ported 2 numbers from sprint usiong website at 10pm EST, had BOTH PHONES ACTIVATED AND WORKING WITHIN SEVEN MINUTES. no joke. 2 samsung sliders. so far things look great. saving $75/mo!!!! hope coverage is as good as it looks, will review again in a few months..

You're my hero, Alec. Thanks for the shift in focus.

I've been browsing through these reviews and I have to wonder what some of you are thinking. I've been using Straight Talk for coming up on 9 months now and I have yet to have any kind of problem. I've even had to call CS a number of times to sort out some minor issues that creep up with any cell phone provider, but again I have yet to have any kind of a problem. Sure, the folks on the other end of the line speak a little differently, but then maybe they say the same thing about us.

I remember dealing with a major cell phone provider (post pay) many years ago now, and they all but destroyed my credit rating because they kept billing me AFTER I told them to disconnect the service, and AFTER my contract was up. But they kept billing me, and do you know what the American person on the other end of the phone told me? They told me that my business wasn't important enough for them to care or do anything about the charges. This was said in plain english, with no accent.

Just think about how politely the person on the other end of the line asks you to repeat yourself, and try to put yourself in their shoes. They are paid to help you, and if you're irate, angry, miffed, etc., it makes their job a lot harder, and it gives the rest of us, who are trying to enjoy that low low payment of only $45/mo for unlimited everything, a bad name.

Ugh! My ST Plan is about to expire and I didn't switch back to ATT or Verizon in enough time to get my number ported. Fail! Now I will have to pay ST more of my money just in order to keep my number active. The customer service is horrible. I've never had soo many dropped calls and undelivered text messages. I'm losing business because people cannot get ahold of me. The phones are out of date and Straight Up Crap. Please people, stick with a post-paid plan. This is the only way to get decent coverage. Pre-paid, across the board, is no good.

works great i love it!

Please do not get this service my husband and I left boost and ported are numbers to them. We were told that we had great coverage but even at FULL bars it would drop the call. When I tried to get customer service it would drop the call we tried different phones of theres nothing. After 5 days we took one for the team and went back to boost. Then we learned they would not port the numbers back to us numbers we had for 3 years. Please be warned they suck there customer service sucks and we are out hundreds of dollars thanks to them. I could not be paid to switch to them again that bad.

Please understand me...I have called customer service 6 times. I purchased the phone at Walmart because I started to dislike Sprint ( was with them since 2000.) I had my number ported..NO SERVICE.. CS told me to wait 24 hours.. I am going to call Sprint and ask for forgiveness..NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH..I asked for a supervisior..She told me to call back..I asked her what time..She HAD TO LOOK UP THE TIME....CS is at their HOUSE..RUN!!! Dont do it!!! Im not with out service from Sprint and ST..

Absoultley worthless. scam. custmer service is horrible and not worth your time. do not even bother looking into this service. the represenatives do not even speak english....

Bought the basic flip LG phone with the unlimited card. Couldn't understand the asian cs rep and they could barely understand me. After we finally got my account all set up, next month I went online to refill my service and the lady never gave me a user name or password for my account. Now I'm stuck going to Walmart (which isn't close) to get cards. Called them up and they have no idea how to help me. Phone service was good though. My apartment is a dead zone and I had 3 bars all the time, no cut off.

Kenny,

I certaintely will let you know what phone I have with ST. It's the Samsung R451C, but like I said, it was really the poor customer service that got me into leaving. If they cant handle helping with ringtones, then what would happen if we run into an even bigger problem?

i love tracd pfoan so i purchased 2 st phones and 2 cards for me and my wife but when i got the phones activated they had no signal where i live so i took the phones back got a refund but i call st and they wouldnt let me transfer the minutes to a trac foan and i was just stuck with 60 dollars worth of minutes

I go the saamsung phone and i am very unhappy that the phone only would sometime text and the comsputer serivice people are very rude and don't no what the doing over that..i am going to go back to booties phone you have a wondful day..

for free ringtones i go to myxer.com.......

Well, after having ST for 4 months and originally loving it, I have moved back to AT&T. Started with the R451c but found that the internet was too restricted and difficult to use. No big deal, I would just upgrade to the Finesse, right? Wrong. While the internet did work slightly better on HTML, I still couldn't access my work schedule, which is just a password protected regular page on the internet. A few other pages I needed either didn't load correctly or at all. I was previously on an iPhone before ST and was hoping the Finesse would be an adequate (although not expecting exactly the same)replacement so that I could save $$$. I think had I not had an iPhone before, then I would have loved the Finesse. The Finesse is just a shadow of the iPhone and the only real similarity is the touch screen, which is sluggish and not very responsive when you are typing on the virtual keyboard. It is very light weight, but that also makes it feel a little cheap in the hand, especially for costing over $300. It should cost less than $200 in my opinion. The mp3 player was great, and the video and photo quality on the camera was also really good. Then one day out of the blue, my phone stopped working even though I was on auto refill. When I called CS they said there was a system problem and I needed to refill manually with another card. No big deal because I only had 2 days of service left on my old card. They put me on hold and the call got disconnected. Called back in and got a different CS in a different country. Then this CS rep told me that I couldn't have my same number even though my phone was just turned of 3 hours prior. BS! I've had that # for a long time, but they told me it was unavailable and that they probably gave it to someone else and I was out of luck. After over an hour and a half on the phone I got no where so I hung up and went in to AT&T who were able to port my number over from Straighttalk. (ST DID still have it and hadn't given it away like they told me) I ended up taking the finesse back to Wallyworld and getting my money back as I had only had it for 3 weeks. As it worked out, the rest of my family just switched to AT&T a few weeks prior, so For $30data plus $5 for texting and $10 to add my phone ($45) I could just add my old iphone onto their plan. Since I pretty much only call the same 4 people and my immediate family, I just added these people to the A-list so we can talk to each other for free. I also only text a little so 200 texts/mo. is plenty for $5. I guess it depends on your situation if I would recommend ST. If you just need a phone to talk and not to rely on the internet part of it, then ST is ok. If you can afford to take the chance that they won't screw up your number, then ST would be fine also. If it is just only you who needs a phone and you aren't on a family plan and you use tons of minutes, then ST might make sense. If you have 4 people in your family who need phones and your usage isn't astronomical then a family plan somewhere might else might make more sense. ($30 all you need plan x 4=$120 which is competative with a lot of the postpaid plans out there) Just don't use auto refill with ST....go get the cards and top up when needed. And if you have anything somewhat complicated go wrong with your account, FORGET IT....CS can only handle the most basic of problems. That is why I left and I'm glad.

I would give less (stars) if that were an option. 16 days after moving my service to S.T. th brand new lg phone that I had purchased started to malfunction. First, half of the display stopped working, over the course of the next 48 hours there was a cascade of problems ( S.T. phone called my home phone every 5 to 10 minutes..... ON IT'S OWN ) that culminated with me contacting c.s. who let me know that I would need to send the phone back and it would be replaced WITHIN 30 DAYS....... 30 days folks......I now have had no phone for the 2 weeks.
I know that when you hear the advertisements it sounds like a great deal folks.....I want to be crystal clear about this to you all. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU LEAVE YOUR CURRENT PROVIDER FOR STRAIGHT TALK.
If your using carrier pidgeons I assure they are faster and more reliable than STRAIGHT TALK. Smoke signals, two cans and string.......keep them before you switch to STRAIGHT TALK.

Hi Christy,
Would you mind saying which phone you purchased? Tks.

I wrote a review two weeks ago. I gave ST four stars.

My review has changed. It is now 2 stars and that is too low to stay. I will be leaving soon.

My phone, which I praised before, is falling apart-literally. The keys are sticking and it froze on me three times last week and once this week. I had to remove the battery to fix the problem. Ok, I thought, I just got a bad phone, I'll exchange it. But then, I contact CS and that's where the biggest issue lies.

Last review I mentioned the lack of decent support. Im a FIRM believer in good customer service. I work in customer service myself and know how important it is. I gave them a second chance, which they failed.

Two weeks ago, I purchased a ringtone and wallpaper. Never recieved. Was told by CS they would issue a credit and open a case. Would receive in 24-48 hours. Never received.

Two days ago, I called again. First time I spoke with someone who said they couldnt help me because I was using my ST phone to talk to them. I needed to use another phone. Ummm...I have no other phone! They need to realize that many people only use their cell. So, in other words, we get no help.

Second call. The rep I spoke with said something about something blocking my phone to receive messages from ST. He said he unblocked it and I would receive the ringtone and wallpaper within the hour. Never received, and that was two days ago. Tomorrow I am talking to a supervisor and demand a refund. Their response will depend on whether I ditch them immediately or give them another month to give me time to speak to a T-Mobile rep. Never should have left them.

