet to figure out how to turn on the speaker!
So now I have no phone to use and I wasted hours and hours of time and trouble, and money. And a 24 hour (so far) migraine from trying to make it work, which it just doesn't.
And calling for help is not viable since it doesn't get a signal where I live.
I cannot even leave the worthless thing turned on as it drained the battery 50% in 4 hours of none use since it seems to waste energy NOT connecting.
Tip for consumers:
that is is NOT a real flip phone and is of much worse quality than my old LG flip phone, 3G.
Products used:
none - it doesn't work
My wife purchased a TracFone with 1200 minutes through a Home Shopping Network promotion. After activating the phone, later that same day, and emergency occurred. I tried calling information to ask for a locksmith. I was treated to a 6 (S I X) minute commercial for Wal-Mart and then was given choices for locksmiths in Albany, New York, Flagstaff Arizona, West Palm Beach Florida. Obviously, 411 with TracFone is fornicated to say the least; I recalled information asking to get the police non- emergency number in the town I just moved to. Again, 6 minutes of commercial and once I am connected with the POLICE, a message comes on stating, "You have no more minutes," and I am DISCONNECTED. Pretty interesting since my phone was to have come with 1200 minutes.
Quite frankly, I see a huge opening and opportunity for civil litigation with TracFone over this. Imagine your mom is having a heart attack, "scary people" are menacing your daughter, or your dad has just been in an accident. TracFone's delay in connecting them costs the lives (or worse) of your loved ones. I tend to think reeming TracFone out would be just a small bit of comfort after their complicity in the demise or attack of my loved one.
Want to buy a cheap cellphone "just for emergencies"? No problem, buy a T-Mobile prepaid. Spend $100 and your minutes last a full year. Skip TracFone at all costs.
So I have 3 lines with Tracfone. You don't get a lot of data for the money, so I decided to Port the lines out with Cricket Wireless, the phones should be unlocked I assumed I paid for them full price with a debit card, I did not finance them nor sign a contract. All 3 were ordered online. Well assuming I owed the phones since I paid for the phone's, thats a joke. You have to pay 150 dollars per line to unlock the phone's. Hmm. Phone's I paid for up front no contract on a month to month service? Odd because my AT&T phone once it was paid off was mine and I ported it so how is it that this company owns your phone even though you pay for it up front. Apparently when you buy a Tracfone you have to keep it for a year before switching which is absurd for a pre paid non contract company to do. The plans cost more with less data. Sure there's unlimited talk and text the max gigs is 2-5. That's not very many for the price of 40 dollars. I now have to buy 3 new phones to port my numbers which I'll gladly do over ever having to deal with this company ever again. I told the customer service representative that I will go ahead and mail back the phone's because tracfone owns them they stated they don't and there is no contract and yet I still was unable to unlock the device because I didn't have service on a phone we just purchased for my son for his Birthday, my account however and phone numbers have been active for years but since the device itself was new I was unable to unlock it. I am super disappointed in this company and will never ever ever ever recommend them to anyone ever again. I just can not believe how they could still "own" my pre paid no contract phone I purchased full price.
Products used:
Switched phones providers
Today I have had quite possibly the worst experience in my entire life, today I purchased a replacement phone to replace my sons old broken Tracfone and the new Tracfone was working perfectly all I need to do was transfer the contact information to the new phone to make phone calls and message however the customer service worker population at Tracfone is filled to the brim with idiocy and incompetence. I called customer service at 1:00 PM and was left speaking to person after person for 9 hours as not one individual working there was able to figure out why my offsprings contact information wasn't being transferred to the new phone and was told useless solutions to my predicament then told that they would call me back and sometimes they didn't even bother calling back. This was a humongous waste of my time that left my patience drained with nothing but bitter disgust in the way these people would willingly treat another human, looking at us not as people deserving of respect but as dollar signs, nothing more than currency to fill their pockets,this is evident in the way they read off scripts,all workers sounding exactly the same as the last sounding like robots to the point where they should just let the answering machines do all the work as it would make no difference.
