View All TracFone Reviews

I had a Nokia phone with TracFone and had no troubles with it but lost phone and had to replace. Hours upon HOURS of waiting for customer service to help me, transferring me to supervisor upon supervisor, no one could answer my question, dropped calls, hangups, TracFone’s customer service SUCKS! No one can answer your question, they don’t speak English very well and they repeat themselves ad nauseum. Sick and tired of this nonsense, I am on the verge of complaining to the BBB. This company mis-represented what the phone I asked about could do. THEN I went through heck and high water to find the phone to pick up from WalMart but no such luck so I had to have it shipped to me. After getting the phone and having trouble getting the computer to recognize my phone so I could upload some PROPER mp3 ringtones (note, motorola ringtones SUCK and so do the ones that are offered for sale on the TracFone website), hours and hours and HOURS spent with customer service ending with lost calls during a phone transfer, or hang-ups, or simply obfuscation – nobody knew how to answer my questions in tech support and all had to check with their supervisor who also knew nothing. I think they’re paid to keep us on the phone as long as they can. This is the most horrible experience I’ve ever had with a company and I’m hoping someone from their corporate office calls me tomorrow or I WILL post a scathing complaint on the BBB website. These people owe me for misrepresenting the phone I bought and also for all the time I spent trying to get HELP. TracFone is NOT going to get my continued business unless they do something QUITE AMAZING to retain me as a customer. I wish I could post a LESS THAN ZERO RATING here. :p

If I could have given 0 stars I would have. I’ve now spent a total of 5 hours trying to BUY a phone. They kept telling me my credit cards were declined, which I knew was a mistake. When I called the credit card company, I found that my card had been charged something like 5 times for the purchase. Yet they never sent the phone. After several calls and way too much time, they were able to reverse the charges but are still unable to sell me a phone. Why? Because my charge cards are being declined, of course! They said that the only way I could buy a phone would be to pay cash at a local store because my cards were ‘bad’. They just can’t seem to understand that if the charge showed up on my card then it couldn’t have been declined! Now I’m afraid that if I do buy the phone in a local store, I won’t be able to buy minutes. I think my head is going to explode…

I really do not understand all the bad reviews… I guess these people are very happy paying well over $20 a month for a cell phone. Yes, I agree calling the 1-800 Tracfone # is not usually a joy talking to someone from another country (most likely but not always), BUT for me, someone who prides themselves on saving $$, and having more than my friends with Big plans & fancy phones who are always BROKE, I can easily put up with this. Tracfone has many options, MANY codes, many ways of putting your minutes on your phone, I average about $6 A MONTH to have this wonderful cell phone & 5 they offer allows FREE Text to your phone. So that is a plus. Never would I pay over $10 a month for a cell phone. BUt that is just me. Tracfone is the absolute cheapest route to operating and owning a cell phone for occasional/emergency use and this is why they get 5 stars from me.

The problem with tracfone is the ‘calling areas’. Phones are availabe in one area and not in another. For some reason our area cannot get the Motorola models. They seem to work the best and we can’t get them. Why can’t a phone be a phone be a phone? I have had problems with customer service being able to understand their THICK accent. We stay with Tracfone because it is less expensive than other plans, but sometimes I feel we pay in other ways.

i hate it because i’ve been a customer for many years, i paid for the double minute card and they told me it couldn’t be transferred from one phone to the other yet when i transferred minutes to another phone the double minute card is on there twice and i would rather have it on the phone that needs it obviously. same as other people, no refunds, it’s a rip-off…to me, if you pay $129 for a double minute card 2 years ago then you should be able to do what you want with it. that money’s down the drain, just like that. it’s ok to pay them the money but not ok for them to refund it. told em i’d be contacting an agency and posting it on the web and getting a refund also.

My Tracfone has always worked well. However I find their customer service/tech help absolutely terrible. I purchased a new phone to replace the old one. I have 437 minutes left on my old phone and was told I had to contact customer service to transfer my telephone number and minutes to the new phone. 2/21/08 first call, 45 minutes on phone. They said they had an error and the problem would be fixed in 3 days. Well on four separate occasions since 2/21/08 I have been on the phone to them, each call time was about 45 minutes and each time I get the same response, call back in 3 days and the phone will be fixed. I asked on the last call to have them forget the new phone and reactive my old one. They said that couldn’t be done. Now I don’t know what to do. Report them to Better Business Bureau? In the meantime I have no access to long distance calls because I don’t carry long distance on my land line. I rarely make long distance calls and when needed I used my cell phone. I’m totally frustated and would do without a cell phone except my kids want me to have one with me whenever I go somewhere by myself. I feel because I don’t use the phone often that Tracfone has no intention of transferring my minutes to the new phone.

this service sucks it is near imposible to renew restart or buy minutes ive been trying for weeks ,sent letters ,there is no phone no to call , whats up with that ?

Check out websites on TracFone. It has been the subject of an INCREDIBLY HUGE number of complaints, going back to 2003! And doesn’t seem to have changed. I won’t bore you with the convoluted details of my story, but Customer Service simply doesn’t serve any customers. Minutes are expensive and everything is excused with ‘your phone/SIM/area transmitter must be defective.’ Read the horror stories and think about whether you REALLY want to be on hold for hours. Or go for weeks with no service. Or argue with poeple whose constant refrain is ‘I do apologize’ or ‘I am so sorry.’

On a scale of 1-10 this compnay’s service deserves a -10. Spending hours on the phone repeating the same task of entering SIM code and EMIE codes leaves one exhausted when finally left with no result. I wanted to add time over the Internet. Could not do so – message told me my phone was no longer accepted in my area code. Finally – after a week of trying – I purchased airtime. When trying to activate by phone – a very inept CSR who did nothing but read from a script and never listened told me that I needed to get a new phone – sent to me within 10 days free of charge. I was given a workorder number and when wanting to make sure that my 543.7 units would be transferred to the new phone I was told yes – while given this info I watched my unites disappear from my tracfone never to return. I am now told that my minutes had expired, that I had not used my phone since May of last year (how could that be if the date to add airtime was 2/22/08???)and that there was nothing that could be done. Can’t speak to a supervisor – they all play supervisors as they pass you down the line! My phone arrived, it is the exact same phone it is to replace. I called to get one of them reactivated and have them reinstate my 543.7 unit plus the additional airtime I had purchased but was told that this was not possible. All they could do was to activate my new phone – all airtime lost. I believe this is a scam and my airtime was stolen on purpose. Obviously I only have my cell phone for emergencies thus I had accumulated a lot of units by addint airtime over the years. I feel absolutely helpless and stressed out knowing that I have to take this abuse. Let this be a lesson to anyone. Don’t ever sign up with TRACFONE!!!!!