I have had straight talk for a little more than six months now, and I am completely satisfied. Unlimited everything for $45 a moth? Why complain? Yes, the cs may be a little crappy but what service that has customer service isn't? I have the samsung slider and it's a perfect phone. I have dropped it literally over 100 times and it still works brand new? With any touch screen phone you're going to have a problem with it being a little slower than normal for its a touch screen and more apps are being added than normal. Yet, the touch screen phone is a phone I plan on upgrading to because my friend has one and it's perfect also! This is the best way to go if you want cheap month payments, unlimited plans, no contract and decent service!

For you people using the Samsung finesse, I just had a problem with my phone. I’m gonna share the experience with you. If you ever come across that type of problem, you can do what I did to solve the problem yourself without calling the customer service or technical support at ST.
My phone responds slow when interring text or numbers. So I went to the phone settings option and selected NAM 2. The phone restarted itself and asked me for lock code. I put the code that I changed when I just got the phone. It doesn’t work. I put the last 4 digits of my phone number nothing happened. So, I called the customer service. The girl told me to do the same thing that I just mentioned and they did not work. She said that they gonna have to send me a replacement phone which made all the hair in my head stand up. She said that could take up to three weeks for me to get a phone. So, I said no, let me call Samsung for help.
The lady at Samsung said I have to call track phone because they are my service provider. I said no I already talked to them and they were not helpful I only rely on your expertise. So she said I will give you a code to put on the phone. If it doesn’t work you will have to call them. So, she gave me: “6756”. The magic code worked and I have my phone back.
When I asked her about the slowness of the phone she said you have to call track phone for this issue and ask to talk to a “level II technician”. So I took a chance to call them anyway. The person that I fount said that this is normal for touch screens phones to be slow.
I also complained about the fact that my computer does not recognize the phone via the data cable. He says that all their “phones are not PC compatible”.
Therefore, for you the finesse users, do you have those same problems: slow phone and/or not able to transfer files form PC to phone and vice versa? If yes please let me know. And if you know some tricks on how to enhance the speed of the phone, please share them with me and I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance, Paul.

I had the razor V3a & I couldn't stand it any longer so I got me the touchscreen Samsung R810c & omggggg it's awesome. I know it costs me $357 total with tax & all but I just love the touchscreen & straight talk services. So much I'm buying my mother one for her birthday....lol

Yes u can access fb I do with the lg slider.

Hi! I just got the Samsung R451C
Went to Walmart last night got the phone and went online while it was charging to register and yes, I took the chance to get my AT&T gophone number imported to my Straighttalk account. Regarding the phone:I was very impressed with the phone and all its features, I found out it could handle a 8G sd card for mp3 files which is the only type of audio file it can play and it can't play VDO files and the MP player is working very good, good sound. Today which was the next day I realized that my gophone was not working anymore, I was told at Walmart it could take up to 10 days to get the number imported so I was very low and I recharged it and was not working anymore this morning. But the Samsung was not working either after doing all I had to do last night. Since I had to go to Walmart, I went to see the girl who sold it to me, she took the phone and within3 minutes the phone was working 5 stars for Walmart. Very important thing also to know she told me that Walmart give 90 days satisfaction on the phone (Mountain Home Ar)This is all the Pros.
Cons: The speaker and ring tone volume is absolutely mediocre. I had ring tones I had on my Moto Rzr and it worked perfect on the Samsung but I couldn't use them as alarm or other audio functions of the phones. As for the browsing and texting, I resent texting and browsing is more likely known to be real slow and limited but it works. So since it is a phone and the ringer and speaker are so disappointing I can only give two stars these are very important features for me. I got 90 days to return it ... I wish somebody had a Samsung R810C that they wants to let go, so I could try it. Trust this could help.

Can you access facebook with the phones that have the web browser?

To get ringtones on the samsung slider i go to zedge.com or mytinyphone.com find the song download it to your computer then i email them to my phone at your phone number 000-000-0000@mypixmessages.com save them as a sound set as ringtone ... hope this helps .. Oh and I love straight talk have never had problem with service or ther customer care...

I love straight talk i can keep in contact with my whole family no matter what carrier they are

i have a samsung slider phone and was wondering bout those free ringtone websites... the phone seems to not let me receive the tones has anyone been successful getting these to their phone and if so please say how.....thanks

there customer service is aweful, i was talking w a supervisor who was outside, wind blowing in the phone, 48 hrs min to fix poor service

Does anyone know anything about the application callblock can it be added to the samsung finesse straight talk touchscreen phone? If anyone knows please let me know as soon as possible. Thanks

So despite the terrible cs do you get all the standard features like call waiting, three way call, call id, voice mail?

FYI, if you’d like to have free ringtones, wallpapers, videos, music and more, on your cell phones log onto funforphone.com and there go everything you might want. Check it out and let me know.
If anyone know how to get apps on the phones for free or cheap, let me know. I’m using the “Samsung Finesse”.

@Dan
Log on to ST website and punch in your zip code. The website will tell you if you have coverage.

Really, the hardest part of my ST purchase was opening the blister package. I was loged on and making calls in about 10min., using online activation, limited only by my typing speed. I did have to call CS to have the "minutes remaing" announcement turned off, but he did that as we spoke. Local western PA coverage is same as my Verizon service, which I cancelled only due to the high monthly cost.The phone so far has proven to be very good, although not as fully featured as some. For a monthly savings of $30 or more, I can live with that.

For Pat Price

Did you port your number via the ST website or through CS? See the comment just above yours re porting on weekends.

I have a ST number but intend on porting another one over.

I live in an area where you cannot buy a ST Phone at the local Walmart. Does anyone know, if I buy a phone online, will I be able to activate it and use it etc? I would really like to try this but I want to be sure before I do. Thank You.

The hours of operation for Stright Talk porting is Monday Thru Friday 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The customer service representative will not give you that information. They will only advise you to call back in 24 hours. The truth of the matter is the people who activate the ported number are off duty. They should tell their customers the truth so we don't call asking for an update regarding our phone services. The customer service department is untrained,unaware, and don't care.

I don't get the negativity, I bought the phone (Samsung R451C) Friday night, charged it Saturday, Activated it Sunday night with number portability from an AT&T account and the number ported just fine within a few hours; then I called and enquired, they were very polite and helpful and got me connected and verified everything in about 10 minutes. I am happy, I can now conference call without worrying about eating up my minutes and I am no longer chained to my desk for conference calls, call quality so far, is great, as I would expct from the Verizon Network. Thank you StraightTalk and Thank you Walmart and Thank you Verizon. And the phone features work as vertised, Thank you Samsung. $45 unlimited talk, text, internet, only feature I gave up (that I have noticed so far) that matters (sometime) is video. This phone is easier to use than my AT&T Tilt for core functionality.

got my r451 on sunday.....researched st before i got it.......thanks to these reviews i didnt port my number or activate my phone through customer service.........after i finished the process.........my phone was activated in JUST 2 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SUGGEST THAT IF U GET ST SERVICE, ACTIVATE YOUR PHONE THROUGH THE WEBSITE AND IF U CAN HELP IT, DNT PORT YOUR NUMBER.......IT MAKES THE PROCESS SO MUCH EASIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STRAIGHT TALK IS GREAT!!!!!!!!! I GET SERVICE EVERYWHERE..........IT IS THE BEST SERVICE OUT THERE..........IF U FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS, THE EXPERIENCE WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER.............GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE IT. ITS GREAT.I DO THE $45.00 AND I DONT HAVE TO WATCH MY TIME...

i have had this phone for a month from straight talk that i purchased at walmart. i get service fine, but i have not once been able to check my balance for my web use or my text messaging. and why the hell would they make some lady yell that you have a prepaid phone everytime you call someone. its freaking embarrasing, and if i have to pay 45 for unlimitted it damn well better not do that anymore. or i am going to dedicate my life to the downfall of tracphone.

i have purchased two cell phones via the web not to mention the 2 i purchased from walmart which when i tried to refill my time no one spoke english and obviously couldnt spell as both times they couldnt find my name let alone the phone # they assigned to me so now i buy them over the internet only to have the first one speaker go out as soon as i got it the second one i have now for less than a week and it wont get a signal anywhere ... where does one get these junky phones i have had cell phones for years and never had the problems with any of them that ive had with these when i called corporate the 2nd time i couldnt refill one she was rude and pretty much told me it wasnt her problem im calling the better BBB tomorrow to find out what a scam this is and why it continues its not bad luck its bad business.....

3 months now with no trouble.

wow I don't know what these negative people are talking about. 10 min to setup the phone, no problems, great coverage, got rid of my net 10 phone too. Do the math 1000 min for 30 bucks equals 3.3 cents a min! duh

Just take the phone and the prepaid card back and get your money returned. You will have nothing but problems, listen to all the complaints...it will happen to you, maybe not today...but you will have problems. I give this company "0" stars.

