View All TracFone Reviews

After reading many different reviews on Tracfone & Verizon prepaid plans, I'm so confused! I'm thinking of switching to a prepaid phone but am having difficulty deciding. My friend has Tracfone and loves it and never had a problem. Can someone from S. Orange County in CA. give me some advice with your experience via email: babathorn2@yahoo.com. I just need a cell phone for emergencies and I talk less than 60 mins./month. Thanks sooo much!

To all of you TRAC PHONE customers who are planning on switching to Net 10 – DON'T!!! TRAC PHONE owns NET 10 and they use the same customer service. SSDD – Same S_ _ T Different Day.

I've had Tracfone service for about 3 years now and I have YET to be able to actually purchase airtime online w/o getting an error code forcing me to call the service Dept. I really hate that because it's hard to understand folks in India and there's about 500 numbers that have to be punched into the phone. There is NO REASON for being forced to do this when they promote buying airtime online (that means without having to call too). I don't have any other company of any type not accepting my online purchase with the same card. I've had it and am going to move my service somewhere else. Something is really wrong here.

I have been with tracfone for a year or so now. I live out in the middle of nowhere, so I needed a phone. Well it's been good for the year I had it, but recently I've tried three or four times to put more minutes on my phone, and everytime it would say ‘System Unavailable.' Then I would get a text saying something like ‘Call Customer Care' or whatever. I did and I waited more than 10 minutes with that annoying, ‘You are important to us, please stay on the line for the next available teller.' I hung up I can not deal with TracPhone anymore. There was once where I was arguing with a guy in India because I couldn't understand him and he was getting mad at me. TracPhone is not worth the money and trust me, I will not be buying from them again.

I have had a tracfone for 8 months and use about 80 min/month with their monthly plan (no cards). My first phone, a $20 Motorola w260, started not turning on properly at times;since it was intermittent problem, I got another phone rather than try sending a $20 phone in for repairs. The LG phone came last week and I had zero problems calling and getting the phone number and minutes transferred to the new phone (they did it while I was on the line, telling me the codes to punch into the phones). While the first phone did develop problems, I figure this is the motorola manufacturer's fault, not tracfone, which is only a service; I could've bought a motorola phone from someone else easily and had the same problem. Customer service was very helpful and understandable. I have had no problem with the double minutes–it might be better to use the monthly plan for double minutes??? $10/month, 100 min.

Yeah ‘So reliable and easy to understand' my butt…if it is so easy to understand then why can't I understand ANY of the costumer services employees and I can't even find my own SIM PIN #?

I have had Tracfone for over six months now. I really enjoyed the service until my Double Minutes stopped being put on my phone for no reason. I called customer service and figured it would be straightened out fine. The lady thanked me for being a customer of Tracfone, and that it would take a while for the minutes to come back on my phone.So I waited. It's been three weeks and I haven't gotten my double minutes yet. That's why I signed up with Tracfone – for their double minutes and for their low monthly price.Now that I am not getting Double Minutes I am going to have to switch carriers. This means I have to call everyone and let them know my new number, ect. This is a pain.I am going to probably go with net10. They are a subsidiary of Tracfone, but at least I can guarantee what price my minutes will be and be able to budget accordingly without worrying if I can afford them.

TracFone has THE WORST customer service! I was just on the phone with them for over an hour trying to get an issue straightend out. I spoke with 4 different reps and when I asked to talk to a supervisor because the rep was not even listening to me (he was buttin in while I was trying to tell him my concerns), I was placed ‘on hold' only the jerk didn't even put me on hold! I could hear him and his co-workers laughing about it in the background! As soon as my minutes are all used up with them, I will be replacing them with a better company.

I have used Tracfone for the last 4 years. They deliver quality service (their coverage is legendary) at an affordable price. Their phones are not always the best option for people talking a lot, although this changed recently with the introduction of the Straight Talk plans. But wherever I travel in the States I take a Tracfone with. In my experience it has the best chance of working no matter where I am.I know Tracfone has had some issues with their customer service, but honestly, the last time I phoned Tracfone CS I had my problem resolved in a few minutes. I think they realized their customer service department was lacking and is probably taking action. Apart from that, I like being totally in control of how much I spend every month. I like knowing exactly how much time I have left on the the phone. I like not being taken for a ride by a company adding all sorts of fees. I'll admit, from time to time I check out other prepaid carriers but I've had much worse experiences from them – Virgin was horrible CS even worse than Tracfone, MetroPCs and Boost had terrible coverage, VZ is way overpriced. No, I am still a Tracfone user and fan.

Several years ago, when I was driving across the country alone for 6 weeks my daughter demanded that I get a cell phone. I got a Tracphone from Kmart and have had zero problems. Granted, I use the phone infrequently and the phone is a simple one (read cheapie). For $100 I now buy a years's service at a time and have more minutes than I ever use.I don't require much but the service suits me fine at minimal cost for mostly standby emergency service needs.Customer service complaints sound vicious but I have never used them.

TracFone made errors on my account regarding a lost phone and the replacement phone and never made the corrections. They never removed the lost phone or phone number from my account and then intermingled information between the two phones. I spent hours on the phone with customer service reps who could not speak good english and who obviously had no clue as to the problems or how to fix them. I was put on hold over and over again and they never did fix their errors. I am switching to a different service. If you ever need support from TracFone, just throw the phone away.

My wife and I have been Tracphone customers for about 5 years. In the last year, on at least three occasions (it happened prior to those three but I wasn't absolutely sure it was happening and, therefore, hadn't document them), all (yes, ALL) of the minutes that I had pre-purchased simply disappeared from the display on my phone. Calling Tracphone tech support was a disaster. The tech support people couldn't speak understandable english AND did NOT give me back the minutes they said they would, which by the way was only a portion of the time that had been stolen. I don't know what to do about this. Someone please Help!!!!

April 2009 I purchased a TracFone to save money and attempted to have an existing number transferred to our new phone. After 10 days, I called TracFone only to be told wait another 72 hours. 3 times I was told to wait another 72 hours. We called the current provider Sprint who indicated TracFone made no attempt to port the number. After 3 weeks, I received a message from TracFone that they had closed my case. Meanwhile, the existing Sprint number had been cancelled. We were advised by Sprint that TracFone cannot port numbers from an account in a Business Name. After hearing this, I activated the phone with a new number. This happened April 24. I purchased 800 minutes and had been using the phone until July 2 when we discovered the phone had been deactivated. The first individual I spoke to advised the SIM card was not compatible with our Zip Code. When I supposedly spoke to a supervisor, I was advised that the number had been deactivated in April and they could not tell me how or why? I was told at no cost they will send me a new SIM card and provide me minutes as compensation. They sent me a new SIM card which took a full week. This is where the fun began, I spoke to 13 different people and was advised TracFone did nothing wrong and it was my problem. There was no record of Tracfone providing me free minutes as compensation. They advised my compensation for all the hassels was them giving me back the minutes we still had. I was lucky they did this. This took over 1 1/2 hours to only get a new number and keep the minutes I purchased. I believe at no time did I speak to a supervisor, each supervisor had to talk to a supervisor? When asked to speak to someone higher, I was told only a supervisor can help me. Meanwhile, my husband being a small business owner has to get new business cards once again. After we use the minutes we purchased, we will go back to AT & T.