If you want to get free TracFone bonus code minutes, or deals where you can buy a 60 minute card and have it double for free, go to ebay and type in tracfone.There are literally hundreds of places selling these deals. I paid $1.99 to get free bonus codes and they worked. I paid for a 200 minute card (which was doubled to 400 because I have double for life on the phone) then entered one of the codes and got another 100 minutes added to that. 500 minutes for $40.00.Ebay can be great. Just check the sellers ratings and feedback they have received from previous buyers.

I would give three negative stars if there were such a rating. I won’t go into hairy details but there’s a common theme above: CUSTOMER SERVICE STINKS. Some are Indian, some are South American, but all of them were TOO polite in my opinion. I kept hearing ‘I am so sorry’ and ‘I do apologize for the incovenience’ — but after 10 45-minute phone calls and several weeks, I still have no service!!! After three ‘defective’ SIM cards and two ‘defective’ phones, it gets pretty darn tiresome. If they can’t give me service, why don’t they just say so and refund my remaining minutes? By the way, ALWAYS ASK TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR — the rank and file workers have very limited capability, can fix only obvious things.

The phone itself is OK however if you have any sort of problems and need customer service good luck. I had a problem where my voicemail icon kept showing up indicating I had a voicemail. I would check my voicemail ( eating up 1 unit each time I called) only to get a message- ‘you have no messages’ .After contacting customer service they were unable to resolve why this was happening and they told me just to igore the icon. When asked if they would replace this obviously defective phone, I was told I could go purchase a new one.

trac is a good deal if you know how to play their game, get the 60 min cards in a 2fer, for 19.99 you get a 60 min card then a phone (you can donate) and another 60 min card, you have to have DMFL (double minute) and you have to use bonus codes, so for 10 bux you can get about 180 minutes, which is a little more than a nickel a minute, but you have to watch their website for the specials, I have it cheaper with them than my contract phone, i have one under verizon to use in places where the att doesnt work

Just believe all the bad things you read in the other reviews and assume all the good reviews are written by tracfone employees. The customer service, when you have problems (which is frequent) is a joke. It seems designed to get you to hang up and give up on the problem. There is no recourse with supervisors. And yes cheating the customer is the norm. I don’t see how this company survives, guess most people don’t read reviews (I didn’t, my bad). I won’t waste any more time going into details, just read the other bad reviews.

Though the tracphones have decent coverage, the phones are cheap quality, customer service is a hassle, and I can only recommend this to adults.None of the phones will really cater to teens.Unless you are looking for simple phones and plans, you are better off going with another company.

I have never had a problem with my tracfone. It was very simple and easy to use with no hassels at all. I just wanted a phone to dial out and recieve calls and it does that plus more. The voice mail is a nice feature along with the texting. I also like the caller id feature. I just wanted a basic simple easy to use no hassel phone and that is what I have. I like it alot.

A dishonest company.I purchased minutes from these people, and they sold me a double minutes feature that I had already bought. They then refused to refund my money.I paid them $50 and I got NOTHING !Do not do business with these people !John

Tracfone is a big ripoff. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!I purchased a phone for my Fiance while she was here for a week. The package advertised low rate international calling.So we get the phone and I call and activate it at that time the operator tells me that it will take another day to activate the international calling.So the next day we try to call out. Nothing. I spoke to customer service and was told the same thing, wait another day and try it. We try it the next day. NOTHING Basically this happend for the next three days. ‘one more day, wait’….. and nothing from this crappy phone.So after a week we still don’t have the international calling so I call to deactivate the phone because I am going to return it. They deactivated it instantly just fine, how come they couldn’t do that with international calling.I ended up getting my money back but wanted to tell other potential buyers that this is a scam. They do not deliver what they advertise on the packaging. This is also knows as ‘False Advertising’, a lovely case for the Better Business Bureau.This company is a scam do not waste your time and money.

I’ll be brief. If you ever have an issue that requires customer service you will deeply regret going with this company. What ever you do, be sure that there are no sharp instruments within your reach when you try to resolve a problem with them or you will surely slash your own throat.In dealing with your problem you will have to enter and repeat a bunch of numbers. Pay very close to what the customer service rep says as he/she will get it wrong about half of the time and then you are in a real mess.No matter what, you will eventually have to demand that you be transferred to a supervisor who typically can at least speak English.When the minutes run out on this phone, I’m done with Tracfone

I took my Tracphone with me on a trip to Fla. I had NO service all the way up and down the east coast. It’s a poor excuse for a cell phone. I’m giving it to my grandchild (if it works in her area) to use up the remaining 800 mins. left which cost me $100., and buying something reliable!

Great phone I being used it for over 3 years no problems.

they have the worst customer (non) service in the world. Pray you never have to talk to them.

I have been using TracFone for almost a year and have been VERY satisfied. It is also very easy to understand there rates. One of the best things about tracfone is there is almost always a sale going on. if you sign up to be an ‘Insider’ you can receive emails of the latest sales. I recently bought a Motorola C261 (great phone by the way) and received 200 minutes free, all for $40 (normally would be $80).Customer service is also great. when I needed to switch my units from my old phone to my new one, I reached a representative quick and easy.I have never had a dropped call, or experienced any difficulties added units to any of my tracfones.The main con i have with tracfone is their phone selection, and if that isn’t half bad.I am very satisfied with my tracfone.

Service is terrible. They need to bring service back to USA. The web site does not work when adding minutes.

I thought it was completely worthless and do not buy one if you want good service, or to have a good amount of bars when you need them.

I thought that the Tracphone was great! I had mine for 8 years and i had no problems with it! The service was awesome!

We bought a Tracfone to use on a roadtrip. It worked very well. We had no coverage problems along Rt95 from NJ-FL. The activation was not a problem either. I used their website to activate. I purchased the 1 year w/ 400 minutes & received double minutes through an offer w/ the Motorola C139 phone. So, I have over 800 minutes w/ a phone for $112.00.The phone is good quality. IT IS NOTHONG MORE THAN A PHONE THOUGH! Do not expect any bells a whistles w/ the Motorola C139. That was fine w/ me. You do get caller id, voicmail and can store phone #’s in it. No camera, no custom wallpapers, custom ringtones- etc… The only thing I found annoying was when the phone was turned on it took a few minutes to find service. If you leave it on you don’t get that problem.