I Have had a miniute phone since I was 13 I am currently 15 I have to pay for my cell phone by myself I have tried and tried to get my parents to get a cell phone with a contract so i could get unlimited txting but they will not sign a contract, well i was looking at cell phones at walmart and straight talk caught my eye. I finally talked my mom into letting my get it i have the $100.00 phone and i absolutely love it. it took forever for me to get it acctivated because the ppl kept messing it up. but i have my same number which was under at&t and is now switched over. The price is amazing i get everything unlimited for only $45 dollars every 30 days thats great compared to $25 dollars a week because i kept running out of mins. on my cell old cell phone, I am very happy and i enjoy my cell phone!, the only down side i have to it is that when i tried to get ringtoens it said i had no mins which wasent ture cuz i had unlimited everything, but i guess i have to have actuall mins on the phone to do that, idk i will find out in a few months, but all i know is that i love this phone and the price is great Straigh talk is one of the best and i didnt even have to have someone sign a contract i love it!!!

I have heard the telephone system works well but getting them activated is a major problem. I attempted to activate my phone on 03/05/10. My former cell phone company released my number to be ported to my Stright Talk phone immediately (within two hours, thank you AT&T). My AT&T phone was deactivated at that time. I have been waiting approximately three days for my new Stright Talk phone to be activated but have met with negitave results. I have called customer service several times and the only advice they could give me is wait another 24 hours. I did not tell Stright Talk they had to wait an additional 24 hours before they could debit my bank account. I paid for the service and know I would like to recieve it. As for customer service it should be renamed customer "NO" service.

I feel for everyone having trouble, because I went round and round with Net 10 a couple of years ago, trying to port a number from Verizon and I'm not sure my blood pressure has ever totally recuperated. When porting a number remember you need to do it with a new service card pin # and do it by CALLING them. Even one of their CS reps told me NOT to do this online. Online might be OK if THEY assign a number to your phone. I spent a whole month trying out their cheapest phone with a number they assigned me to see if I liked it. I also kept calling CS at ST and AT&T asking many questions to MAKE SURE everyone knew what THEY were doing before I changed. I also don't have a job. Most people don't have the kind of time that I do to change carriers. I called straight talk and set up the port with a service card in hand. You shouldn't even have to call AT&T for ST to request your number, but I also had my internet service with them. AT&T are getting REAL familiar with their customers switching to ST. They really don't care that you are switching your landline because landlines are not the big business that they used to be anyway. I also had to call AT&T before I started all this because they had to give me a different number for my internet service. Someone had to come to my home to disconnect the landline # and activate a new number for my internet service.

weird how some people who sign up their phones have no problem at all while others like myself have nothing but trouble and headaches. makes no sense how they care to help some people and let others twist in the wind helplessly. also one of most upsetting things is when they say thank u for being a st customer. i know thats what they r supposed to say but dont they realize due to their stupidity they arent allowing me to be a st customer. wonder what kind of trouble im gonna have when i return this crap for a refund at walmart?

very mad. advise to customers when you add mins on your phone make sure you keep your used card you will propely have to have it again because the company is si screwed up you will loose your money and forget calling customer service if you do talk to someone that speaks english the information is not correct and you have to call them back right now i have no phone service i purchased a 45.00 card from walmart added it to my account on line a day before needed but today i have insuffient funds cannot call them they are closed and i am in another state and my card is at home.

@TB
You must have a ST phone even with Verizon as your current carrier.

I am so glad that ST has CS reps who know what they are doing. Every time I called they answered my call quickly. I admit that they are like robots and slow, but they speak good English, if you give them respect. Don't let their strong accents fool you, they are smart cookies. Don't be afraid to say "Say that sentence again". They understood everything I said. I ported my (AT&T) landline over to ST last month and it took a couple of days after AT&T released the number. Once your landline stops working, it shouldn't take more than a couple of days for ST to have the number for your new phone. I did this by spending the time necessary with CS on the phone. I was scared to do this on their website. The words UNDER CONSTRUCTION kept appearing on their web page. I also ported a Net 10 cell # to ST and 10 minutes after I hung up talking to CS my number was ported. When they give you a ticket # don't loose it, in case your port doesn't go as smoooooth as mine did. I was very nervous about trusting them with my precious phone numbers, but I was pleasantly surprised. Don't be afraid to call them when your phone service is disconnected from your other carrier. That means they have your number and can port it. Get your ducks in a row with the company you are switching FROM so there won't be a delay in releasing your number. The phones may not be high end but they get the job done and you will be so proud of yourselves to be receiving unlimited minutes for only $45 a mo. You do have to go online (or call CS) to type in your pin from the card you buy from Walmart. I'm not comfortable having it automatically deducted each month yet, so I'll be setting an alarm in my phone to remind me of the date for refill. If you are a busy person you may want the automatic deduction done for you so you won't have to remember to add a pin # each month. I would buy the 220C from Walmart around the corner. There are other phones you can order on Walmart's website that would be better for texting. For some reason they don't have them in the stores. If you buy the 100 you won't have browser or external caller ID and it's only $10 less. I have noticed that the phones need to be charged more often (after long conversations), so make sure you get a car charger extra.

The service was good for approximately two months until the phone showed "no Service". Three different trouble shooting phone calls could not resolve the problem. They were courteous at all times and sent a prepaid envelope to return the phone for repair or exchange. Since I had already been without phone service for several days I did not want to be without service any longer. It took three days for them to port my number back to my previous carrier. I finally selected Verizon and it took them less than a half hour to port the number over to their service. I have a brand new phone that works well and local support is available if I need it.

Does anybody know if you already have a Verizon Phone, can you use it on ST?

So, with regard to signal coverage. My parents bought their phone in Bonita Springs, Florida and when calling Clarkston, Michigan I've never had an issue with dropped calls or even a "bad" signal. They landed in Hawaii today and called me with crystal clarity. Just thought I'd pass that along if anyone is thinking of purchasing a phone in these areas.

@ScottPhxAZ

You might want to update your PRL (*22891). It may be that Verizon has updated its tower listings in your area. Another person said the same thing and had his phone software updated apparently by CS. Shortly thereafter that person reported his number was terminated - no apparent reason. Try the PRL update and see if that helps. I and others would appreciate your inpute with success or lack with the PRL update.

Day four and still no service. Day 1 - register on line and get - nothing. Then, spend 1/2 hour with "service" - nothing. Day 2 - two hours with "service" - nothing. Day 3 - another 1/2 hour with "service" - still nothing. Day 4 - another hour with "service"...nothing. Except the $130 I spent...for nothing.

Hey we have had two phones without any problems but recently both have been dropping calls at 30 seconds. We're in Phoenix. Anyone else experiencing this?

FOR: SanDiegoJeff

Straight Talk phones do not roam. They will work ANYWHERE in the U.S. where there is a Verizon OWNED cell tower within range of the phone. They don't work on the entire Verizon network, just on the Verizon owned towers. So the C/S rep told you wrong.

I've had ST for about 2 weeks and so far it has worked everywhere I've been except a small area in Md and WV on I-81. The service seems to be no better or worse than the Verizon phone I used previously. For the money I am saving I am very happy with the service.

People need to realize that regardless of the phone or carrier, somewhere, somebody is going to have a problem with one or the other. We're talking about cell phones for crying out loud. When somebody tells me not to buy something because THEY don't like it, well I'm more likely to buy it anyway. And I won't name anybody specifically but some of the comments and questions posted here are just idiotic.

I re-filled my account with my credit card $50.33. It said "You have refilled your Service Plan and your request is still being processed. Please allow up to 4 hours for this request to complete. If you need further assistance please call our Customer Care Center at 1-877-430-CELL and we will gladly assist you." Ok it's been 9 hours since I did the transaction, I called and was first on hold for 10 minutes before I could talk to anybody. Then the chick "Barely spoke english" and could not help me, she did try but nothing was done. AT ALL!!!!!! She said that I had to call back on monday. NO! It's saturday! I want my phone.

I did alot of research before purchasing this phone a month and a half ago...read some good, some bad. But I decided to take a chance since it still seemed the best deal I found. I bought the basic phone they offered and the $30 plan. I work out where cell phone reception is hard to pick up...always have reception with straight talk. Have never had a dropped call, and for all the horror stories of customer service, I breezed through the activation and set up, and when the time came to refill it was also smooth. I had a new # assigned, did not port my old #. I would highly recommend this phone to anyone looking for a cheap plan with great service!

@garry
Corporate number for Straight Talk is 800-876-5753

help please. anyone know how to get the corporate number for straight talk. dealing with cs has nearly caused me a heart attack. need to speak to someone who understands what its like to be screwed over. any help would be appreciated guys and gals.