Okay, I made the mistake that started it all, but it should have definitely not ended with this! I was ready to upgrade to a newer better service. "Google Voice" xD I wanted to transfer my old tracfone number to Google. So I called tracfone, that's where I made the mistake. I should have gotten with Google first to transfer the number. Anyways, I call tracfone. The guy tells me I have wasted both our times in that I don't need to call tracfone to transfer my number to another provider. So, I'm like okay, thanks for that information. Get to Google, they ask me for the phone number, the IMEI of the phone, lots of other personal info to verify that it is me with MY phone. All reasonable stuff. I pay to 20 dollar fee to transfer the number. Still no problems... Google porting transfer gets stuck in the middle of porting... my number no longer exists... WHAT?!?!?!?! I get onto the tracfone website to find that, MY SERVICE ENDED JANUARY 1ST1753! WHAT THE ****!?!?!? So that number no longer exists! So I try to call tracfone again, give them a piece of my mind and get my number back. Can't get passed the machine, because I don't have a tracfone number to give it! Holy crap, my plan was to switch back to tracfone is Google didn't work out for me. But, tracfone intentionally screwed me over after my YEARS of service with them. No problems before they found I would be trying a new service. The people at tracfone are crazy! Never use this provider ever! I have so many "1 time fees" Trying to get everything deactivated and out of the stupid auto pay! CROOKS!
Had to get a new phone in March. Still doesn't work. Countless hours on the phone. Do not recommend. They are awful!
I have been a TracFone customer for many years. I like cheap phones and service. If you purchase a phone online it will come in 2-3 days. It will be problematic to activate but it does activate. I had a Nokia G100/1000 or something which crapped out in 6 months. I t was under warranty. They told me to send it in.which I did on July 17th. They received it in TN at warehouse on JUly 24th. Tracking receipt from UPS says so. I called and emailed and text at least 25 times. They just read off a script like "Oh your phone is out of stock", or there is a clog at the warehouse". Many reps have told me it is on its way. It still isn't. I have been transferred multiple times on each call. Each rep eventually says I do not have the resources or "I can't do that here at m end". I eventually bought the cheapest reconditioned phone so I could use my remaining 7 months of prepaid service. That phone came in 2 days. I asked them to just credit the back end of my service with the value of my warrantied phone. I asked them to return the lost weeks of service waiting for my phone to come. They wont do it. Tracfone has suckered all these Filipinas to lie and scam customers with a lot of apologies and thank yous mixed in. There was a Miami address listed. Someone needs to close these fraudsters down. Who else has had a similar experience? I think I am going to Mint Mobile Hopefully Ryan Reynolds doesn't stick me.
When you buy an airtime card (in safeway, walmart etc) for refill tracfone they make it extremely hard to refill.
I hate to give up on tracfone because the prices are great, but I am always having trouble logging in!
Forget getting help. Two days and still can not make it work. I can not buy data, text or anything. They put you on hold for hours
Tip for consumers:
Do not use
Products used:
Can not fix phone
I got an unlocked iPhone 5S for my 24th birthday. So I went with tracfone to save some money. I saved some money alright. I also got no bars when they gave me T-Mobile as my Tracfone carrier. When I called up tech service, of course, I got the usual indiots who suggest turning it off and turning it back on again 850 times before they realize that may not be the solution. Then I got disconnected.
When I called them back, I got some lady who spoke no english whatsoever. I was in a loud room on top of it. I had to politely ask the lady to repeat what she said because I couldn't understand. She flipped out at me and started hollering at me. Well put me on the phone with someone who speaks english then. So I hung up on her. Then the same lady left 4 voice messages in 10 minutes asking to call them back because "we must have got disconnected". Yeah let me know when you get someone who speaks my language. Until then, I can figure this out myself. I had someone else deal with them for me and got me an AT&T card. I can actually use my iPhone as a phone now. But of course, like everything with tech support these days, it takes multiple attempts to get what you ask for. So not before the 7th attempt, I finally got an AT&T card. Yes, I have 6 T-Mobile cards. I wanna use the packaging as toilet paper but it's a little too hard to be toilet paper. It would probably hurt my bum.
Phone extremely difficult to use.
Google doesn't support transferring calls to your computer any more.
Cancelling;your account impossible.
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