I’ve had Tracfone for, well, not even a year yet and already i LOVE it!! It’s an amazing service with awesome rates and excellent coverage!!

i bought the W370 thinking it was a cool phone that you could use MP3 ringtones and cool wallpapers. Sorry to say the details given by Tracfone are misleading. You can only download ringtones & wallpapers from them. Also, you can’t connect the phone to a computer even though it has a mini usb plug on it. It would have been nice to know this before spending the money for it. However, coverage area is great. The phone gets 4 bars in my area even though Tracfone says it won’t work in my zip code. They even sent me a new free replacement phone. LOL! I only use cell phone for short calls and emergency calls so this works great for me. I have had good, fast response from customer service whenever I have called them. (Would be nice if they spoke english a little better though.) $100 for 1 yr service is the cheapest i’ve seen and I get more than enough minutes for my needs. (especially with the bonus codes) Overall Tracfone has served me well. I just think they could be a little more truthful in the advertising of their phone details.

I have had Tracfone for 2 1/2 years. I have some pros: Great service when travelling. It is rare that we cannot get service. Cons: I had an issue with their website/customer service. My credit card was charged, however the minutes did not appear on my phone. When I began adding minutes straight from the phone-with a card purchased in a store, I no longer had a problem. Customer Service was not able to resolve any issues when I called.

The Tracfone plan is not very good. I recently got one of their $80 phones and it will not get excellent service in my area. I spent like $200 on it and now I’m switching to Virgin mobile.

More like 9 stars! This company has given me sooo many problems in the past 6 months!!!!! Do not get this company!

Tracfone now has improved a lot. The language problem will probably remain there as companies look for cheap labor but there is no need to make a big deal out of this.If you want to talk to someone on their phones when you call press the number corresponding on ‘make changes’ or keep pressing 3-4 numbers as they come to your mind.At this point they will transfer you to a service representative. Just pay more attention and you will understand,no matter which accent. Did you forget how our grand-parents spoke? Well you know the story.I will suggest to use the computer to add minutes or activate the Tracfones unless you have to transfer the number from one phone to another. If you do this you will have to say it IMMEDIATELY to whomever is attending you, that you want to keep the present phone number otherwise the SIM card gets messed up and you will have to wait for a new SIM card to re-do the change. Now as I was saying all the other things can be done online.Go to tracfone.com, click ADD minutes, enter your IMEI number (make sure that you don’t miss a digit then type the pin number scratched from the back of your 60-120-200 or whatever Tracfone card.Enter the number, make sure that’s correct then try to find online the newest FREE BONUS CODES for that particular Card (60-120-200) etc. and type it on the bottom where it says BONUS CODES then, PAY ATTENTION,click I WANT TO USE THE WEB then click next and you will get all the minutes or double minutes.I forgot something on the same page where you type the Tracfone code numbers you have to place 4 check marks on each of those squares on the left side.When you learn it’s going to be easy.Remember what I said. Buy the Double minutes for the life of your phone on ebay cheap and use the Bonus minutes. You’ll save a lot and feel better instead of complaining and complaining.

I love this phone. I have had no problems with my C139. I’m a younger person I only use 20 minutes a month so it works great for me! I have 5 bars all the time. I had no problems regeristing my phone online it took me 5 minutes to do and I recived 20 free minutes, to most people thats not much but to me that is a month of talking to people! So I bought the phone for 15 dollars, a 120 unit card for 20 dollars and got 20 minutes free. So for 35 dollars I got a phone and 120 minutes. Some of my freinds at school have bought a phone for 100 dollars and then had to pay for a ton of different stuff like set up fees and plans and then they have to pay more when they go over there minutes. So to me the TRACFONE IS GREAT!!!

I HAVE HAD MY TRACFONE FOR 6 YEARS AND I LOVE IT !

I had to buy another tracfone as the other one I borrowed to a friend got smashed, I asked if the number could be transfered to another tracfone and minutes and they said yes. Well, I bought a replacement phone call the trafone people and I had 191 minutes on my phone plus a double the minute for life plan on the phone and they decided just to add 70 minutes on my phone. I am told that the double the minutes plan that I paid $50.00 for cannot be transfered what a load of bull, you can transfer the number and not all the minutes, etc. I’m so done with this company, I am looking elsewhere. So much for using a Tracfone for 5 years and getting this crap.

I couldn’t give them any lower rating than 1 star!Their customer service is beyond dismal. I truly believe this is an entirely dishonest company.They force you to buy hundreds of minutes you cannot use, then when your service expires, you can’t buy more and all the money you have put into airtime is wasted. You can spend a long time holding at customer service or entering your personal information into the website only to be refused service. This has happened to myself and my husband. Today, after three calls and holding over 5 minutes, the customer service ‘supervisor’ hung up on me rather than transfer my call to HER supervisor.

I LOVE HE PRE-PAID TRACE PHONE. NO CONFUSING CONTRACTS AND ITS SO EASY TO USE!

Just got a w370, charged it up, activated in about 10 minutes online and is working fine. Voice mail setup was easy and phone has good signal so far. I don’t think I have ever had an easier setup. Can’t tell you about customer service yet, have not needed any, we will see how it goes. There is good and bad in all company’s and thats life, we just have to take it as it comes. But so far I am satisfied with the experience. If there are any problems I will return and state them here.

I bought my husband a trac phone the worst mistake I made the phones are cheap you cant hear on them even with the volume all the way up when you go to the store and try to call home you cant reach it the only way you can call is if you stand outside of your house on the front lawn and call home then you cant understand the operators and I had one that was very rude maybe the other companies charge a dollar a day but at least you can hear on their phones and talk to english speaking person

I love my track phone… it’s awesome and the coverage is great. If you need a prepaid phone, I highly recommend tracphone.

I have had my tracfone for 6 years and it has been and still is a Great phone .

I have had my tracfone for 6 years and it has been a GREAT phone always works good for me .

TracFone is simply the worst company we have ever dealt with. Non-existent customer service, hour-long phone calls, interminable hold, etc. They are robots ‘I am sorry, maam; I understand, maam’, etc. Beyond Kafka-esque. AVOID AT ALL COST!