David's review on 7/7/09 below is excellent and good advice to follow. I have used Tracfone as an inexpensive alternative for a yr or so, always buying online, don't deal with customer service, never had a problem with the phone. Even had service in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Victoria. Only wish they had a keybd phone.

zero stars.Was a customer for over 6 years. I loved mine until I tried to get new phone, lost my number, lost my 600+units, lost over 80$ for double life & new phone and almost lost my mind dealing with these poor excuse for customer service folks! I have literaly been trying to get my service for 10 months.. it's over, they win the fight and lose my buisness. All the people that tried to change like me had the same exact experience. Talk about a real rip-off!!!

Purchased Motorola 376G phone for $29.95 at Walmart. Comes with double minutes, bluetooth, fm radio. Excellent Phone. Just plugged it in and went online to activate which online took minutes.Tracfone is better than other prepaid phones including Net10. Net10 refill cards are expensive ($30.00) and they last for only 60 days. Tracfone cards start at $20 for 90 days. Had a tracfone before for about 3 years and read reviews of other carriers. This was a mistake. Go with tracfone, Quality, price and service

First, I love Davids review, I had to laugh at ‘My phone is on fire'. I have had my tracfone (same one) for about 4 years now.From New York to Calif and many places in between; currently in NC; I have always had service.What could be easier than buying minutes at your local Walmart? My service is good until 12/2010. I never have to worry about my minutes expiring my phone slaps it in my face every time I turn it on. I do not have the camera phone but then again why does anyone need one? They will just get you in trouble in the long run and hello, buy a digital camera if you need to snap photos of unsuspecting victims lol..If you have patience, which I have tons of, calling the 1-800 help line has always solved my problem. Also before calling them, I suggest carefully taking out your SIM card, letting the phone rest for a couple of minutes then replacing it. For those of you complaining about your tracfone, I am sorry for your bad luck. Sometimes you do get a lemon. All in all I have looked at the other plans and I am not jumping ship yet. 🙂

On paper, Tracfone looks like a good deal, especially if you get a DMFL phone. Implementation is something else. A technical glitch causes many people to lose minutes, and customer service will give you a runaround and then flatly refuse to refund the minutes. Another problem is that Tracfone undoes one of the chief advantages of GSM by locking the phone and SIM together. You are thus stuck with their un-exciting phones, whereas other prepaid GSM providers work with the unlocked GSM phone of your choice.

There phones aren't very exciting. And I understand you can't get their sim cards to work in any other phones. So your stuck with their cheap phones

I love trac phones,they have the same qualities as cell phones,But I happen to have the motorola c139,one day I was texting my brother and it said that the message was unable to send,ever since then it hasn't let me text any one and it's been a month!

I being worked in cust service for a few mounths and I think its an exellent company and the best cust service that I worked ever.

Actually I would of rated Trafone no stars if it was a option. My battery wont stay charged more than a few minutes. Walmart gave me another battery, it wont stay charged neither. I called Tracfones customer service, they couldnt understand English and I couldnt understand whatever she was speaking. It took 10 minutes for her to get my first name. I was frightened when she aasked my city for it was two syllables which consisted of over ten letters. I was told a new battery could arrive 3-5 days, it's been over two weeks and guess what, they will not do a refund after 30 days but it will take that long to get the 2nd battery. Product stinks as well as customer service

THEY WOULD NOT REFUND MINS. THAT WAS LOST. ENGLISH BARRIER NOT A HAPPY COSTUMER, REP. LEFT ME ON HOLD FOR TENTY-FIVE MINS. NO RESPECT FOR THE COSTUMER. WILL NOT BE RENEWING MY SERVICES. TOOK ME TWO DAYS TO GET MY PHONE PROGRAM RIGHT. I WILL BE USING T-MOBIL FROM NOW OWN.

this phone is OK but u cant get ring tones.,….and dats what i need now!!!

