Have problems with transferring your Tracfone minutes? Call the media
October 23, 2008/
Tracfone user reviews, it’s the inordinate amount of time spent on the phone with customer service. This usually involves the transferring of minutes from one phone to another, an area in which Tracfone is particularly deficient. Seriously, go check out the user reviews. A good majority of the negative reviews involve this issue. Bobby Olley had this issue, and he called up his local CBS affiliate to get things done.
Tracfone’s spokesperson, Cindy Jacobs, told us she wasn’t sure why the minutes didn’t get transferred. The good news was within minutes of our contact with her she got Mr. Olley back the minutes he lost. It’s the kind of service Olley expected and finally received.I have an idea of why the minutes didn’t get transferred, and it starts and ends with Tracfone’s customer service. I’m not sure whether the representatives are instructed to tell customers they can’t do anything to help them in such situations, or if they’re just not trained for them. In either case, the blame falls right on Tracfone. I’ve heard enough complaints to know that they don’t treat customers as well as they could. Isn’t it time they did something about it?]]>
Posted in Tracfone
I’ve been with Tracfone for 6 years and never had a problem. I don’t throw my phones around, and if I do have a problem and need to call customer services I don’t loose my cool and rant and rave at some poor person on the other end. If you speak clearly and calmly to them, they will always do everything they can to help! And no I don’t work for Tracfone but I try to be a Christian in all my dealings and it pays off!! They transfered my minutes when I got a new phone without any problems.
This is the second time I’m upgrading phones in the last 5 years. The first time it took 3 calls to get it straightened out. This time is the winner though – after 6 yes 6 calls (approx 4 hrs total)with their representatives, and after a week, the new phone still doesn’t work, the old phone has been decommissioned and they’ve lost all my time and units. So for now I have no cellphone and get to spend more time on my landline phone with another Tracfone representative tomorrow to try and get it straightened out. It’s no longer worth the hassle and am seriously considering taking the loss on the new phone if they won’t take it back, and go to another carrier. There is no excuse for such shoddy customer service. At this point I’d have to tell potential customers to shop somewhere else. I also try to be a Christian in all my dealngs, and am probably one of the most laid back, patient people I know, but c’mon…
My Name is Elston and I am a Tracfone Employee and I am here to assist anyone that needs any assistance. My contact information is 1.800.626.4883 ext 6107
Elston is also a Corporate rep.. I know because I just help resolve my sisters phone issue when she spent 3 weeks trying to get the CS number listed on the cards to help her and they did nothing.. just kept being told to buy another card to re-activate her phone. Since I used to work CS for another prepaid phone company I gave her a hand in how to deal with them since i know the methodology they use to pacify thier client base.. Elston Great Job..a little late to respond, but better late than never corporate level was teh only help i got through all this.. they are great .. CS level sucks
I bought a new LG 500G tracfone to replace an old Nokia 2600, with the understanding that I could transfer the number and the minutes. I tried to do it on the internet, but Tracfone’s site hung up and instructed me to try calling their customer service. That went about as well as could be expected until I saw that all my minutes were not transferred. I had 2145 minutes on the old phone, but they only transferred 1000. About usual for Tracfone!
Have used TRACFONE for years and agree that transferring minutes is always a huge time consuming pain in the butt. I put up with it because I like the service. This morning, however, I noticed that my new TRACFONE had an unregistered SIM and an entirely different phone number! They accidentally gave me a new number. I was on the phone with them for 2 hours. They told me I could never have my phone number back again. I have had the same number for years! They are overnighting a SIM card and changing my phone number. If it all goes smoothly I will stay with TRACFONE. If not, then this is the last straw and I’m switching providers.
On aug1st I asked the rep.{elizabeth}, to transfer minutes from one trac phone to another, nothing happened, she gave me 60.00 and i had 74.00, what the heck happened? the other trac phone still has 50.80 minutes on it. please let me know. tx anita
I just replaced my 6 yr-old Tracfone because the old one lost key functionality. So I had to use the CS number to transfer my number and minutes. My old phone showed 59 minutes expiring in about 6 months. The CS rep’s records said I had 74 minutes!? and that he would transfer them. After my activation was complete 8 hours later, my new phone showed a balance of 10 minutes valid for 60 days. Further research tells me that double or promo minutes do NOT transfer to a new phone. The CS rep should state that TracFone policy during the call. Well, at least my phone number transferred, and that was the main thing.
I also upgraded due to my boss preferring text msg to an actual voice. went from a motorola to a samsung with full keyboard.. phone number transferred fine, but when transfering the minutes, i lost 323 minutes. thats alot of minutes! even my service date transferred fine, but to take out so many minutes is just not right.
I agree with Bob that TracFone policy should state somewhere about transferring minutes and what WON’t be transferred.
Outside of that, I love my tracfone. Wouldn’t ever switch to anything else
I bought a new LG phone from tracfone and wanted to transfer my minutes. I had accumulated 4896.00 minutes as I didn’t use the phone that often. The service rep. said they could only give me 2,000. I protested and she said to hold on for a supervisor. The phone rang for 10 mins. until I finally hung up. I will give them another try but if I’m not satisfied, I’m calling the state Attorney General’s Office.
I wanted to transfer 6240 minutes from my old tracfone to a new tracfone and after 5 hours on the phone and nearly a months time, after sending the first new phone back, waiting then more tome trying to get that one set up I end up with only 1200 minutes and the people on the other end saying that there is nothing that they can do. Going to my account I see that I do only have 1200 minutes. So after nearly one month of utter frustration and no phone service I lose nearly 5000 minutes and find they have ever changed the minutes in my account. Once I saw the account information I am convinced that they have pretty much taken care of any argument I have over the total number. There should be records of all my purchases of minutes to prove my case but where. Who do I contact now.
I’m currently involved in a nightmare of trying to get TracFone minutes transferred to a new phone I bought from them after my wife lost hers. The phone had around 5000 minutes. Upon activation of the new phone only 1000 showed and I let it go at that but then all but 7 minutes disappeared without using the phone. Multiple calls accomplish nothing. They say they will do it, acknowledge the minutes but say they get error messages and failures. This leads to getting a useless Ticket number. I now have two Ticket numbers. Checking status on their website is useless you just get told to get on the same merry go round with another rep who fails and gives you another ticket #. I’m really sick of it and refuse to buy more time. The minutes accumulate for us because we don’t use the cell phones much but buy more service time that comes with minutes about once a year. This robbing of a good customer is intolerable