Tracfone is the worst provider.I had over 130 minutes and two months left be fore my time and minutes were to expire. I went to make a call and discovered that all my minutes were gone. I called them and asked what happened to my minutes. After being put on hold for more than 90 minutes and hearing that it would take a few more minutes. The supervisor never showed up. The rep mumbled that I must have used the minutes or someone else did! This is not the first time I have had trouble with there service. Needless to say today I’m shopping for a new provider.

Well, I have been a tracfone customer for 4 years and I regret it. Recently, I started having problems with my phone that is a refurbished Motorola v170 that they sent me for free to replace my old phone I had when they updated their network. The v170 phone suddenly started turning off during calls, and while writing texts without any reason since I have it always charged. Another problem is that everytime I turn on my phone, it takes a long time to show you the phonebook, saying try again later. I called the customer service and it took 30 minutes to connect me to a representative, and like always a representative in another country but that you can’t understand sometimes. They told me to wait some more cause their system was slow processing. Then, like 5 minutes into the call, the call suddenly disconnects. Very frustrating, I was not going to call back and wait another 30 minutes to talk again. The selection of tracfone phones is horrible, they don’t stay current with new technology. It practically takes them 5 years after a new phone comes out so they can make it into a prepaid compatible phone. Not acceptable that customers have to use mediocre phones and get ripped off paying 70 bucks for a phone that it not worth that amount because they advertise it as the best new phone when in reality its an ancient phone that has been discontinued in other phone companies for years. So, I started researching about the best phone rates and as soon as my minutes end I will change to t-mobile since I can get 1000 minutes for 100 bucks that lasts a year and they have a better selection of phones that are current with technology. With tracfone, I was wasting 40 bucks for around 300 minutes every 2 months and still had an ancient phone with only the most basic features. Worst customer service for solving any problems.

If there were a no stars rating, I would give Tracfone no stars. They suck, customer service is a joke. Had one phone with them, thought, oh, it was just a bad experience, and was stupid and got another one. You can’t redeem minutes online – they never get processed. Customer service people are in India and hard to understand. Never get a Tracfone. Throwing mine away and not looking back. Hope they enjoy the money they ripped off from me.

I have had problems with Tracfone and their ‘customer service’ in the past and am currently having problems. They do not follow through on what they say they are going to do. I am currently waiting on them to correct an error in the thier system so that my phone will work. They said they would call me almost 2 weeks ago. I have called several times and I keep getting told that ‘we’re working on it.’ I am filing a complaint with the BBB.Previously, I had a bad cellphone and it took them a good month to replace it. And that one took a secretary in Miami to straighten it out. Customer service is a joke.

This is the most awful, terrible, ridiculous prepaid plan I have ever worked with. I bought a new phone on 1/22/08 and as of 2/1/08 it still is not working. I have made 7 calls each lasting more than 20 minutes and I still have NO PHONE SERVICE. Every time you speak with a CSR they repeat everything you say then they place you on hold to verify with a supervisor. Of course you cannot speak with a supervisor. You are stuck with a CSR that cannot fix your problem. I have a terminally ill parent and DESPERATELY need this phone service. I do not have a land line and this is the only communication i have with the outside world. I have to borrow a friends phone each time I need to call Trac Phone. What an inconveninence to me and I STILL HAVE NO PHONE SERVICE. I have had this useless phone for 10 days now. I am so sorry I made this purchase. WHat a piece of junk.

THE PERFECT RIP-OFF, newbies BEWARE!!!Buying Tracfone minutes is outrageous, consider anything but a Tracfone!!!

I purchased the Motorola C261 phone from Target for $39.99, and I mustsay that the phone and service are excellent. The battery in the phone charged within 2 hours, so I was able to get started quickly. The activation pocess went very smoothly, and I ot the phone avtivated within 10 minutes without any intervention by customer service. I got my 20 starter minutes without a hitch. Setting up my voicemail box ws easy and fast. That only used up 2 units. I also think that the camera in the phoneis of good quality. The speakerphone is convienent, thus making it a huge plus for me. Mobile Web access is nice, albeit soft of expensive, but that is not enough to warrant retraction of a star.

I am absolutely dissatisfied with my phone service with my tracfone.I would give a big fat zero as my rating on these phones and there service. Mine and my husbands phones are not that old and they have been calling my house and wanted me to upgrade my phones. Well I called them and asked about it and well they was supposed to send us our new phones about a week ago. We have yet to receive our new phones. So I called them back to find out when we would be getting them in the mail. They have done nothing but give me the run around. In the mean time while I have been waiting we can not use the phones that we have and they have done something to my phone and I had over 900 units on my phone.My suggestion to everyone who has been thinking about getting a tracfone is to save your money because I think that this company is a joke.Whenever you call the 1800 number you hardly ever get to talk to someone who can actually understand english.

I agree with JadedMarty and others. I had a perfectly working V60i phone and tracfone decided to upgrade it, then sending me a V170 saying it was compairable to what I had (No way It didn’t have any of the features I pay over 100.00 to have) So with that I got my replacement phone and nothing but problems No connections, poor connections, drop calls, breaks in voice speech, ‘no access to phone book’ -try again later message’ every possible thing that could go wrong did. Than calling and trying to get the Rep to understand & help. They must only have foreign people working there or reading from a script, because I could explain enough what was happening without them blowing me off. I wrote them emails constantly begging for help & to no aval still didn’t get any satification.Was told to change ph # and maybe that would work )No it didn’t only got worst.) Still stuck with a piece of crap phone. I am still trying to see if they will ever actually do something to make me complete (Equal) as I was before. Now I spend most days trying to find another prepaid carrier that will stand behind its company and have good service. If you know of one please count me in ‘post’ on who it is.Desperate for satisfaction

tracfone is good cheap phone service ,but it is lack the ability for you to have ringtones and the ability for you to download from your phone your alaways on your mintues and you never seem to have enough mintues

I looked on the internet to get a promotional code for 50 minutes got the TracFone Coupon Code 52658 with the expiration date of ONGOING PROMOTION but when I tried to put the code in YES you guessed it THE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE AT TRACFONE SAID THE CODE WAS EXPIRED NOW I would like to know how tracfone can say the code is expired when they can’t even find it on the internet and on the INTERNET it is a ongoing promotion so I guess I got ripped off again

I was looking for a cheap simple phone service to have, was paying $45 a month with at&t. For $40 every other month now, I have it. Seems like everyone is talking about how bad tracfone is compared to other cell companies. I cut my cell phone bill by more than half in a years time. I never had to call tracfone CS, just buy my minutes online. One last thing, if/when I become unhappy with tracfone, I will just use up the minutes and toss or give away the cheap phone. Risk $40, buy a tracfone and 60 units and try it for two months; then compare it with the service you get from other cell phone companies. Plus you are not locked into a year or two contracr if you don’t like it.