Tracfone definitely has good points and bad points, but I've yet to be tempted away from it. I love it.THE GOOD:No matter what is most important to you (cheap phone, cheap monthly cost, cheap minutes, or no hassles), Tracfone has a way to do that. Cheap phone? Phones on their website usually start at $10 + shipping for refurbished phones. Wal*Mart usually has new phones at very good prices.Cheap monthly cost? $19.99 for 90 days is $6.66/month, which is pretty low. There are carriers that beat that. For that you get 60 or 120 minutes, depending on whether your phone is ‘doubled' (see ADVICE below). Cheap minutes? $79.99 for 450 minutes, doubled to 900, plus a 30+ minute bonus code, totaling 930 minutes is 8.6 cents/minute, which is very competitive. There are also carriers that beat that. Incidently, this is how I buy my minutes these days.No hassles? Get a monthly plan, conveniently billed to your credit card. $10/month gets you 50 minutes, doubled to 100 for 10 cents a minute. If you have more than one, the family plan is only $6/month for the secondary lines, still at 10 cents/minute. Need more minutes? If you're monthly, you can buy all the minutes you want for 10 cents/minute in $10 increments online. This is amazingly convenient and hard to find elsewhere for so little. Incidently, this is how I buy my wife's minutes these days. She uses much less than I do.Text is cheap. Messages are 0.3 minutes, which works out to 3 cents/message if you're paying 10 cents/minute, or 2.6 cents/message for me. GO find another carrier that's as cheap. Good luck. Incidently, there used to be CDMA phones that charged 0.5 minutes/message, and GSM phones with free incoming messages, but that's no longer the case. Days of service roll over. Most carriers will roll over minutes, but not how long you have to use them. Any time you give Tracfone money, you get both minutes, and a service extention. If you use minutes slow, you end up with plenty of minutes to cover high usage. If you use minutes fast, you end up with an accumulation of days of service. I use 300 or so minutes/month, and I've had my phone long enough that at this point my expiration date is over THREE YEARS from now. If I put my phone into a drawer, didn't touch it until 2012, made no calls, and gave Tracfone no money, I'd still have 8 months to use my remaining minutes. Its ironic that when I had a contract phone, I was obligated to pay for two years, whether I could use the service or not, whereas Tracfone is obligated to provide service to me to three years, whether I pay them or not. LOL. ROFLMAO, even!Nobody has coverage like Tracfone. They use AT&T (for GSM) and Verizon (for CDMA). Both kinds of phones roam onto almost any network at no extra charge, which is unusual. CDMA phones used to cost more while roaming, but that's no longer the case.Accounting is on the phone. By default, the main screen shows you how many minutes you have left and your expiration date. Other carriers have that information available, but it's always buried somewhere, since it requires a query to the network. Having the information ‘in your face' means you never run out of service without realizing it's going to happen.THE BAD:Accounting is on the phone. Tracfone has no idea who you called or how many minutes you have left. You lose the phone, and the best that you can hope for is that they will give you back the minutes from your last purchase. You also will lose the money you spent to ‘double' it. Don't lose your phone.The phones are very dated, you absolutely can only use one of their phones. They have to have the special software to do the on-phone accounting. Most phones have no camera, no web, crappy games, crappy ring tones, and no downloadable content. Tracfones are for people who want their phone for voice and text (without a QWERTY keyboard). Tracfones are NOT for people who want their phone to be entertaining.The options are very confusing. TO get the best price out of Tracfone, you need to know what you mean by ‘best price', and choose accordingly. A calculator is useful. Looking up bonus codes is pretty much the norm. It used to be worse, with two-for-ones and referrals.The customer service is trying. Tracfone is owned by America Movil, which is based in Mexico city. The call center is somewhere in Central America, if I recall. English is not their native language. They mostly work from a script, and repeat everything. ‘What can I help you with?' ‘My phone is on fire!' ‘So I am understanding that your phone is on fire, yes?' ‘Yes!'. Good grief.When they do figure out what to do, they can't program your phone over the air. Instead you get to enter 20 digit codes and read the results back to the representative. Usually there are five or six codes, and I usually have to enter one of them more than once because I mistype.Tracfones are the epitomy of ‘disposable phones', like TV policemen are always whining about. You can buy them with cash. You can refill them with cash. There's no record of your calls. Because of this, some people who use them are slimeballs. If you get a new number with your Tracfone, because you are not porting in your own number, about half the time you get a ‘bad one'. By this I mean that you get calls from lawyers, banks, bill collectors, and angry ex-girlfriends, none of whom believe that the number has changed hands and all of whom love to leave obnoxious voice mail. This is only a slight exageration… Fortunately, you can ask for a new number, but then you are talking to custumer service again.You have to play stupid games to get a CDMA phone in a GSM area. See ADVICE below.ADVICE:'Double' your phone. Because Tracfone's phones can only be used on their network, then subsidize them like a post-paid carrier would. The money you spend to ‘double' the phone essentially repays the subsidy, so they can afford to give you a better rate. This normally costs $50, but it's down to $25 now. All the more expensive phones come with double minutes already. The only reason you wouldn't pay for a ‘Double for Life' card is if you expected to spend less on airtime than the cost of the ‘double' card ove the entire life of the phone. ‘Double' it.Use bonus codes. Tracfone is always sending out special offers. Most codes add 30 minutes when you add airtime, but sometimes you can 60 minutes or more. Sign up at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tracfone_Users/ and look in the Database section, and you will find many collected cosed.Sign up for ‘Buy Now'. You give Tracfone your credit card, and then you can easily add airtime, even if you're stuck by the side of the road, even if you've lost your wallet. You still have to put in a PIN, so someone getting your phone can't drain your credit card. You can still use a bonus code, if you have one handy. The only reason you wouldn't do this is because you don't want anyone to have your credit card.Consider the Value Plans. You'll never run out of service, and it's the least up-front money to get 10 cent minutes.Prepare for customer service. Don't bother unless you have at least 30 minutes to spare. I like to do it while I'm washing dishes or something.Don't bother with Net10, which is also owned by America Movil. The big deal with Net10 is that all your minutes are 10 cents. With a doubled phone, that's no problem anyway. Either the $10/month value plan, or $40 200 minute card will match that. In the case of the card, you can beat it just by using a bonus code. The downside of Net10 is that you have to spend a minimum of $15/month. THe only way to get better than 10 cents/minute with Net10 is to spend $400. Sure, you get 8 cent minutes, but you're also paying $200/year for service and the up-front cost is all lost if you lose the phone. Text messaging is also 5 cents, not 3. Bleah.Consider whether you want AT&T (GSM) or Verizon (CDMA) as your carrier. Tracfone would prefer you use GSM. If you live in an area with AT&T coverage, that's what you're going to get. If you want GSM, just buy a phone. In order to get a CDMA phone if you live in a GSM area, you have to buy it online and lie about where you are going to use it. When the web site asks where you are going to use it, put in a zip code that has Verizon coverage but not AT&T. You can identify those by looking at the coverage maps from the carrier's websites. Hint: lots of that in Virginia. When it's time to put in your shipping address, you can put in your real address. It's no problem if they don't match: maybe you are buying it for your cousin or something. When you get the phone and activate it, use your real zip code. Again, no problem. Maybe you changes your mind or something. I've never had a problem, and I greatly prefer Verizon. I love my LG200 C.Good luck. I think it's worth all the nonsense. Good rate. Good network. Good (basic) phone. On-board accounting.

no stars!!!!! TRACFONE IS HORRIBLE!!! I wish so much I could tell anyone and everyone DO NOT BUY THESE PHONES!! DO NOT EVEN TRY TO RESOLVE A PROBLEM THROUGH THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE!! YOU WILL GET NOWHERE! THEY WILL KEEP YOU ON THE PHONE SO LONG AND GIVE YOU THE BIGGEST LYING RUN AROUND, SO THAT YOU WILL NEVER CALL THEM AGAIN!!! It's like being in the twilight zone! They say you have the minutes, YOU DID NOT GET! You tell them, NO I Do Not…yes you do…no I don't….we see them here…maybe you do see them, BUT, I DON'T!….yes you do mam…no I Don't…yes you do mam, is there anything else we can help you today?……OH MY GOD!!! I JUST WANTED MY MINUTES!, That's what you can help me with!…Yes mam, we see you have them, would there be anything else?…..OH MY GOD!!!

I purchased a 60 minute card, entered my pin, then NOTHING! I paid for the double your minutes plan upfront too! I called customer service to get help with getting the minutes I had PAID FOR, I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND THEM! They are totally stupid! Anyway they said their supervisor said I had received them on my phone! so…they would not help me! Now I have a phone with NO MINUTES!! I was supposed to have 120 minutes! I am so fed up with their customer service and how can they legally get away with this? I PAID FOR THOSE MINUTES!! So now I am out a TOTAL OF $70.00! Because I spent 49.99 up front to always have double! Where do people turn for help, when they are done this way by a company?

It sucks! Never was able to place or recieve a call. Tech support was no help.

This is the worst possible company to work with. It took 2 hours on the landline to activate the phone. THEN it would not roam….2 more hours with people with only passing knowledge of English. NEXT it would not accept prepaid time. Another lengthy discussion (holding) with customer service(?). Of course, customer service closes after business hours. Somehow, they never give all the ‘codes' necessary to program the phone for even rudimentary service. Could this not be done when the phone is sold? I plan to stomp the thing flat and grind it to powder. That's the only value I can see for the thing – entertainment!

I've used tracfone off and on for 5 years…it was my first phone and served the purpose I bought it for. Sure, it probably isn't the most economical option, but for someone who just uses the phone for emergencies or quick calls and messages this service works well. The terms are pretty straight forward and you know what you're using when you use it-meaning units don't just magically disappear like with other services.