Overall the straight talk service has been adequate. My problem is with their website and customer service. It takes 4ever to refill the phones via customer service. If you try to refill your phone online after the minutes expire (at midnight) - you will not be able to. It automatically deactives your phone. The company should at least have a 24 hour window to refill without having to call customer service and speak to CSR's who can't even speak clear English.

Day three and still no service. Day 1 - register on line and get - nothing. Then, spend 1/2 hour with "service" - nothing. Day 2 - two hours with "service" - nothing. Day 3 - another 1/2 hour with "service" - still nothing. Except the $130 I spent...for nothing.

I got 5 others to switch to straight talk that's 6 with myself we are all very happy with it. One was a landline port which actually did take a month partly because I gave the the wrong info at the start. So I did spend alot of time with cs. I give them a thumbs up they were helpful and polite yes hard to understand them but I give em a thumbs up!

I could be wrong here but I believe u need a camera phone in order to down load a mms which a ringtone would be since it's audio.

i bought 4 - 100.00 straight talk phones for my family plus time cards.............now i tried to activatie my personal phone since there was an emergency surgery tonight ..........the animated service can not hear right ater many many calls to it and the office hs 9 o 5 hours....customer sucks.....even registerig on a computer it say's to call..i guess tomorrow........they can have all the d- - phones returned when i contact them tomorrow.................i had net 10 for 10 cents a min and have used them from here in pa to florida and never ever had a problem for several yrs......and they even give you a free phone with the 30.00 plus free 300 min plan.....think before you buy.......thank you for reading this

RESPONSE TO RICK::
I too have purchased ringtones thru straighttalk and have never received the message to download-I called and said I would get a refund and to purchase one again and it would work but of course it didn't-I am still waiting on the refund--I have an LG220 and it never has worked yet

can anybody tell me how to get the free ringtones for the slider phone?

We switched all four of our family phones over from US Cellular to Straight Talk. We were averaging 175.00/mo. with the four phones on a family plan that was sharing 700 minutes. We also had one phone that had unlimited texting. We were always running over. Now everyone has and pays for and takes care of their own phone and for almost the same price we have unlimited calling, texts, and phone web connection. No more complicated plans you have to wait to use or can't remember...very simple...use as much as you want for 45 bucks plus tax. No problems with service or technical issues so far. HIGHLY recommended.

To sw... IT GOES OFF VERIZONS TOWERS.. no way it could be better in service, cus its the same service! But anywasy.. love the phone love the unlimited everything. Couldnt get it better than this!

@ Bonnie Schilser
Yes, you will be able to use your phone out of home area as long as it is within Verizon's coverage for no additional charge.

@Nehmo Sergheyev
Why would you add another $45 Unlimited card within one week you just added one? Hello, it's unlimited. therefore, you cannot get anything else in addition. Why did you not wait until next month when you have to refill your balance? And technically, there was no remaining balance on your first card, since it was all unlimited. You practically wasted your $45 gift. It was the fault of yourself, not staright Talk's.

Negative!
Bought $45 card with original phone. After one week decided to add another $45 because someone gave it to me as a gift. Now I find out the remaining balance on my first card was wiped off. Apparently, on the back of the card: "when you refill...you will lose any of the remaining days you have.." They don't want anybody to have a balance larger than $45.

i had heard cs was awful but never knew it would be this bad though. im trying to port a number and they said it could take up to seven days to get the number. r they that busy that they cant get the number faster? heard the service is good but i cant do anything to try it out until i get my number. ive had it ported b4 and it never took long at all. seems like all these cheap phone companies do things so bad. should have just had them issue me a new number. lesson learned! u dont have these issues with the contract companies. also boost and st have their cs operations overseas. saves on payroll costs. wow i guess is is the american way huh?????

I just had my number stolen out from under me and that is the last straw. CS would not get my number back and that is it! Time to go with a provider that has modern, online account management and customer service that can be understood. After checking at Howard Forums, it would seem that people are happy with the Boost Mobile Blackberry. I had been with ST since last June. I have had numerous complaints about people trying to call me and getting a message about prepaid balance being 0 and after 30 seconds, incoming calls drop.

I have had no problems with phone calls but whenever I try to download a ringtone I never get it, and it is hard to get your money back. They always tell me to wait 48 hours to receive the ringtone but it never comes. Has anybody else had any luck with getting a ringtone from ST?

For ssw: just FYI these phones operate off of Verizon's network.
We have had a good experience so far with this phone. May buy another one soon.

I love my phone dont have no bill in great service. i have sent two people to straight talk who was tired of all the high bills n they was like thank you. So i give a big thanks to Straight Talk thank u guys for good service

my st phone is great..activated and ported number with no problem. Beats verizon any day - service and price.

Well this is day 2, i have no access on my phone to talk, message or web. I cant believe im dealing with this. Its rediculous. Reps dont speak english fluently. Not willing to help. If I dont have service by tonight im done with ST. I would not reccomend this to anyone, its not worth it.

Still no service. After registering on line - nothing. Half hour on the phone with "service" yesterday - nothing. Two hours on the phone with them this morning - nothing. Oh, except the $130 bucks I've paid for...nothing.

For Matt:

Who did you contact for the software update - ST or Verizon? What phone do you have and what is the updated software version?

I brought the ST phone and it has been nothing but a nightmare. First I couldn't get the previous phone number transferred for over ten days and then I tried to cancel the transfer and start over and was told it would take 48 hours. After waiting 96 hours I was told it would take another 48 hours and the time I am having a hard time understand the English being you and it is obvious I am talking with someone who is using English as a second language. Bottom-line I am moving on to one of the other prepaid plans. I have never had to wait for a phone number longer in 5 minutes before. Bad customer service and no way to write an e-mail only snail mail and bad customer service is available.

I finally got it working. I got somebody on the line. Everything is fine now. Phone works great. If you are looking to switch to Straight Talk, I would. Get the Samsung R451C (the Slider).

I live in Montana, and travel to Illinois once a year. Is my phone going to work out of state, or will I be out of my calling area? I wasn't sure how this ST worked for that. Thank you!

@Mempho
to let u know that I have let my phone lapse 3 weeks one time & another time 2 weeks b4 refilling & I didn't lose my number. I hope that helps u. I'm not a CS Rep either.....lol
K@ren

The carrier's refresh did the trick and now incoming calls do not peter out anymore.

I have switched to Verizon just a couple of weeks ago on a prepaid plan and I have had a few dropped calls (which is the reason why I left Straight Talk) and Verizon told me that my software (not roaming towers *228) needed to be updated because apparently it was outdated. So they did a software update and at that moment, my signal went from 2 bars to 4 and so far, haven't had any dropped calls, but time will tell.

So anyone having dropped calls, ask CS if they can update your software and see if that helps any. email: gsipe09@aol.com

Just reading every other review, the same thing pops up. Customer service. if i didn't know better, I'd thing that 66% of you bought the phone to talk to the CS reps all day. My phone works flawlessly. i do have one question though. If I let mey coverage lapse for one day, am I subject to lose my phone number? I am not on auto bill pay. i refill on demand and haven't been late doing so, but what happens if I miss the payment day. any ST reps on here can answer that for me would be appreciated.

I HAVE HAD THIS CELL PHONE FOR TWO MONTHS ALLREADY WHEN I WENT TO WALMART YESTERDAY TO GET THE 45.00 CARD I REFILLED IT THEN TODAY WHICH IS MARCH 3 2010 I GOT A TEXT MESSAGE SAYING TO REFILL TOMORROW . WHEN I CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE I GOT A MAN WITH AN ACCENT AND I COULDNT UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS SAYING.. BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE . HAPPY WITH PHONE THOUGH.

There is never a representative that I can talk to. I'm not satisfied. I need help with something. "Your estimated wait time is approximately 5 minutes" More like 300. The website doesn't help either.

After 50 minutes on the phone, CS contacted the carrier and claims that the carrier representative did a refresh. I am a bit doubtful given that CS claims they will call people back and don't. For the moment, the problem seems resolved.

:( Looks like I am now getting the dropped call after 30 seconds problem. This never used to happen. CS seems okay so far. I'll give them the benefit for the moment.

Service is great. My phone number was ported over from ATT in about 45 minutes. I was paying about $65 per month for a 500 minute plan now I pay $30 for twice the minutes and web and text is included. Could not be happier with the desicion to switch. I live in nothern California.

What is the best straight talk phone for the money?

Customer Service was great and very polite - 'Alejandro'. I could tell English was not his primary language (this company is based in Mexico, so I am not surprised). I had no trouble understanding and neither did he. He was very helpful in porting(transferring) my cell number from another provider and it all went very smoothly. I am cutting my current bill in half and getting more out of it. As long as their service and coverage are good, this will prove to me a very good choice in phone providers.

@Joey.
You must purchase a ST phone.