This company is terrible. In October of 2007 I ported over phone numbers from Alltel to Track Phone. The first two numbers came over quickly and I enrolled them in the Family Value Plan. It was $15.00 for the primary phone and $5.00 per month for each additional phone. The first phone got 50 minutes and the second phone got 30 minutes. Good deal. In November the two other phone numbers ported over and we activated them. I couldn’t add them to the Family Value Plan until 5 days before or after my enrollment date. I called 5 days after and was told that I couldn’t enroll them since I missed the 3 day window. I was told it was 5. December came and I called three days before the enrollment date and was told that the enrollment date was 2 days before or after. I called back 2 days after the the office was closed (Saturday). January came and I called to add the phones and was told that I needed to wait 2 days before or after my account date. Finally! Someone who gave the same date twice. Before I wanted to pay for my enrollment in the Family Value Plan. Nope, I had to go online to do that. I went online and paid it with my credit card. Hours went by and no minutes showed up (second time this happened), so I called. They verified that I made a payment and said it would be 24 hours before I got my minutes. 25 hours later, still no minutes so I called. The computer didn’t give me my minutes. They forwarded this to Corporate and it would be another 24 hours before I get the minutes. The 3 month wait to add the other two phones caused me to have to buy minutes at a LOT higher rate than the Family Value Plan would have cost ($5). On the good side, they have given me a total of 40 minutes for my inconvenience to be divided up over 4 phones. I suspect that they purposely did all this to force me to buy minutes and a new expiration date on the other two phones. If you go over the expiration date you loose your phone number and they make this very clear.They all are Spanish speaking and their English, for some, can be impossible to understand. All in All I am very unhappy with TracPhone and looking for a new carrier.

well i agree with someone else who just had the same esxperience as me… last year, 2007. my tracfone broke like 5 times. the sim card keept on getting burned. so the company finally told me that i was going to receive a phone from 5-10 days. and when those days passed i called them and they said that they never received a case of my phone and that i was not even in the system. I still had days and minutes on my card. and i can keep going of forever telling bad things about this caompany. the only reason i had it it was because the phone was a gift!but from now one only one advise.KEEP AWAY FROM TRACFONE. they will rip you off. consider ohter brands like alltel, tracfone, or watever but tracfone!

Bought a tracfone for my 14 year old son for him to use when traveling. Bought minutes and was having trouble loading them on so I called Tracfone. They figured out what the problem was with the minutes but the phone would not reactivate so, after being on the phone for over one hour with someone who was doing her best but couldn’t help, I asked that they send me a new phone. They agreed and told me that I should call them once I got the phone (which should take 4 to 7 days to get to me) so they could transfer the minutes I had just put on my old phone to the new phone. After 2 weeks, I finally called and was told that they had never promised me a phone and that I needed to buy a new one. I did buy a new one alright. I bought a Cingular prepaid phone and threw the old Tracfone out loaded with $20 of minutes. I’m so disgusted I don’t even want to try to recoup anything. Bunch of incompetent liars at Tracfone!

Bought a new Motorola Tracfone and couldnot get the reception that i got with my old Nokia Tracfone. No one at Tracfone would help me,, As if they didnt care about my problem..

I have a black flip phone from tracfone, i love that phone so much! I have no problems at all. I use about 30 minutes a day only. If I talk longer than that, I will not use it the next day. Be SMART about using the units, they don’t last forever. Just use the phone for personal conversations or in need causes, Don’t keep calling the person, just hang up. The units will be deducted if you keep calling. Personal experince. Read the information more carefully. If you have any Q’s ask me PLEASE! Your questions will be ansrewed! Just go to TracFone advice or more about them. I feel that you customers need more patients, 5 days is not that long! Most of you are in a rush! Relax your phone is on it’s way sooner or later. Customer Service is a big issue as well. I don’t seemed bothered with anyone who ansrew the phone to help me with my phone issues, people are trying their hardest to serve you the right information, just because they don’t speak english or have a hard time with it doesnt’ mean they are ignoring you they are learning from you. You actually help their vocab better. Be easy on them. Maybe they’ll will be thankfull. Thank You for providing the best service!

zero starstracfone kept my 3678 prepaid minutes -spent more than an hour with csr – no help.My tracfone user guide says unused airtime will not expire if deactiated tracfone is reactivated within 120 days of the deactivation date. when did they change to 60 days? One rep told me june 07, about 6 months ago, i was not notified. Head supervisor no help either. any one out there to help me get my prepaid minutes back?

My tracfone suddenly was deactivated on today 01/10/08 even though I have 150 units left and 2 months before my annual card was due to be renewed. I called tracfone who informed me that they are no longer using the carrier in my area and they will mail me a new phone within 5 to 10 days and all I have to do is call up and activate it and request the same phone number and minutes be transferred. I asked the girl on the phone why I was not notifed of this ahead of time and she had no answer. So there I was on the road with no warning that my cell phone service was terminated. Not a good way to treat a customer. I can not wait 5 to 10 days for a phone to be mailed to me so I had to buy another one with another service provider. I don’t trust tracfone not to do this to me again.

I purchased the Motorola W370 and give the phone two thumbs up. Get the service to work took 30 phone calls over 30 days to Tracfone. Apparently something went wrong with their system when activating the phone the first time. To make a long story short I finally got a rep that realized all that was needed to make my service work was to deactivated the phone and then reactivate it. Now I have perfect service with a great phone. Heaven help you if you need any kind of customer service assistance. When you do call customer service consider yourself lucky if you reach someone that understands english and has been trained to resolve your challenge.

I have used tracfone for a number of years. Bought others for my wife and mother-in-law – both use the service very infrequently.the phones and system itself work well.I absolutely hate their product support. I have had numerous times where I needed to work with them to resolve service and new phone issues and have had nothing but bad expereiences with them. Product Support is serviced by India – very hard to understand and they can rarely fix issues under an hour on the phone.my most recent issue (tracfone needed an old analog phone to be swapped by a new digital phone) is unbelievable…They couldn’t get the phones swapped AFTER removing the minutes from the analog phone so i’m left with no service. They gave me 2 reference numbers and 1 ticket number and said they would work on it and I should call in 3-5 days. I called after 3 days and they have no reference to ANY of the reference or ticket numbers!I do not recommend this service.