‘0' STARS4 Hours on the phone and still no transfer of existing number to new phone which was purchased through Tracfone…Looks to me like they make they're money by taking peoples minutes…Definitely would not invest in company…Two phones sent…Resending one phone..Postage they’;re problem….Sent a new sim card priority expresss fedex…Wonder what that cost…???..Like I said from the reviews it looks like they make they're money by ripping people off of minutes…With all the high postage they are paying they have to make money some way…

While I have used Tracfone for over two years and have been generally satisfied, I am currently having a technical issue and I need to talk to customer service. After being told by the Tracfone automated service that I should expect a ten minute wait, I have now been holding for going on two hours. Every 45 seconds I have been hearing: ‘Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold until the next customer service representative is able to take your call. Remember having your battery charged and your phone serial number available will help us serve you better.'I feel that I am being lied to every time I hear:'Your call is very important to us.'I will be changing my provider.

My wife and I each use a tracfone for emergencies and other short calls from time to time. We each carry our phones in our cars whenever we leave home. We are both in our 70's and like to have a phone handy whenever needed. The service we have had with Tracfone has been excellent.

I have had my tracfone for years and i love it ! Tracfone always works where ever i am and i never get dropped calls .Tracfone is the best !

Why no option for zero stars, which is what this ripoff company deserves? They instantly give out your address so you get spam text messages that they charge you for, and you can't stop it. But problems with the service? Those never stop, and they can't and won't help you. They just staff their 1-800 line with people making 3 cents a day in India who don't know how to fix anything and aren't empowered in the first place. Save your money. I finally gave up after Tracfone had essentially stolen $60 from me, and moved to Virgin Mobile. It's inexpensive, easy to use, accurate, and they actually know what they're doing! Tracfone's bankruptcy won't be good enough. They need to be sued into permanent submission.

Worst phone company to deal with. ordered new phone w/ min card which when activated didn't work. i had transfered my min. & no. to new phone . Tracfone would not transfer my min. back to my old phone w/o me purchasing another airtime card and would not replace the defective phone

I was told that as long as my phone showed the minutes left, I would never lose those minutes. I had to reactivate my trac fone. It had over 1300 minutes left. I reactivated with a one-year card with 400 minutes. I would up with 400 minutes (the 1300 were gone). I called them to ask about this. They said they changed their policy (without letting me know. I have reactivated before without losing my minutes. Now they've just decided they don't want to anymore and changed their ‘policy.' I don't know where this policy is, but I was never given anything. Over $200 worth of phone minutes lost. I can't afford this. I am disabled and need my phone and counted on what their policy of retaining the minutes. Almost 2 hours were spent wasting my time by holding on just two more minutes. They dream up more ways to not honor bought and paid for minutes. I used to like TracFone, but no longer. I now consider them a dishonest company. Their new cell phones have more and more dead cells and I can hardly get through even 10 miles away. Bye-bye TracFone. I hope you choke on your recent rip off policy.

Tracphone is a big RIP OFF. Their customer service is unacceptable….their phones break and you cannot get anyone to undestand to transfer minutes to a new phone. I was sent a promo code that didn't work and custmer service would not honor it. Their game is to waste so much of your time and make you so frustrated you give up.

The tech service provided was slow and unhelpful…the phone still isn't activated after 3 phone calls to tech support, three trips to the website…I don't even have a phone number to my phone…and I have to take time out of my work day to call them (in 48hrs.) and see if they can fix the problem, that they could not determine, and if the problem is not fixed the airtime and phone are non-refundable. I can't believe that ATT and Motorola would put their names on this product. I work with telephones all day, everyday, and this is beyond unacceptable. If the stars could show what I really feel about the product it would show -5 stars.

I AM A CUSTOMER OF SEVERAL YRS. BUT WILL BE CHANGING TO SOMEONE ELSE WHEN MY MINUTES RUN OUT. ACTUAL CONNECTION SERVICE HAS BEEN PRETTY GOOD BUT HAVE HAD IT WITH THEIR UNBELIEVABLY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. CAN NOT UNDERSTAND THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS. REPORTED THIS PROBLEM TO SUPERVISORS SEVERAL TIMES BUT STILL IS THE SAME. CALLED TRACPHONE TRYING TO HELP OUT A FRIEND WHO ALSO HAS A TRACPHONE THAT WASN'T WORKING RIGHT. STILL UNDER WARRANTY. BROKEN PHONE HAD DOUBLE MINUTES PLAN. FRIEND BOUGHT NEW TRACPHONE-COULDN'T BE WITHOUT PHONE. SUPERVISOR WOULD NOT TRANSFER DOUBLE MINUTES PLAN TO NEW PHONE EVEN THOUGH OTHER PHONE WAS STILL UNDER WARRANTY. HAD EARLIER HAD ENOUGH OF TRYING TO UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER SERVICE REP. ON PHONE & ASKED FOR SUPERVISOR & ALSO TOLD THE SERVICE REP. I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND HIM. HE TOLD ME HE COULDN'T DO THAT & WHEN I ASKED HIS NAME IT SOUNDED LIKE HE WAS PUTTING HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH WHILE TELLING ME. HAD HIM TO SPELL IT.GUESS HE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY. I DIDN'T. THEY JUST LOST A CUSTOMER. TOOK THE NEW TRACPHONE BACK & GOT NET 10. BIG MISTAKE. AFTER PUTTING MINUTES ON THAT PHONE FOUND OUT LATER MYSELF THAT TRACPHONE OWNS THAT COMPANY ALSO. EVEN AFTER TELLING SALESPERSON AT WAL-MART & ALSO CUSTOMER SERVICE AT NET 10 THAT I DID NOT WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH TRACPHONE NO MORE, NOBODY TOLD ME NET 10 WAS OWNED BY TRACPHONE. I WILL BE CHANGING PHONE COMPANIES & TOLD FRIEND THEY ARE ON THEIR OWN IF THEY STAY WITH TRACPHONE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I've had tracfone for over 7yrs and it's been great! Even transferred my number to new phone and it was smooth sailing. Service is better than Verizon, which my husband and son have, but they get alot of dropped alls. I have always been pleased with the service, it's easy!

Tracfone works well until you need customer service. My old tracfone quit working, yet still had 713 minutes. I think they suddenly gave my number to someone else as I am told that number no longer exists. I could call out but when calling in, the call went to someone elses voice mail. I never could get help with it, or reactivate it, so I bought a new one. I never could get a new one activated as they apparently gave it the faulty number again. It did the same thing. They tell me now there is no such number. I heard so many different reasons for the problem including I am in a in a no service area (yet it always worked there before – I can still call from there on my other trac fone). I asked for a new number to try but they said they had no new numbers in my area. Then why are they still selling tracfones there? 4 sim cards and many months later, I finally contacted the better Business Bureau. It was not for want of trying. I spent 6 hrs straight one day even, getting put on hold and tranferred around to diferent people all to no avail. I was told I was one of the most patient people they had seen. I was patient and I don't believe in yelling at people. But I realize now there is no help or solution often with trac fone. I am worn out trying to get help to no avail. I feel there are people who would like to help, but none are empowered to do anything and they have no contact person to call so you are back to square one each time you seek help – back to another person. I must have talked to at least 20 people by now, and been on the phone days at a time with this.