I'm actually purchasing this friday.. and I was wondering If this Straight talk works with ANY pre paid phone? Cause I wanna make sure before I head out and buy something. =\

With trepidation I purchased 'Straight Talk' phone at local Walmart today and the associated $45 card. After reading the above horror stories, I was neervous. Called the service center, BTW located in Fla. The gal who handled my call was from Columbia, perfecto enlish. Decided to transfer over phone number from a current Tracfone. She was very curtius, knowledgeable, and handled the operation flawlessly. It tok less than 5 minutes after hanging up with the call center that the nunber had been transfered. Followed the instructions as told. The phone works well.

Everything on my phone worked perfectly except my incoming calls and they were always dropped in the first 30 seconds, I went through this for a year on 3 different phones so I gave up.

I have gone to Verizon and happy to have no dropped calls. But the area I live in, no matter who my carrier is, I only had 0 - 1 bar in my home, so I always have to go outside to talk.

I don't have to do that now. Whether you are with Straight Talk or Verizon (as long as it is the verizon network), you can improve your signal. Verizon has a piece of equipment called "Network Extender", which costs $250 and it hooks up to your modem/router and it works like a mini cell phone tower in your home.

I went from 0-1 bar on my phone to full signal strength and talk throughout the home now. It is so well worth the money. So if anyone is having a problem with signal in your home, this is the thing to get.
detailer04@verizon.net

@ Corlyn
Yes. You can use Facebook on St's phones and recieve notifications. The notifications will count towards your text messages on your plan, however.

Hey, I'm considering switching from Cricket to Straighttalk, and the reviews all sound great. However, I want to know if the service will work if I travel outside of my home city (San Diego). I called Straighttalk's customer service (waited on hold about 9 mins to be answered) and the rep (who barely spoke English) said that their phones do not roam, so she said that if I were to try using the phone in a different city than where I activate it, the phone won't work.

In other words, she said that if I activiate the phone in San Diego and then travelled to Los Angeles or Phoenix, Vegas, etc the phone wouldn't work, I wouldn't be able to receive text messages, and callers to me wouldn't get thru. I find this hard to believe, can any of your you guys confirm this, or was the C/S rep wrong?

Got the LG220c for my wife through straight talk. I was told that it would take a few days to port her number and get started. It actually took less than 3 minutes. Phone is great quality and the service is fantastic. The $45 beats the heck out of the $65 I was paying for 900 minutes and no text or web. This is a great deal!

PRL version = 59166 and no call forwarding available. You can call CS and ask about that one.

Does anyone know the current PRL version?

***PLEASE HELP*** NEED TO KNOW IF THESE ST PHONES HAVE THE CALL FORWARD OPTION..

I liked this one. I still like it but for some reason everytime I try and open up Browser it says CHECK DATA RESTRICTIONS 36. No one else has that problem or has gotten that problem.

Can anyone please help me--I purchased a ringtone from StraightTalk and never received it so I called and they said they would refund me and to try to buy it again and it would work--so I did and still never get the message from them to download the ringtone

To update, the PRL dial *22891

Does anyone know how to update ST's PRL?

send ringtones to your phone be emailing them to you at your phone number@mypixmessages.com

straight talk rocks

can you get into facebook on straight talk and get notifications???

how can i get ring tones on my phone thats what i would like to know..

i purchased a phone or my sister in december once she got the phone the speaker went out the only way she could use it was with the speaker phone on she haad to wait to order another one until she got the money she has since ordered one and she will return the other one for the full credit.it was nothing she had done to the phone the speaker just went out .below is her email address

I need to know if any of the ST phones have the call forwarding option. Would like to be able to forward the calls to my home phone. Bad cell reception here.

LOVE THE PHONE! CANT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING! IM SAVING MONEY AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS! SERIOUSLY IM SAVING 80-100 A MONTH!..."WOW" I STILL CANT BELIEVE IT.I WISHED I SWITCHED SOONER.STILL CANT GET THE RINGTONE THING DOWN BUT I DONT CARE ABOUT IT DAMM IM SAVING EXTRA CASH! AND THAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME AND MY FAMILY! IM SURE CUSTOMER SERVICE WILL UPGRADE. I THINK THEY JUST NEED MORE TIME,MAYBE THEY DIDNT THINK THAT THEY WOULD SELL SO FAST!.....THANK YOU ST!

I activated my phone today.

Positive:
No problem with customer service! The person I had on the phone was very helpful and great!

If anyone is having problems with activating the serial number because it says that it is already associated with another number or used, look at the serial number on your phone. I had the same problem and noticed that the serial number on the activation card and in the phone were different. The one in the phone is the correct serial number!

HELP!

I recently got this phone and plan.

The problem that I am having is that certain areas of where I live/location are required to call my phone as if it were a long distance number and it's not.

Does anyone else have or had this problem?

The only complaint I have is that there customer service is awful. I have had a hard time adjusting to not having a blackberry. The fact that I have to retrieve the email messages has taken some getting used to. I was wondering from those that have had the service a while do you have any problems when it comes to adding more minutes? I don't want to loose service by adding minutes to early or late that seems confusing. I have only had the service less than a mont.

So far, I have nothing but good to say. I've got the LG 290c which is a basic phone but still has some good features. I hope they get nicer phones down the road like Metro. I had a good experience with customer service and the coverage has been great. No problems at all.
For people with battery problems when you first get your phone.. plug it in do not turn it on for at least 8 hours (16 is better). When you start having problems again drain the battery completely then go through a full charge again.

Hey Don, I had a similar experience, but customer service was able to take care of the problem within 20 minutes (AFter 8 minutes waiting). It might have been your unit was just a dud, which happens with all things technologically related. I got a bum mac a few months ago and that RARELY happens. I am sure that if you talk to them, they will help you out. Good luck with that, and dont let a negative experience with TracFone turn you off of them. Really, all phone companies are the same. Might as well deal with the hassle that provides the cheapest service with good coverage. Good Luck.

@ Phil
No. You will not be able to use a Verizon phone on the ST service. You must purchase a ST phone in order to use it on their network. I know that stinks, but that's their rule.

ok so this company is a life saver! let me ease the minds of people who are reading this review thinking that the set up will be a pain and that you will waist money... you won't, alot of people who complain about straight talk are used to having all the luxury's that come with expensive carriers and they get pissy if they don't get their ringtones, or gps or anything like that... if your preference is all those flashy new things then you can stay with your company and keep paying waaaaay to much but i personally looove straight talk!

the set up was a breeze. as long as you have everything in order, and you speak clearly and listen to what the reps are saying, and try your best to communicate clearly, you should be fine. I was on the phone with the guys for 45 minutes but it was my fault. they were nice enough to work with me till it was fixed and sure enough, 5 minutes after we hung up the phone, my phone was working with the ported number! ever since then it's been amazing! i get amazing service EVERYWHERE!

I've been a cricket costumer before this, and this is so much nicer, mainly because you get service everywhere, and when you buy the prepaid cards, all you have to pay is tax and thats it. there is no hidden fees or anything! with cricket i had to pay for all these hidden fees that jacked my bill up like 8 to 10 dollars that quoted... and cricket's whole motto is no hidden fees... funny how that works. I've been a cricket costumer for 4 years before this, so just know that :)

the biggest complaint is costumer service, but you can tell that they've been working on improving that. the other is lack of phone selection, but their a brand new company! give them some time!

LOVE IT, IF YOUR WONDERING THEN GET IT

I purchased 2 451 phones from Straight Talk for my wife and daughter and they both work great. Now I am considering moving my personal service from Version to ST and wondering if I can use my old Version phone. I know the operation system is the same and why should I buy a new phone just because they want me to? Anyone knowledgable on this please comment. Thank you

I have st.with a lg290c. It took them about 5mins to port my number.Then i had them disable the recording that comes on before each call about how many hours are left on my card. Activate port and stop recording in all about 30mins by phone. So far its all good.

I had verizon since they been out. But when they will not sell you a used phone after yours is stolen,Shut you off for being less than 60 days past due to get the extra fees. I switched over to Straight talk. Did it all on the computer. Had my old number ported over and working in less than five minutes,better service and plan for way less dollars. Ps verizon. my friends are leaving you

Was using AT&T for 3 family members, was about $318.00 per month, now I have Straight Talk, and i now only spend $135.00 per month with everything unlimited. Best move I made, no bills, no hassles, and best of all --> NO STUPID CONTRACTS!! Bye bye AT&T.

Hey everyone i have had st since November 09 and i love the service i have never a drop call the plan you can't beat,to all that complain about the simple problems your having about the internet to slow well get a computer in your house mine is pretty quick damn stop complaining about the little things some people will never be satisfied so get a life,i live in Alabama and went to Florida yesterday to Destine no drop calls and i was deep in the back woods my phone was the only one that had service the whole time,it was someone with sprint,t-mobile,at&t they were all impressed they are at time leaving wal-mart getting them a st phone i told them there going to be happy and save hundreds of dollars good job st.