Today is Jan.8th 2008 It’s to bad that these reviews don’t have the date they were posted because I think that some of them are a few years old. My wife have been Tracfone customers for 3 years and I have never had any problems with the phones, the service, or customer support. Maybe…in the early days customer support needed improvement but I never had a problem. They were all knowledgeable, well trained and very friendly. And you really can’t beat the price when you figure the double minutes plan and the bonus codes they offer. This has got be one of the best cellphone deals available. I highly recommend it.

I’ve had tracfone for one year and couldn’t be happier.I saved $600 over verizon for that year.Customer service is responsive but wish they could speak better english.

I have had the same Tracfone Motorola V60 for 5 years. I previously had Verizon and noone could ‘hear me now’. My wife and I had the exact same model phone, she with Verizon and I with Tracfone. I had 5 bars, she had no reception and we were standing next to each other. No one can EVER persuade me to leave Tracfone. Yeah the customer service has a heavy accent, but the times I need them are far and in between. The positives far outweigh the negatives. Tracfone is the best.

The phone is fine. The price is good. My reception is great(in upstate NY). However, the customer service absolutely sucks. When I purchaesed my 2nd New Trac phone, I wanted to transfer my phone number to my new phone. I could not find anywhere on the website to accomplish this (it was 1 yr ago and maybe they changed that). I spent 4-5 hours on hold trying to get this done. Fortunately, I only had to deal with them once since I use the website to buy all my minutes. Trac Fone needs to get a clue as to why you get so many poor comments on customer service.

Actually I rate this program with zero stars. Tracfone is a terrible service. I purchased two identical phones at the same time, one for each of my cars. I activated them at the same time and havae added minutes all at the same time. They both work in my home service calling area but when I roam, one phone works (sometimes) and the other never works. It just shows…searching for service. While on a trip, I called tech support who said they would upgrade my phone to be able to link to any roaming area. It didn’t work. Then they said I had to be in the home area before the upgrade would function. Once back in the home area I tried to upgrade again. It didn’t work. They said I had to be in the roaming area before the upgrade would function. I spoke to supervisors who were no help at all. They just could not understand my situation. Each time I was told to do something which contradicted the previous tech rep. Obviously, they had no clue how to solve my problem. I inquired why the phone would not work in the roaming area when the map on the tracfone web site shows coverage along interstates and the various cities I was visiting. The supervisor said the map was very flawed when showing roaming areas and should be updated. In other words, they knew the phone would not have roaming service along interstates…which is the only reason I purchased the phone in the first place. I am fed up with this service and have now bought a blackberry which works great. I should have don’t that in the first place. Save your money and shop somewhere else.

ZERO STARS-Same story as many others here. Have had Tracfone for several years without problems, made the boneheaded decision to ‘upgrade’ to a new phone, and now have no phone. Have spent several hours over 3 different days over the last week with customer service reps who are in Columbia, South America (the first guy was nice and very chatty). It has been somewhat entertaining, particularly during my conversation with Joquel(the 3rd rep I spoke with, I am up to 4 for the same problem) who is a supervisor. The problem is that my new phone is still not activated after 7 days. She explained that they needed 48 more hours for my old service to release my phone number from the old phone. I told her that Tracfone IS my old service. She then told me that she needed 48 hours to release the number to my new service. I explained that Tracfone IS my new service. She then said they just needed 48 hours more!rofl Anyway, the last guy I spoke with said that they are sending a pre-programmed SIM card snail mail. If it doesn’t work, I’m re-activating my old phone and sending the new one back or maybe I’ll check into a different service. What a pain.

If I could have chosen 0 stars I would have! I have had Tracfone for about 2.5 years now, mostly because I never researched enough until just the other day. I’m switching to Page Plus. Tracfone has the worst customer service ever. I wasted a total of 49 minutes of time from my Tracfone trying to fix a problem with my daughter’s Tracfone that was their fault due to no instructions given on how to enter a promotional code (I was somehow supposed to guess that it just gets added to the end of the pin number from the card with no spaces! The prompt asked for pin # so I typed it in pressed ok expecting a prompt for a promotional code, yeh right!) and they would not give me my minutes back! Page Plus I found out you talk to a customer service rep from a Page Plus phone charge free or from a land line through their 1-800 # either way charge free. My husband, daughter and I all 3 have Tracfones now but are switching as soon as we use up our minutes. I wouldn’t suggest my worst enemy to use Tracfone! Also any e-mail I’ve ever sent Tracfone was never answered before 2 days time and then usually did not answer the problem but told me to call customer service (so they can eat up more of my minutes!) But I e-mailed Page Plus some questions and they were fully answered in only hours!!! Page Plus ROCKS!!!

I now have 4 TracFones, soon to be none.It seems as of late I have had more problems to deal with. Then you have to call and talk to someone you cannot understand then they have to talk to someone else to solve the problem. You can be on the phone an hour or more sometimes. I have had it. I’ll be looking for another service as soon as the phones expire one by one.