Don't even think of buying a tracfone!!Don't know how these people even stay in business now that there are so many other prepaid phone services out there.Had used tracfone in the past with no problems, but seems like lately the customer service has completely gone to #$%&!! Got my mom a tracfone & she mainly uses it for texting. Worked for only about a month & now its not working at all. Called their worthless customer service & they never follow up & fix the problem. Don't have the time or patience to keep fighting with them. Will get her a new phone with either Virgin Mobile or Boost as I have read they are much better.STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM TRACFONE AS POSSIBLE!!!

No problems whatsoever with the phone we've been using for about 3 years. We are not heavy phone users, see no reason to spend $100/month for voice & text communication. Those who ‘need' to be available at all times of all days in all places, however, would not find this method economical. We're ready for a replacement phone, but we'll stay with this company for the service we've received. Thanks!

I had a Tracphone before and I never had any problems with it. The service was great and the phone worked excellent. The only complaint was that they took two minutes of airtime for every minute of a long distance call. once I found Page Plus I never looked back. If Page Plus ever goes out of buisness I would usr TracFone again though. It was still a quality product.

I bought this for my son and added minutes and didn't believe him when he told me his minutes were being subtracted without him using it. Tracfone charges you minutes for voice mail EVEN IF YOU NEVER LISTEN TO THE VOICEMAIL. It is a scam.

I bought this phone as a means of calling my regular mobile phone (AT&T) when it was lost (I misplace it often). The coverage is attrocious. I live in New York and have to walk blocks, and then stay in place, in order to make a phone call. The phone will not work in my apartment building at all. I have never encountered the same problems with AT&T. Absolutely not useful as a primary phone.

I really like the price and concept, but I do not like the button the connects me to the internet. I have unintentionally connected five times in two months. I called TracFone to see if I could reprogramme my phone to disable or reassign that button, but they said it cannot be done with my model phone, T301G. So, to prevent accidentally connecting to the internet, I keep the phone turned off, until I actually need to use it.

I purchased a Motorola W260g TraFone for an overseas friend planning a cross USA bicycle ride. I chose TracFone based on the coverage map, availabilty of international calling, and ease of checking minutes and recharge if needed. The lack of internatioal texting was a bummer but not too important. On arrival the phone seemed fine but field testing revealed a lot of no service areas in the midst of an area well served by my AT&T phone. Specifically, I could get no coverage inside most buildings. Outside the phone would go from no service to three bars and back again over the course of a few meters. International calling to most countries is now advertised as part of the basic TracFone plan but requires a few days to be activated and calling a special international access number. A week after activating the TracFone I tried an internatinal call only to get a message that the call could not be completed and to make sure international calling was activated. A call to Customer service resulted in conversations with two very nice people who in the end could not help. The first transferred me to the international specialist after confirming that my spotty service reception is par for the course. The International specialist eventually gave me a different international access number that did not error out, but rang a few times and gave me a busy signal. The international specialist said that was par for the course and to try again in 30 minutes. A day later and several more attempts have yet to get me the international line. Since this phone is meant to be a lifeline for a stranded cyclist, such unrelaible service is intolerable. I am giving the phone to my daughter who has a penchant for loosing cell phones and will add my friened to my AT&T family plan while he is in the USA. AT&T doesn't have the best coverage in the boonies but has served me well enough on my own cycle trips.

I do have to rave about the reliability of my Motorola C139 model Tracfone and the service I get from Tracfone. I have had my present Tracfone for 3 years now, and had a previous Nokia model before that. Both worked fine. Transferring my cell number from Nokia to Motorola was not complicated, but a little slow when I phoned customer service. I text very seldom and use the cell phone for emergencies only as well as when traveling. I have only had no service in some remote areas of my state of Ohio and on Anna Marie Island in Florida. Customer service has been helpful when I do call them for support. I find promotion codes online and use those to add additional minutes to my phone when I purchase my minutes. All in all, Tracfone will work for you as long as you keep things simple.

I have spent more time talking to tracfone service, than I have spent talking on my phone. I have owned tracfone for two months now, and only now have I found out that I don't have voicemail and therefore have not received any voicemail messages. I received e:mail telling me how to set up my voicemail. I followed the directions, but it won't let me in to set up voicemail. All it says is sorry! voicemail is not set up, or there is no mailbox goodbye! and it hangs up. I have wasted 10 or more minutes of airtime (because this can only be done on your tracfone) trying to set up what is generally automatic on other mobile phone systems. I e:mail them back with the problem. I'm told I have to speak to them directly. They do not speak english well. It is very difficult to understand their service representatives. I think they are in India. I have had many friends who were from India, and I have no trouble understanding my friends. These service reps don't speak clearly. I have had problems with receiving strange text messages before I even gave my number out to anyone. I received about 40-50 of these text messages within a week. Each one you open costs half a minute. Tracfone minutes are not cheap. My phone only came with 20 minutes. This forces you to buy more airtime. Each time you call service they remind you that you have to buy airtime. Also, airtime purchased is not forever. Use it or lose it. The text message problem was solved only after I asked for a new phone number. The service rep did not suggest this, I had to ask for a new number. The service rep initially said that I had to wait a month (my airtime was only good for one month) so they could get a record of what text messages were coming in. Even the new phone number had a few text messages come in, which I replied to asking them to stop texting me. Each time I wasted a minute of airtime, but the texting stopped. I was forced to buy over a hundred dollars of airtime because airtime was being used up so quickly with just dealing with setting up the phone. I don't use the phone as a primary phone, so $139 airtime for a $10 phone seems excessive, but at least tracfone isn't harassing me about buying more airtime.

units go way to fast and not worth the money better off getting a regular cell phone alot cheaper

this is a great cell phone. once i unplugged it from charging, the minutes displyed, and the due date.works fine!!!

I don't know what all these people that are complaining about not being able to port their previous phone # to their Tracone did or didn't do properly. But I got my Tracfone in the mail Weds. and hre it is fri. afternoon and I checked the Tracfone web site and my ticket said that my porting was complete and to go ahead and activate the Tracfone and i did and could not be happier.My experience has been that many times there are operator errors and the most convienent thing to do is complain about the product. I am writing this review to show every person that reviews that if all directions are carefully folled there should be no rreason to not buy this wonderful Phone. Please don't let the bad reviews scare you away from this product.

I have been using tracfone for 9 years with no problems at all, whenever I have called their customer service I have had little to no problems, if I cannot understand them I simply ask for someone who speaks clear english. This phone is perfect for me (I do not spend my waking hours with a phone tied to my ear.)And I live in a rural area and still get good service, so much so I no longer have a home phone.I have used 4 different phones simply because I upgrade every 2 years for the most modern version and have never had any trouble with them and still am using the same phone number.

I don't even own a Tracfone, but an elderly gentleman that I work with does. I have helped him add minutes to his phone on a few occassions with no problem at all. I have even had to call Customer Service before, again with no problem. Language Barrier? This is America? Right, this is America and the diversity is what appeals to me. One World makes alot more sense when you are dealing with people from all arond the world about a communication device!p.s.-I plan on dumping AT&T for a Tracfone.