Customer service makes me want to hang myself....no, really!! Can't comment on the service yet since they've been srewing me on the activation since Friday. I have even gone to Walmart and gotten THEM to call and after spending 45 minutes on phone with them even they are told wait ANOTHER 24 hours. If I wasn't so cheap, I'd tell them to take this phone and shove it!!!!

I bought ST phone because I was tired of paying for unlimited texting on my other phone for the whole family. I bought the LG290C loved it but wanted the Samsung R451c. Since I got this phone, I have had pretty good service and it comes with a space for a microsd card for music and pics. My mother has the LG290C and it works great fo her in all areas. Before when I called her it would irratate me how she would have somewhat bad service near her home and I would need to call her back on it. All of my family will be going to straight talk as soon as the contracts are up!!!

I have two track phones, tracphone cheated me out of 1 1/2 hours of minutes I bought and they couldn't make either phone work. Their sitting in a drawer. Customer service is stupid. don buy tracphones.

Nevermind. I saw the answer in another post.

Can you get Facebook notifications sent to the Samsung Finesse or any other ST phone through text messages? Please let me know.

just started a few days ago and so far good

Thank God For those companys that step out of the box and offer A Great Price. (straight Price) Coverage has been every bit as good as Verizon, In this neck of the woods. I Believe That there Customer service will step up as they get caught up with the Incredable speed this company is growing, Think about it they cut my bill in half and there's on contracts to lock me for three years....my last verizon bill was 200.00 and our old plan was on 900 min between 3 phones. 90.00 on 3X30=3000 min instead of 900/3 300 min before...

OK I JUST WROTE A REVIEW YESTERDAY ABOUT THIS COMPANY AND TODAY I WAKE UP & MY SERVICE IS DISCONNECTED 3 DAYS AFTER I REFILLED MY ACCOUNT WITH THE $45 PLAN. I CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE & 4 "REPRESENTATIVES" DID NOT HELP ME WUT SO EVER! WHEN I ASKED TO SPEAK TO THE SUPERVISOR I WAS HUNG UP ON! LITERALLY HOURS I SPENT ON THE PHONE WITH THESE PEOPLE. ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY HOW HORRIBLE THEY ARE!!! SERVICE IS GOOD BUT WHEN U HAVE A PROBLEM WHICH YOU WILL YOU'LL SEE EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN, DONT SAY I DIDNT WARN YOU!

I give them 5 stars for several reasons: First of all for the great coverage. Zero dropped calls, clear calls, no delayed or missing texts. Secondly, the very low pricing. These ST plans make contracts obsolete.
Thirdly, the uncomplicated plans. Why bother trying to untangle complicated pricing structures, daily fees, different rates for different times of day etc? It's all just designed to confuse and rip the consumer off.
Fourth, free 411 calls. This alone will save you quite a bit of money if you use the directory service a lot.
Fifth: Availability. In every Walmart I've been to lately AND you can auto-renew your plan. No hassles.

@ Maria find my earlier post, it will get your Internet working

Almost a month using ST. I fly for a living, used to be a VZ customer. $45 and it works GREAT!!! NO VZ BIG BILLS!!!

Best thing I've done this year to save money.

When I looked into switching from my AT&T service, I was told that I would have excellent coverage service for traveling across the country. I asked specifically if I would have service in the state of Alaska & was told "yes" since Straight Talk uses the same towers as Verizon. I HAVE NO SERVICE ANYWHERE IN THE STATE!!! Every time I've called customer service they have been polite, but scripted & unable to answer direct questions. Also, I thought that "dropped calls" were a thing of the past, I was wrong. I've had dropped calls & loud static noise often. I changed from AT&T because I thought I was paying too much for minutes that I didn't use... now I see I wasn't just paying for minutes... I was paying to reliable service as well. I'm very disappointed & will be looking to replace this service!!

can anybody tell me what is straight talk's cost per minute

Have called twice to get internet working on this phone. After two weeks, NOTHING!! They won't even extend the plan even though I didn't get what I paid for. Do I have to call AGAIN.

I have been really pleased with my Samsung R810C from Straight Talk--I download my messages in 45 seconds! The touch screen is magic and it has all the bells and whistles I need! The best of all is the $45.00pm prepaid UNLIMITED call, text and data plan as I have saved a fortune compared to having a contract!

OK, so who has experience with the $45 unlimited everything plan? I have been using the $30 plan and am liking Straight Talk thus far, so I am thinking about taking the next step and upgrading to the samsung touch screen and going w the $45 plan. I read on another forum that it works great and there really is no need for contract. I've been REALLY impressed with the service and reception and can see myself using TracFone for the long run. So any info on the Unlimited Everything plan that my fellow forum-ers would like to share? Thanx

Hmmm..... so while I was waiting to see if anyone on here could help with FB, I logged onto FB and went to my mobile web section and got a link texted to my phone (which I had done previously). Got the link which is the same www address, but now it works. Go figure??!!

I've had wonderful service since November but recently, Facebook, has not worked for me. Other websites do. I have the Samsung slider/qwerty. I can go to url, and pull up FB. Normally I would be logged in still, but lately I have to put username/password but then another login page comes up with only email address on it. I do this a few times and it's always on a login page, and then I give up. Is anyone else having this problem, if so, how did you fix it? Thanks.

I've had service since last August. All has been well; the only problem is about 5% of my calls seem to drop out after about 30 seconds. For $30/month I can live with that. I use my LG phone only for talk/text. The only time I contacted customer service, on Feb 25th, I got fine service. Still can't access my account online, however - what's up with that ". . . under construction . . ." BS for the last 6 months on their site?? Still, it's only $30.

I have worked in various places in the world and had cell phone contracts in some odd countries. Nigeria was crazy. You could place one call in about 10 attempts. I have Straight Talk in the US and I think that it is the best deal and the best service that I have had anywhere. I pay $45 for unlimited calls, texts and data. That is far cheaper and better that any plan I kbow about.

its the best prepaid out there,45$unlimited for everything is hard to beat!no contract,auto refill no problems,do wish they had more phones!but this lg 290 is nice enough for now

Discovered that with the 30.00 plan your remaining messages and minutes rollover. That is something not advertised. w00t!

Recently dropped T Mobile service and loving it!

This phone/service is great, so far!

Not 1 dropped call yet!

I haven't had to call customer service yet, so can't make a comment on that!

Great phones AND great plan/service!

@luddite

The 1000 minutes counts for total connected minutes. Incoming and outgoing.

Is the $30 plan 1000 OUTGOING minutes?

Or total connected minutes (including incoming calls)?

This will be my first cell phone...can you believe it? We've gotten very poor reception (4-5 yrs ago with another cell provider so we ditched it) in our hilly neighborhood but I'll try again!

ihave the samsung 5451c phone, its good it does everything i need it to but the CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE!!! I mean really bad!!! i was on the phone with them almost a half an hour!!! the plan is good and i get service almost anywhere but like i said they their customer service is a freakin joke!!! im writing this while im on the phone with them lol.

Run.....This company sucks. I got a straighttalk phone for my daughter for her birthday and it doesnt always work. They sent me an empty box and told me to send the phone back i told them to send the replacement because i pay monthly and it is not fair for me to not have a phone and still be paying the monthly services. They said that was too bad and that is their policy. My policy is i will not be sending in the phone i will be changing companies.

hey my internet stopped working to weeks ago and it hasnt come back since

1 week with straight talk and I am very happy. I bought the touch screen phone and I am loving every thing about it...... And I have the unlimited plan and that comes in handy cause I can easily run up a cell phone bill. I also have auto refill so I don't have to worry about going all the way to long island for walmart..... I was going to get metro pcs but I'm from nc and they don't have service down there so when I travel home I would have a huge problem, I am a satisfied customer.... And I did read the reviews before I bought the phone and I took a chance and I am very happy, also living in Brooklyn, NY not slot of people know about ST cause everyone else uses AT&T and T-mobile and other big companies like that, I'm a very cheap. YOUNG adult and I refuse to pay slot of money for a cell phone bill every month.... I love straight talk and I reccomend it to all of my co workers and every one else.... I love to say I pay $45 for unlimited everything

For those of you who get the web error check this out, it got mine working.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1583625&page=3

So far so good with Straight Talk. I one bought from a local Walmart and was able to use the phone in less than 5 minutes, planning on dropping my $140 a month bill with Verizon and going full steam with ST. If your area supports the Verizon Network you should have no problem, however, customer service is very friendly buy quite overwhelmed with calls, so be patient. Im planning on porting my existing number from Verizon to ST very soon, I hope that transition goes as smooth as the activation was. I have the LG220C.... phone, great little (BASIC) phone. For those of you wanting great web service I suggest going with the Droid phone from Verizon...with all the bells and whistles and a $100+ phone bill per month. Do we really need internet on our cell phones? A pre-paid service with unlimited features for $45 a month!! One other note..the Bluetooth connects flawlessly to my 2010 Jeep Wrangler...I'm looking forward to being a Straight Talk customer for a long time...Thanks Straight Talk!