Why isn’t there an option for ‘0 stars’? My actual vote is ‘ABSOLUTELY NO STARS’ As a tracfone customer, I’m advising you to BELIEVE the horror stories posted here. They’re not exaggerations at all. I know. Yes, this really is how tracfone treats its customers. I’m one of them. I was shopping at my local wal-mart when I came across a tracfone motorola c139 which was marked down to less than $13, and the box stated that all minutes purchased for the phone would be doubled for the life of the phone. I though, ‘what a deal, too good to pass up!’ Big MISTAKE! I took the phone home, charged it up and activated it on the tracfone activation site. You know, the one where you are asked to input the zip code where you will be primarily using the phone. One would assume the company needs this information so they can issue your phone a number that is LOCAL TO YOUR HOME AREA! Wrong! They gave me a number the prefix of which is for a city over 50 miles away. Its a long distance call from my home phone (from my home town) to my cell phone. Grrrrrr! I called customer service, was put on hold for 2 hours, and when I finally go a customer service representative, I could barely understand a word she was saying. She had a heavy Indian accent. I had to continually ask her to repeat herself. She told me she was issuing me a new, local number and said it would take a couple of hours to go through, so I finished the call and hung up. About two minutes later I checked my phone, and, indeed, it had been given a new number. But the only thing that had changed were the last four digits. So, I called back, went through the same old song and dance of holding for 2 hours to speak to a real person, and explained to this person what my problem was and what the last rep had done which didn’t solve anything. She acted like it was a simple mistake and promised to fix it immediately with a new, truly local number with a local prefix, but it would take a little while to go through (I suspect they just said this to get me off the line so that when I discovered that my new number was still long distance, it would be the next reps problem). Sure enough, new number…still a long distance prefix. My temperature was really rising at this point. Another hour of holding for a person…I explained to the next rep that I needed a LOCAL PREFIX-the last four numbers didn’t matter. I even told her what some of the local wireless prefixes are for my area. She (claimed she) checked and said that she would be happy to issue me a local number with a local prefix, but none were available at the moment, but to check back in a couple of hours and maybe one would be available. Like an idiot that just keeps begging for more abuse, I took her at her word and waited. Called back… put on hold for 1 hour…got a rep who just kept giving me the royal run-around and ended up claiming that her ‘supervisor’ told her that they have no control over what prefix is issued, only the area code. So, in effect, she admitted that the company cannot issue you a local number if they wanted to. That’s NOT WHAT THE LAST REP HAD TOLD ME! After hours of frustrating head-banging with a handful of tracfone representatives, none of who could speak english in a clear enough manner to be understood without guessing what they were saying, I finally had enough of this ‘great deal’. Although I was seeing red, I politely explained to the woman that I understood that it wasn’t her fault, she was just a low-paid worker with an outsourced job and little training or understanding of what her company was selling, but since the call had initially announced that it would be recorded for ‘quality’ assurance, I wanted to say a few things to the company and it wasn’t directed at her personally. I told her that this was no way for a company to treat customers. To take my money, issue me a long distance number and then tell me that I had to accept it was not acceptable. Neither was the royal run-around acceptable. Nowhere on the box did it say I had no right of expectation of receiving a local number. The website specifically requested my local zip, which implied that I would be issued a local number. If I wasn’t going to be given a local number, then I should have been given the option to refuse a long distance number and not activate the phone. Now, I can’t get my money back. Why else ask where I will be using the phone the most? No other cell phone company has told me they have no control over whether or not I get a local number. On the contrary, they’ve always given me a local number, or if a mistake was initially made, they made it right by changing the number to a local one. I also told her that I was registering a complaint with te Better Business Bureau and ended the call. What a nightmare. I have another tracfone which DOES have a local number, and if you are lucky enough to get a local number on the first try and NEVER need to contact their customer service, then you might be satisfied with tracfone. But, if you ever need help from a real person, I feel sorry for you. Best advice, look elsewhere. Tracfone is a company which, by my experience, doesn’t care about the customer beyond the point of sale. They outsource the call center jobs and dont’ even require that the customer service reps speak clear english which forces you to deal with people who speak with such heavy accents that they can’t be understood which only makes the problem worse. I’ll not buy another tracfone until I have it in writing that I’m guaranteed a local number or I get an immediate, full refund even if the phone has already been activated.

I got the tracfone for christmas and I have loved everything about it. The service is great(I live in tucson Arizona)amd the phone is easy to activate, easy to use and also its cheap.This phone is great for kids(I am 12)because like I said above its easy to use and easy to add more minutes.In my opinon the tracfone is the way to go with cell phone services. Cheap easy to use phone. I love it

tracfone is a good plan….but not for teens. its pretty costly for the units and you can only buy poly ringtones

Have had TracFone for about a year. After the pain-in-butt activation procedure we have had good service. We have 2 phones and would like to buy more air time but can’t, for the life of us, figure out how to do it. On web they find no record of us. Am surprised they have so many customers what with diffficulty doing busiess with them. We will probably have to go to another prepaid cellfone company.

I’ve had the phone 2 days and already I’m dissatisfied. First, they make your zip code the only place that the phone won’t be roaming. I wouldn’t be upset over that if it was made clear in the pamphlet, BEFORE I bought the phone. Then, they take forever to activate it. I Called to activate the phone on the 28th at 4 PM. At 2 PM the next day, I called to make sure everything was going to plan (since the phone’s usually activated within the first couple minutes). After going through the process of giving a 15-digit number multiple times, the service rep says (through a barely comprehendable accent) that the phone should be active in 4 hours. That would be 2 hours past the latest time that the pamphlet says it takes to activate a phone. So false advertising again. Then I had to call customer service again to find out how to check voice mail from a land line. . . because they don’t give basic information like that in their ‘information booklet.’ If possible, go with Net10. I haven’t even used their service before, but it’s got to be better than this!

This phone has SIM BLOCKED on it and i dont know what to do.It wont let me do anything on it unless i unblock it and I dont even know how to do that.

I have a tracfone and bought one as a gift. We both really like it No problems eneven when I went to New Mexico.

Tracfone charges a lot for a small amount of minutes. With go phone you can get over 200 minutes worth for 25 bucks, if you dont go with their ‘simple plan’. Honestly, I never had a problem with dropped calls. I can honestly say I have never had a dropped call with tracfone or had a problem with customer service except for the long waits and lack of English-speaking people. They were always friendly. However I just lost my phone and I am thinking of switching to go phone although I dont like that you have to purchase more time before 34 days. And minutes don’t roll over like they do with tracfone. Although tracfone dosnt have many cool phones like other plans do.

Our children bought us a Tracfone for a Christmas gift several years ago. I have used it from Washington State to Maine and had no problems. Only dead spots we encountered were in the mountains where most cell phones have problems. My only compaint is that we don’t use it much except when traveling. I don’t use up the minutes fast enough and have to buy more to keep it activated. They don’t have a year plan with just 60 or 90 minutes to add to the 350 I have left from last year so now I will have to buy the least amount I can every 60 to 90 days just to keep it active and the minutes will keep adding up. When the phone finally gives I Hope I can transfer them to the new phone.

Phone service is fine but would like a phone that can be used both in the 67649 area and the 85367 area. Sometimes difficult to get to customer service without a long wait.

I am fairly happy with Tracfone. But be warned when my 1st phone broke i bought a new one, assuming they were all the same i bought a new one. Once i started using it i realized it was charging me for both incoming and outgoing text messages. Also because my new phone isnt a flip or slide the numbers are shown when it is in my pocket i lost soo many minutes by calling the number 0 it was unbelievable.