My family has had tracfones for years – 7 years to be exact. Each one of my teenage sons have had one for 2 years – they don't care for the phones themselves – think they are cheaper looking – but happy with the service. We have read the reviews here and are sad for them. We have happily had good luck, cs is slow and there is a language barrier – but I have still had success. The service I've had with tracfone has been much better than what I had with my verizon plan I had years earlier.

If any of you are thinking about switching to NET10, DON'T, they are a subsidiary of Tracfone. You will only have the same headaches and grief as you are now with Tracfone.

I give Tracfone the BELOWIST of all BELOWIST NEGATIVE rating. I have never experienced such an incompetent operation. After being on the phone with these &%#^* for over 2+ hours trying to get my old number transferred to the new phone, (I was told I could then told it couldn't be done, they assigned me a new number I did not want, then they tried to get my double minutes for life added to the new phone to no avail, I had no signal, I was getting Check Call Restrictions -34 when I tried to make a call, I was not able to retrieve my voicemail & I was getting Unable to Send a Message when I tried to text. All these using up the minutes I purchased. I had the exact same problems with this new phone that I had with the first one. Nothing was ever resolved. As I said, after being on the phone 2+ hours with these foreign speaking, hard to understand people & not getting any end results, I finally lost it and told them exactly where to go. I hope they play back & listen to our conservation we had, I can assure you, it was not nice. Now they expect me to send these phones back to them, I THINK NOT. And for those who are contemplating reporting them to the BBB, please do so, I did, and for those who have, HOORAY! I think its time for someone to shut this sham of an operation down and as stated by another reviewer, I'll be in line if there is ever a class action lawsuit against these people/company.

I have had a Tracphone now for 5 years. Started out good as only needed it for a few calls so time lasted several months. But then the ‘Add Air time' icon was dropped and I to go through CS on landline phone, and no one, after a year, could tell me why that got taken off my phone. I was adding time over the internet up to this time, real easy. Then last year some yahoo told me I needed to text someone once a week to keep that option on my phone. WHAT? Trying to add air time away from home never happened as the time would not be added until I got home and called CS and then had to enter all kinds of codes. Now for the last month none of the calls will go through. I get the message ‘Called Failed' even though I'm in areas where there the coverage is great and I had no problems before. I am checking out another carrier. From the exceptionally poor service and rude reps I'm ready to report this company to the BBB. I still have over a year's worth of time in the ‘tank' and lots of units left but I'm looking for another company.

I just purchased my third Tracfone to upgrade one of my two previous Tracfones. I have always purchased the one-year service 400 minute or one-year service double minutes cards. This is the most economical and don't have to purchase time and minutes as often. The new Phone is an LG600g which comes with double minutes for life. If you purchase the one year with 400 minutes card, the minutes automatically double to 800 minutes. I transferred the five months and 20 minutes I had left on the old Tracfone (a Nokia 5100 model that was at least five years old, maybe older,) and transferred the phone number, as well. I had a little problem transferring the 5 months time and 20 minutes, but after a couple e-mails back and forth, I spoke to a customer service person. I agree that most of the customer service people are hard to understand, but I lucked out this time, and she helped me transfer the 5 months and 20 minutes. ( The phone number had already transferred without any problem, doing it on the internet.) By the way, they also gave me an additional 60 days service on top of the 5 months and another 20 minutes on top of the 20 minutes I had left on the old phone. If you do have to call Customer Service, use a land line phone so you don't waste your Tracfone minutes. They will tell you what codes to enter on the Tracfone, while you're talking on the land line. I've had a few instances, where I could not get service in some areas, but that has not happened very often.

I have used a Tracfone for 6 years, and have found it very reliable. I once had car trouble in LA. and had to call my brother 200 miles away. Great reception.

In the mountainous region where I live, Tracfone is the only phone that I can depend on where others, such as ATT and Verizon fail. I've been using a Tracfone since 2001, my first one was a pre-digital Nokia analog handset. I used that phone all over the country, and only remember losing service in some forsaken Illinois backwater areas.I now use a simple LG clamshell digital, and the service is still reliable here in the mountains. A friend of mine often borrows my phone when we go camping, because her ATT has no signal.I did remove a star, because once several years ago some purchased minutes did not get added to a phone properly, and I could barely understand the CS rep. I did get resolved, but not in an expeditious manner, due to the language barrier.

Customer service sucks, I've been with tracfone for many years.. but this past couple years we had problems with the customer service.. I plan on switching my phone to other company.. Good bye tracfone FOREVERRRRR

We tried to upgrade my father's Tracphone (as he is unable to do it himself) from a Nokia to a Motorola. We ran into a problem when getting the old phone minutes transferred to the new phone and add 200 minutes. We tried to work with Tracphone customer service by phone and email. It came to a point where they disabled his old phone and he lost his old minutes and new minutes on the new phone. After being ripped off for 380 minutes we decided to return the new Tracphone to Walmart (losing all existing and purchased minutes) recouping 38 dollars for the new phone. After all this waste of time – it took three days of back and forth with customer service, emails phone – we decided to get an inexpensive plan from Verizon. In this ‘experience' I learned I will not deal with Tracphone/customer service again.

Been a customer for 5 years until last weekend. We moved from out west to New York and in the middle of Memorial Day weekend the company cuts service to my wife's phone. After two days and several lies later, they claimed the phone my wife had been using for 4 years was fraudulent and they would not reimburse the 3000 minutes still on the phone. They claimed there was a serial number error. The company is incompetent if they cannot catch a database error until after 4 years and hundreds of dollars in airtime paid for and there were many instances of the airtime being added by phone because their computers could not update automatically. I do not recommend this company to anyone, negative 5 stars.

First off, the type of phone you get will determin how well your signal is. My Nokia is picking up a different tower than my wife's motorola. It works in places hers doesn't and the opposite. It is because Tracfone has agreements with different cell providers. That said. I've had mine for years and it works great. The only trouble I have with Tracfone is their horrible customer service. For that, I have to reduce what would otherwise be a good rating to only 2 stars. A company is only as good as it's service and this includes CUSTOMER service.

Tracfone is an awesome service to use. The best part about it is how cheap the minutes are. I tried to look for how cheap I can get the 60 minute card, i googled it and this crazy website came up called Pinzoo. Pinzoo sells the minutes at the cheapest price. So I got the card for 19.79 and no tax, the representative added it for me and was so kind. she told me how to find everything and even gave me a promo code which got me double the minutes. if you are complaining about the price cmon do your research. Luckily i found Pinzoo and they take care of it all for me.

For what it worth, I had this service and after buying a 30 min. card and having it (or I thought) added to my phone, it didn't happen. When I called to see why they hadn't added the time, they just hung up on me! I'll never waste my $$$ on them again.

No service in Ann Arbor, Michigan?No service in Atlanta Airport?No service in Midland, TX airport?Cannot access voice mail? (Call the number on the screen and hear, ‘At the tone leave your message!' I'm trying to receive a message! OR hear, ‘The number you have dialed is not in service!')Bogus service provider!