I just got the new r451c phone from straight talk last week. I have had non stop problems since. My web does not work every time I call thier # it says to call back at a later time. I had to wait 2 days after I bought the phone just to get my phone # and the thing to work. This phone sucks. I feel like I am using a childs toy....

2 weeks now with straight talk and I'm loving it. I used to pay 100 dls for 2 phones at verizon, no internet and 10-15 cents per message receive or sent. Now I pay 60 dls for two phones with internet and messages!!. My phone is the one with the QWERTY keyboard. Text messaging is so easy. Now most of my communication is with texts and I love it. What I like the most is the simplicity of straight talk. I try to go back to verizon to figure my bill cicle (to see if I owe or the owe me money) and it is like doing your taxes: figuring out your first bill requires a Phd. This company is going to take over the maket. My wife and I were skeptical at the beginning but not any more!!!

I am really liking the moto razr i just got. I used to have one w cingular, but then upgraded (and HATED MY UPGRADE!). Anyways, when I read about Straight Talk, i was a little intrigued. My contract expired in December, so I decided to give it a try since there is no contract. So far, Sooooooo good. I have the Unlimited everything for $45 plan. Really happy with the service thus far. Here's to hoping its not too good to be true.

-Tosh

Have had the Samsung R451C for almost a month now..love it..you can go online on computer and download a manual for it and it covers pretty much everything. I will refill with another $45 card, and I sort of want to change the first phone number so will have to see if I can do that.

Does anyone know if I can still port my number after getting a phone number from ST? My other phone is still in service for another month and would like to keep my number instead of this new number.

I was paying $80 a month for my unlimited prepaid plan from Intelos Wireless.I got tired of paying that,so I gave ST a try.I think it was a good decision that I made.I get almost the same data from ST than I did from Intelos.ST coverage has Intelos beat,because Intelos prepaid plan just covers VA,and WV.All of this for $33 less.I ordered the motorola w385 from walmart's website,because I didn't like the phones that my local walmarts have.I bought the $45 card at the store though.
I have some tips that might help some.ST coverage is identical to Verizon,s prepaid coverage map.I recommend that you buy your phone from the walmart website,or your local store.That way if you have a problem with the phone,you can just take it back.Same with the cards to.Use ST website to activate the phone that way you dont have to deal with customer service.Activate the cards their to.If you do need to speak to customer service,i would recommend Tracfone's customer service,1-800-876-5753.
I hope this info helps.

I have the LG220 phone and i can't download any ringtones on it so I was wondering if I purchase one from the StraightTalk site if it would download to my phone or not-I love StraightTalk and have had no problems except I would love to have some different ringtones-Thanks!!

So I got my phone in the mail and I love it. It works very well. My only problem is I accidentally didn't port my number like I wanted to, so now I have two working phones. I'm wanting to know if when I purchase another month I can port my number than, cuz they wouldn't let me do it now.

The phone is ok, service sux, i bought the phone and whentried to activate it, customer said the serial number was inactive, they did what they do, and it worked, but no web browser, after 4 days they had to give me a new number, but browser worked. Everything great, for a month, time to re up time on phone and wht do you know? serial number again doesnt work. every day for 3 days I called customer service, and after 40 minutes on hold they " fixed" the problem, 2 hours later phone quit working. Last week they say they are sending me a new phone, BUT i have to send mine in first, so 2 weeks with out a phone, so in 45 days of ownership, I have been on hold with them for a combined 236 minutes, and a phone that has worked 29 days. Contract phone here i come

purchased straight talk in early January. Basically was useless because I never had enough service to carry on a conversation. Then I started the process of porting my number back to AT&T which was a nightmare. I soundly agree that technical service and customer service is pathetic. This is a product that WalMart should not be proud of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've got the Straight Talk Unlimited plan and so far I love it. I use the Samsung Finesse so I have a smartphone, with unlimited usage every month for only $45. All those who have problems with this forget what a good deal that is. As with all big companies, customer service is a prime issue but my experience with them, so far at least, has been nothing short of excellent.

I don't understand why there is so many bad reviews out there. I purchased the LG 290c at walmart on monday with a 30 dollar card.
I activated online process was easy and i had my number ported I was nervous about that after reading countless reviews. My nuber was on net10 though same company tracfone
My phone was active that evening like 3 hours after i started process.
Everything works great and my signal is two bars stronger at my house in nh than is was on net1o no complaints data works fine to but thats not what i use the phone for hope i helped anyone whos nervous out there

Can any tell me with the finesse does it have the delivery notification for text? If so can it be turned off? I can not stand that, it's the most annoying feature ever!

I meant to put this:
Will you be able to recieve Facebook notifications as messages on St's phones(more specifically the Samsung Finesse) and have them count towards the 1000 texts on the $30 plan? Someone please answer.

i brought a straight talk phone and service for my son. Right off the bat they screwed it assigning us a number with an area code from the adjacent county meaning it would be a long distance call from our home phone. After 3 calls to their customer service support (including being on hold for at least 15 minutes each time) I was told I would need to buy another $30 service card to re-activate the phone to correct the problem. Needless to say I am returning the phone and making sure I get the word out their customer service is the worst I have encountered - much worse than T-Mobile , ATT, or Sprint. I would give zero stars if I could.

Walmart will not carry Straight Talk phones at some locations in midwest; Refill cards are limited. Store could not tell me if they will stop Straight Talk altogether.

You may want to continue searching for a cell phone carrier and phones

Straight Talk is the best prepaid service around. It is incredible to get Unlimited data, minutes and messages for only $45 monthly. I changed from my contract to Straight Talk and now get more minutes and web and I save more than half of my old contract amount. every month.

The fact that Straight Talk runs on Verizons network means that the coverage is always fantastic.

Its also easy to get a straight talk phone and package at Walmart or on their website.

Alright, I had ST for a few days now and there are things I like and things I dont.

What I like:

$30 a month savings on my bill. Instead of $75 a month for less, I pay $45 a month for more.

The phone looks nice and works well (I have the Samsung R451C, but am planning on getting the Samsung R810C in a few months)

Reception has been good and text messages have been received promptly.

What I dont like:

The keys on the QWERTY pad. They annoy me for some reason.

The fact that I need to slide open my phone to access the web.

The web is limited compared to what I am used to. I formerly had a Blackberry with a T-Mobile contract, but I can still do a lot. Who am I to complain though? It's a phone, not a computer.

I purchased a ringtone and wallpaper from the ST website two days ago, after I activated the phone. Was told I would receive a text with the download. Never got the text. Called CS and they told me they would open a case :/

But overall, I am happy with the service. Four stars.

Will update in a few weeks

I have the LG100C, I got it 2 months ago and thought it was great, (besides that the browser is much to slow).

Until I tried setting the calendar, and you cant put in your time for a appointment, so I spent 1 hour on the phone with them and they couldn't fix it, then I checked my wife's phone she has the LG220 and it has the same problem.

Then I tried setting the alarm clock, same problem you can not set the time.

I am wondering if this problem is in all phones, if your calendar or alarm clock can be set to your time please let us know.

Now my browser stopped working.

This is a terrible phone, and I regret I bought it.

This all started as a replacement for my Verizon phone which was starting to die as my contract was ending. After being a VZ customer for ten years, I decided I was tired of the contracts, and high fees.
I purchased the LG-220 from Walmart for $40, and the $30 calling plan, to see if it would be a good option for me. I use my phone for work and personal use including texting. The basic browser function works but I won't be using it because it's a phone, not a web terminal. I used the new phone with the new phone number provided by Straight Talk for a month for 90% of my calls. After the end of my 30 days, and the end of my Verizon contract, I called ST to have my VZ number ported over to my previously activated phone. I was warned that it would take between 2 hours to seven days for the process. It took less than three hours to make it happen. ST customer service was very patient as I looked for my VZ account info online.
Call quality has been good.
LG-220 phone has performed well.
Straight Talk customer service was a good experiance.

I'm glad I made the move.

Woody

I notice that most of you guys who are complaining about ST services can be classified in two categories:
1. Either you try to port your old numbers, or
2. You don’t have the smart phone.
I’m not trying to be rude, but people, come on…………... Before I purchased my phone, I was lucky to find out what types of problems that people were complaining about. Therefore, I did not port my old number (which I wanted to change anyway) and I got the Finesse, which is almost like the Behold that I was using at t-mobile. Since I activated my phone, I never got any problem with it. I will pay t-mobile $200 for “early termination” – which I know I’m gonna save in the long run. I know the weakness of ST. I do not call CS and I do not do “auto refill”. I set a reminder on my phone to alarm me two days before my card is over. So, I should be ok because I know their service is cheap. That’s why they can’t hire English speaking people to do the job. Thus, I don’t expect too much other than unlimited talk, text and web.