New technology was in the area so I had to up grade my phone. TracFone just stopped my service! (I have 312 units and contract expires in Jan.08)I applied for the new phone 3 times. Each time I was told the info was gathered incorrectly and I had to wait. Placed on hold – no one returned. Still after one month no replacement phone.I soon will loose my units and number. Customer Svs. difficult to understand and deal with. They offer no results.

I can’t even get a signal from where I am at. I even walk up and down my road, and still, no signal. I’m in a city in Lexington Mi, I have not liked not being able to call my husband.

The people in the service department don’t speak or understand english very well and are very rude. Good luck finding someone help you add minutes to your service over the phone. It is a waste of money and very frustrating!!!

I have never had any proublum’s with tracfone other than [some one who speaks english – I can handle that or the biggest one- buying a phone is like buying a pig in a poke.] I am tone deaf and when I asked for help I got a smart alic. I bough a new upgrade for a polyfonic ringer but it is not load and has no bars inside the house and very low talk volum inside or out plus dropped calls. I am thinking about changing but only if I can get some one to give me some info. Now I guess I have one more phone to through away [on S.S. my money is hard come by.] G.L.D.

I have been trying to activate the new phone they sent me saying my old phone was obsolete and would send a new one.A new phone and four SIM cards later nothing all i recieved were long distance numbers.Second phone and new SIM card the same thing.I will never get a tracfone again.By the way who owns this piece of crap company.

Most of the problems have a solutions by reading TERMS AND CONDITIONS.People don’t read. Sometimes the problem is coverage and I’ll tell you, that within USA there is no company that can provide 100% coverage throughout the country. People demand things that cannot be done. Most of the GSM phones are under at&t and like the other rep mentioned we have alltell. t-mobile,Dobson and any other carrier avialable . TRACFONE is the only company that can give you ALMOST THE 100% coverage.

After the new phone i have spent 14 hours trying to activate with only a long distant number to be given to me,This is after a new phone and 4 SIM cards and a new phone and new SIM card.This is very much unsatifactory of any buisiness.

RobT-PLEASE NOTE- Tracfone is use only within USA. NO INTERNATIONAL ROAMING.(Even Canada)

Tracfones work just as well as regular phones do! The only thing that my tracfone doesn’t do, is go on the internet! I highly recomend it for 8-14 year olds!

I’ve had decent success with Tracfone – in various parts of the U.S., I’ve had good coverage when my wife’s T-Mobile To Go was useless. But I travel to Canada (Alberta) to visit family regularly, and they no longer do roaming with a Canadian provider. It worked a year ago, but it didn’t work at all two weeks ago. When I called to ask about it, it took a half-dozen times to get the customer service rep to understand the situation properly, and it took a long time to get a simple answer to ‘will this come back, or is it just gone?’. The rep was unbelievably clueless about everything. I wish I’d known when they’d made this change, as I would probably have not added another one-year card to my service. I expect I’ll be finding another pay-as-you-go carrier because of this.

we love our track phone,been a subscriber for several years but,why do you not have blue tooth yet we would not mind paying extra for it.whats the problem all other providers have it.

After 1/2 hour on line to register a new phone, the web site reported a malfunction. After 3/4 hour on the phone, I was told four times that there was a ‘problem with the system’. I shall continue to try to register, but…

I have owned a TracFone for four years. I buy the oneyear plan for $99 and renew it once a year. I use the phone a few times a week and the plan is a great value for me. TracFone has better coverage than many providers because they often use whatever network is available.I cannot comment on the customer service quality, because in four years I have never had to call them. My original phone still works, my second phone works, my minutes are always updated correctly. The phone works and I do not have to think about it.

I’ve had one about a year and used it all over the US with no problems. I have a real phone and prefer not to waste my time with the moronic chit-chat I overhear most people jabbering into their cell phones, so the Tracfone scheme works fine.If you really judge yourself by the ‘stylishness’ of your phone, well, I guess I just feel pity for you.

I have been a TracFone customer since 2000, when they were one of the first few offering a pre-paid cell phone. I have never really had a complaint other than the hours of customer service (I have had a few occasions when problems happened at night or on weekends). Those who are looking for the quality of customer service they got with a contract service may be a little disappointed (depends on who your ex carrier was). Once I called customer service during their hours of operation, most matters were resolved within 5 minutes from the time I picked up the phone. I only recall 1 time I was on hold for more than a minute, and only one time it took a while to get the problem resolved – and even that was less than a half hour. They have always been very courteous and professional, and even spoke English (only the slightest traces of any non-US accent). I have very rarely had any dropped calls, and good reception nearly everywhere (except in areas where few (if any) phones worked – miles from civilization or in a deep ravine). The phones are cheep enough to replace when there is damage or newer features are desired. I have bought a total of 8 phones over the years for use by me or my immediate family. Three are in use right now. Only one had any problems, and since we had bought it locally, it was no problem to exchange it. I think that some people don’t understand that when you get a phone with a contract, you are paying for the phone over the lifetime of the contract. You will usually pay more for the TracFone than you would for a similar model with a contract because you are paying for it up front. And to keep that price down, they are selling refurbished phones – read the fine print folks – they are always refurbished. They are most likely still selling them at a loss so they are gambling that you will buy at least a certain amount of minutes before you bail on them. So if they fail to meet the unrealistically high expectations of some, it’s because there are those who just think they are owed everything and complain bitterly when they don’t get it. I know their type, more interested being angry than in finding a solution. I see them at restaurants, demanding the entire attention of their poor waiter/waitress (usually leaving no tip at all), screaming at the person behind the customer service counter at a store because the offer of a refund isn’t good enough, or yelling at the cashier who points out there is a limit on the quantity of an item they can purchase at a time. I’ve done phone support work at a few of my jobs, and I can also tell you from personal observation: If you shout at the first person who picks up the phone, you will probably get put on the indefinite hold, while they hope you get angry enough to go away. Nobody pays someone enough to have to put up with the likes of you, so you can expect poor service. And you will cost them more to keep you as a customer than to let you go somewhere else, so you won’t get any help from higher on the food chain either.

I don’t like trac fone at all! i am always running out of minutes, i can’t talk for long because i am worried about my minutes. etc. it’s just a really bad thing for people who like to talk!