HORRIBLE!!!COPY SND PASTE IF YOU THINK SAME.

HORRIBLE!!!COPY SND PASTE IF YOU THINK SAME.

HORRIBLE!!!COPY SND PASTE IF YOU THINK SAME.

I have used Tracfone for serveral years. My first phone was a Motorola V170, and I often had trouble getting my minutes to load. I would have to deal with customer service (and that was often very frustrating, but I eventually got my minutes added). Now I have the Motorola C139 and have no trouble adding minutes. I got my husband one too. His Nokia Tracfone was messed up because he kept dropping it (it still worked though). We both use the phone for short conversations like touching base when running errands or while one is on the road and the other at home. Just a few minutes a week, if that. I don't count by cost of minutes, because we use so few. I know it costs us less that $15.00 a month for both of us to have service. We don't text, but I did send a message a week or so ago to try it out and found that on this phone sending costs three-tenths of a minute and receiving costs nothing. This charge varies by phone model. Also, we have both accumulated a good many rollover minutes even though we by the cheapest replacement each time (about $20.00 for 60 minutes for 90 days). That's really all we need. I know the customer service is inconsistent-to say the least-so I don't try to add any extras. I would change if I could find anything cheaper per month but right now I can't. Tracfone is not the answer for people who want to talk a lot. The phone I have would work well for someone who wants to keep in touch by text for the short messages only–much the same way we use the phone for short calls. And the phones only cost us $10.00 each too.

I have had a Tracfone for over 7 years. Overall, Tracfone serves my needs for light cell use when I'm away from home. One frustration I have had is trying to add minutes and time. If I try to do this when there is over 6 months of time left it can’;t be done. There is some type of block in their computer system that prevents time being added when there is more than 6 months left. I have spoken to tech support numerous times and they can't force the added time from their end either. Nor do they know about the block. But if I wait until there is less than 6 months on the phone, adding time and minutes goes right through. Just a heads up for what it's worth.

HORRIBLE!!! is it possible to give this a -100. if so, thats what i would give it. Tracfone is the worst thing taht ever happened to me. im a teenager, som communicating with friends and family is crucial. i had a tracfone for about a year now…ITSUCKS!!! halfway into the year, the phone just died and didnt come back on, and the phone had full battery. when my mom called tracfone, we waited about 3 hours to get someone who spoke english. after that, they gave us some BS excuse, saying that the sim card dies after half a year. after my mom argued for what seemed like ages, they finally agreed to send a new sim card. when we get the sim card THREE WEEKS LATER, i put it in and it works. after two days of on and off use, my phone just DIES again. me and my mom got so pissed we didnt even bother complaining. we just threw away our tracfones and got another prepaid phone. now we have the gophone, AT&Ts prepaid carier, and its great. bottom line:NEVER GET TRACFONE!!!!!!!!!!!Rather just get GoPhone or boost mobile or something else. Oh, by the way, tracfone gets horrible service. stood right next to a telephone pole, got no signal. not even one bar.

Dealing with their customer service department requires a lot of patience. Each time you call, you have to explain your problem to someone different. They seem to have a list of items that you have to go through with them. each time They ask the same questions and make you go through the same settings on your phone every time you call. Very annoying. My husband and I are both having problems with our phones. We've been trying for 3 weeks to get problems fixed.

MINUTES COST TOO WAY TOO MUCH-20 CENTS OR MORE. HAVE TO PAY A LOT FOR THEM TO BE GOOD FOR A YEAR – MY OTHER PREPAID(NOT TRACFONE)MINUTES GOOD FOR A YEAR AFTER YOU SPEND $100 – 10 CENTS IF YOU BUY $100 WHICH IS 1000 MIN. TRACFONE NOT A GOOD DEAL

I love tracfone. Minutes are easy to buy.Go to retail stores,go online or buy direct from your phone. The phones are easy to use.They offer extension of service for a small monthly fee if you end up with rollover minutes and service time has expired.Great service for a very small price. Great coverage as well.Can transfer phone number,minutes and service days to a new phone.Tracfone is hard to beat.

Had a problem with porting my number over from Alltel. Called customer service. Even tho he did not speak the best english,took care of my problem. Alltel did not do their job. I give Trac phone 5 stars

I have been with Tracfone for about 8 years and i must say that it has been a great phone for me . It always works never a drop call when i need more money put on my phone i just go to walmart and buy a tracfone card and add money that way .I would never buy air time for my phone over the computer i just buy air time at walmart it works great !

Have had tracfone for many years. Purchased a new phone in February and keep getting restriction 34. Meaning no service in the area. Never had this before. Been calling customer service weekly for 3 months at a minimum of 45 minutes per call. Last week I was told they were sending me a new phone and instructions on returning the old phone. Today they have no record of that and insist I call them from the area that I get no service. When I asked how I was to do that since my phone was useless in that are I was told to use a pay phone. Since the advent of cell phones I would not know where to find a pay phone. I will be using up my minutes on tracfone and never use them again

I have had a Tracfone for like my whole life btw im 12. And i wish my mom would buy me a fancier cell phone but i am quite pleased with the tracfones.The only thing that i hate is that the phones look soo cheap not even updated.Also they say tracfone allover it!!! But other than those things i like tracfones i would recommend the w260g and the bq50.

If all you do is buy the phone once and use it for the year (or three months) it's an OK deal. If you have to call customer or tech support for ANY reason it becomes a horrible deal. The people have a difficult time with English, have no power to fix problems, do not understand even the most basic issues, and keep repeating ‘Standby while I update my system' until you are ready to throw up. You will spend an average of half an hour on the phone for even the simplest problems.In my case I had my phone stolen, so I needed to cancel my old phone, purchase a new one, activate it with my old minutes and time and keep my phone number. This was WAY over their heads and I ended up with fewer months of service and a new phone number. Buyer beware!!!

One great advantage to my C139 was the ease of use and clarity of sound calling the USA from Italy. My husband's (not a Tracfone) ‘better' phone would not get through! And we didn't even have to but any special kind of minutes!The disadvantage is that there is no adapter available to recharge it in the car.I rarely use it but have never had a problem when I have to no matter where I have called from. And since I rarely use it I get the annual card so I don't have to worry about it expiring … I just try to focus on using all of those minutes I have accumulated! But then again …. it costs me less than $10/mo just to have the assurance of having a phone handy for any emergency. You can't beat that now can you??!!

Their customer service is terrible—you stay on hold forever.

It's to bad the ratings don't go BELOW #1 because they definately blong there. The customer service dept is the worst I've ever seen!! UNACCEPTABLE AND INEXCUSABLE!!! For one thing, when you call, you NEVER speak to anyone in the U.S. Let me start by saying my mother-in-law is 90 years old and lives 200 miles away. I have been trying to change her phone over to a phone w/speakerphone so she can hear it better, for a month. She keeps it in her pocket at all times because she has fallen before, and can at least call for help. They have deactivated her old phone, but the new phone will not make a call (you get a msg that welcomes you to the American Roaming Network), and when you call her number, you get the voicemail of some other number. I have spent more than 8 hours (different calls) to fix the problem. I have talked mostly with the Phillipines, but also Columbia and recently Guyana. First, ‘it will take up to 72 hours'–DIDN'T HAPPEN. Then I would have to put in a series of codes–she's 90, she can't do that. Well, as I said, she lives 200 miles away. So the next trip, we punch in the codes–STILL DIDN'T HAPPEN. Then it's ‘the tower', but that tech person doesn't work weekends. So, I take Monday off work and stay to get this fixed. Monday, they have to wait for the carrier, but ‘prommise' I won't have to put in any codes. This may take several DAYS!! When I complained, the supervisor of supervisors (Jabheth in Phillipines) ‘promised' he would be on this personally and would call me back in 30 mins to update me. That was 4 days ago. Now, as of last call, GUESS WHAT?????We have to have the phone so we can put in MORE CODES!! So she still goes without an emergency phone for a couple more weeks. (It wouldn't work to do it at my home because it was obviously a differnt tower).Didn't mean to drag out a sob story, but want to stress what HORRIBLE customer service they have. They will tell you something, but don't back it up with the service. My husband has a Trac Fone, and he has had the same problem. The phone itself is fair, if you don't mind having to always add minutes. Personally, I DO NOT have a Trac Fone and you couldn't pay me enough to own one!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have two tracfone phones right now. My oldest son's phone is the cheapest base model (the 10 dollar phone) because it's his first phone and I didn't want to get him anything expensive just for him to beat it up and lose it. I got the double minutes promotion for him, and it's worked out okay. He doesn't really need to use it very often so it works out and it's cheap.I also have one of the LG600 models, and for the first month it was fine. Now every time I try to purchase more airtime the site tells me the transaction cannot be processed. I sent a support ticket and they replied back to me ‘You need to purchase additional airtime for this phone.' Well, no crap, that's what I'm trying to do. Basically as long as your phone is working and you don't need any help from a person you're all right! I've never had my calls drop or anything like that. But, getting real customer service is pulling teeth.

There are many favorable reviews on the Internet for Tracfone and I have no idea why. After ordering and activating my 2 new Tracfones, my husband and I immediately noticed that the sound quality was terrible. Like talking through a tunnel full of water. I called their customer service, who called me back on my Tracfone to test it and told me it sounded fine (of course). I don't know if it's because of my location (suburban Denver) but the sound is unacceptable. Verizon is crystal clear. Their customer service is absolutely moronic; their network is subpar. Avoid Tracfone. I wish I had.

just the worst! going thru their customer service takes all day and very irrating !

I just bought 2 new tracfones. I registered the 1st and was ‘assigned a 660 area code (Kansas City MO.). I live in Omaha NE (area code 402). They told me that the assigned area code was in Nebraska….wrong. The morons attempted to re-assigned to correct area code for 3 days. They do not know which end is up. I have hopes that I can get a refund…right. STay away from these f%&^%$# tards.

I own 2 Tracfones and reorder my minutes online. You must enter your phone serial number to place order and you have no way to crosscheck with the corresponding phone number until the purchase is complete. I recently ordered new minutes but when the purchase was completed and the corresponding phone number shown, I saw that it was the wrong phone. I called customeer service and their corporate offices and got conflicting information but then was told the only way to transfer the minutes I had just purchased was to deactivate the second phone! The reason given me by a supervisor was ‘because that's the way it is.' I do NOT recommend this company-poor customer service and obviously they have not come into the 21st century cellular service. It should be an easy fix to negate a purchase or transfer the minutes purchased when both phones are owned by the same person and serviced by the same cellular phone company!

Ive had this phone for 4 months and it works fine but when i got it, it didnt work and i had to call customer service and they told me to take out the battery an put it back in… i tried this a few times and it didnt work!!! UNTILL… i droped it getting out of my car about a week ago. And yes i think that they overcharge for texting.

Got my Motorola Tracfone in fall 2005 and definitely had some customer service problems getting it activated with my previous cell phone #. Service has been OK since then, except that I hate not having any way to track how the minutes disappear. Now that the phone is dying (battery won't hold a charge longer than a day or 2), I don't see any easy to way to order a replacement via the website. So I'll be trying another carrier.

The WORST phone you can buy.I am on my 7TH one yes 7 All give all kinds of trouble and POOR reception, poor battery life

it took me 2 month to get my tracphone right (real hard to understand if you call) but after that it was fine

I've been using Tracfone since July '08 with the Motorola C139. To be fair up until now the service has been fairly decent with no big issues. That is until spending over two hours on the phone with customer service today (29-Apr-09)trying to finally get my minutes I purchased online to post on the phone. About a week ago, online I purchased the 450 minute/90day extension for $79.99 + 90 minutes extra minutes for $15 more ($5 for 30 minutes and $10 for 60). That and with the double minutes for life I originally installed on the phone SHOULD have given me 1080 total minutes (450 + 90 = 540 X 2= 1080) additional minutes. Well the minutes never posted but according to their customer service reps and hours of troubleshooting, since my expiration date has been extended 90days the minutes MUST have been added. We then went back and forth trying to see if I infact have used the 1000 minutes since I originally added them a week ago. I barely use more than 100 minutes a month. And now the only way I can actually get the detailed call logs for the two week time frame for this is to mail or fax an official one time only exception they've allow (just for me magically) that's (subpoena official or whatever) to their records custodian and I should get this within 30days. I'm continuing to fight this in any and every way I can since who would pay nearly $100 for no service actually being added. It's like being robbed and then being accused of being the robber. But if those call logs clearly show that I didn't even make 10 minutes worth of calls during that period then I'm definitely going after Tracfone hard. I'm already looking into other carriers like T-mobile and Verizon and to remember that you do in fact get what you pay for.

Ive been using Tracphone for about four years now. I havent had any of the problems mentioned above. I have always purchased the phones from walmart–their prices are very reasonable. When I want to add airtime, I just to the online site and purchase minutes. It goes to my phone within seconds. The only con is cost of the minutes..When I first got the phone, I only used it for emergencies which was great. I only had to buy minutes every 3 months or so. But now that I text more, I am buying minutes every two weeks.Bottom line, if you are looking for a prepaid phone this is a good one to get unless you like to talk alot

I am surprised how most of the guys in this forum pass sweeping statements without any knowledge!! One, customer care for tracfone is horrible. But it is NOT located in India. I am an Indian American and have a hard time talking to them!! To put facts right, they have call centers in Colombia, Guatemala, Belize, Guyana, and Philippines. Just go to the reputed website like wikipedia.com to find more before you say something. However, I have to agree that its customer service sucks. Other than that, I find the service good. Nice coverage at most places and good rates. I gave it 3 starts due to poor customer service; it took me 15 days to buy tracfone online!

I can't get my old # on the new phone cus the other one stopped working. I can't understand the guy on the end of customer service because he doesn't speak English(this is America)the whole system is crap