@Sue
You need to contact customer service to disable that message. I hated that message every time I called. It took them a minute to remove it.

It would be very useful if anyone who posts a comment on problems with any of the ST phones would specify which phone you are using. So we could know if it is a specific model. Thanks for your understanding. Is anyone know if we can use SKYPE browsing and which model does it. sheep777@hotmail.com

Nothing but problems, now they have lost the number that I had transfered over and can't get it back. THis is my business phone. They have done this twice now.

I am considering to try ST and I was wondering if anyone who had bad experiences would be willing to sell your old phone. sheep777@hotmail.com

I brought a straight talk phone for a hundred dollars AND YOU CANT HEAR IT RINGING!!!!!!!!!! I want to get another phone or my money back they hussel and busseled the whole time with no results shame dont do it I asked for half of the money they gave me the run around

I do like the phone but also wished they offered a cheaper, fewer minute plan, I only use about 200 a month. Also, does anyone know how to disable the message that tell you how much time you have available every time you place a call - ANNOYING

all was good for two months til today. i have full bars but cannot text call or browse. i hope it is just a tower problem but after being on hold for "an additional one to two more minutes" about fifty times... I am wondering if it is a total system meltdown. lol I am glad to have a good sense of humor in all this crap.

Can anyone tell me how well the browser works for news, wx, email? Speed, etc. thank you

@Mike
I've got several ring-tones but only by blue-tooth them from another one of my cell-phones. Try connecting with blue-tooth to another cell-phone & transfer your ring-tones that way. I hope this helps you.

cant get ringtones

phone ok tones limited and volume not loud enough web browser sucks and tryed and tryed to download music phone wont play whats on card dont throw away your mp3 player

Can anyone tell me how well the browser works for news, wx, email? Speed, etc. thank you

gave me a # that they deactiavted 4 hrs later only to reassign me a second # and have that deactivated after 4 hrs. rep admitted they gave away my # and that they had a "system glitch" his words. hard to hear, not worth cheap rate, thank God for Boost $50/plan

I bought two Straight Talk LGs from Walmart. They were the $79 sliders. According to Straight Talk technical support, at least these can not work with signing into your AOL account. I suspect there are others. This would appear to be a misrepresentation by omission of this tidbit of information not only by Straight Talk, but by Walmart. How many people have AOL? Millions, I hear you say. They should have told us, but instead, they told you about all the web browsing that you can do. Way to go Walmart. I have had my AOL account for over 15 years. I am not going to change now.

Purchasing a straight talk phone and plan has been a nightmare. The first issue that needs to be addressed is the pathetically poor customer service. The wait is long and talking to the agent is nearly as productive as talking to a wall. The browser on my phone has not worked for the past 5 months of use and every time I call, I am assured that someone will call me back with a solution and resolve the problem. 5 months later haven't heard from them yet. My next issue with them is the fact that I have been charged twice to my credit card on the auto refill system. After numerous attempts to fix this problem and numerous denials I have just about had all that I can take from this joke of a phone service provider. I would not advise anyone to try straight talk unless they like being ignored and charged in excess.

I have the Straight Talk $45 a month unlimited plan and the Samsung Finesse R10 which is the Straight Talk top of the line phone. I've had the service since the end of November and have not experienced any problems like dropped calls. I love that my phone has a slide-out keyboard even though it's a touchscreen phone. I do a lot of texting and I'm not comfortable with touch-screen texting, not yet anyway.

I've had Straight Talk for a month. LOVE it. I purchased the Samsung Finesse R810C. Ported my number from Verizon. Coverage is the same no problems. I get Unlimited Voice, Text, and Data. I was paying over $60 for just voice and text. With Straight Talk I get Data too for less than my old Verizon account. If you're on Verizon and being made to purchase a Data plan...pay the early termination fee as I did...the savings will pay for it.

I've had this phone for about 2 months, goin on three..i love it, no problems except until now when the phone says that I am roaming, and then now says I have no signal (have not moved to a new location)..I hope that this problem gets resolved fast because it really is a good deal...

Can you get Facebook notifications on the Samsug Finesse? Will they be able to count towards your 1000 messages on the $30 plan?

waste of money and will spend over 45 mins speaking to customer service rep in Belize. After speaking to mgr regarding a failed port, they couldn't give me a good phone # after 90 mins of talk with customer service rep. Nice price if don't have problems but if do you'll be sorryl.

Couldn't activate the phone because it said that the serial number was not found. Don't even waste your time or money on this junk.

Does anyone know if you purchase the Samsung Finesse R810C touchscreen str8 talk phone on the str8 talk website do you have to pay sales tax on the phone? Or is it just total price of $358.99 with the $30 plan plus sales tax? Please if anyone knows will you please post it? Thanks so much. K@ren

One of the best deals since the "free lunch"... Very good reception in my area (eastern Tennessee) and very good voice quality... I didn't really like the "pre-call balance message" you get before every call is connected but you can easily have customer service disable it by calling them from a land-line phone. They know exactly what you are talking about and will have it disabled in about 2 minutes... BOTTOM LINE: Very good service with very good voice quality and the best rates around anywhere (contract or non-contract)...

Have had the service for a month. No problems whatsoever. Cant beat the value.

I am torn. My phone is great. The port-in process was smooth, taking less than 24 hours (with no thanks to the Juggernaught Verizon) and the cost is unbeatable. The phone's features are not locked down, etc. So, for my phone, life is good.

However (and this is a BIG however), I have been trying to get my wife's account active for 5 days. I have lost over $110.00 in costs associated with, essentially having, a brick of a phone, and over $300.00 in lost time! Like some so ineloquently said above, most of their customer service is *ahem* difficult to understand through their local dialect. I have written a letter to Straight Talk's Executive Resolution Department, and as of Day 5, have no working phone for my wife. Not good.

I have been without the web browser for 8 days and still no resolve. Today ST said I would have to wait til Monday. This was after the second time for taking the phone apart and putting it back together.

What a pain. I am going to complain to Walmart since they are the retail that carries ST.

I will complain to Tracphone as well.
The ST support does not speak much english and very hard to understand.
Argh!

the phone works good but the only problem is that the speaker phone is hard to hear the ringing and the bluetooth you cant connect with other people i think its the system and im on here now trying to figure out how to get the ringtones any suggestions

i recently purchased 3 phones from straight talk for my family and must say we are happy but not fully satisfied.Signal is great..but we cannot hear our tex alert sounds or our calls ..We are missing most of our calls and its aggravating.The phones also dont offer video recording which I know is not important ,but it was nice having.The price over all makes it great ,especially when you used to be with verizon.

I would like to buy the cell phone model: Straight Talk Prepaid LG 220C Phone.
One of the features is EXTERNAL CALLER ID. Could you explain how does this work?

Straight talk doesn't provide tones for callers while your phone is ringing. My previous service porvided me with this option. It is nice to here a message and tunes while waiting for my phone to answer. Other than that the phone & expense is very good.

straight talk sux. you have to buy their phone..u cant use a phone u already have...and their phones suck.i lost 45 because they sent me a reminder email telling me to go ahead and refill ..so i did..but what they dont tell u is that if u refill early..it changes your service end date and u lose what u already paid for. also...my mobile web has NOT worked in 2 months..but do they do anything about it? nope!! i am going back to verizon after this month where i can use whatever phone i want..and i wont have to worry about crappy customer service that doesnt speak english and where i wont lose my time if i renew early...all in allo...straight talk sux!! i am so mad that i ever switched to them..they boast the lower price per month..but when u have a problem with their service...they ignore you or are just plain rude when u call to find out why its not working...they were supposed to add my time back on..but it never got added! i am sick of paying for services they promise but do not deliver.

All in all I'd have to give ST a 5 star w/all the unlimited pics & texts but what I don't understand is why I can't download songs or when I send songs from mytinyphone.com I cant open it from my browser. I have the Lg slider my friend has the moto and he can what is goning on, is anyone else having this same problem??? and who do I talk to about it

Hi, i have a straight talk lg 290c slider and i love this phone i get service at my house and i have never got service here before with any other phone but my question is can you bluetooth music from someone else's phone with this phone i tryed and all i get is transfer failed just woundering if i was doin something wrong or you just can't do it on this phone thanks.

I am considering buying the samsung rR810c with straighttalk. Any one have an opinion? I am a beginner with smart phones.

@Bw
Your remaining balance will transfer.

Two thumbs up for st!
I do have a question. I have two weeks left in my current 30 days, if I upgraded to a new phone will I lose the remaining two weeks or will it carry over to the new phone?

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A SMALLER PACKAGE AVAILABLE SUCH AS 500 MINUTES.THIS WOULD HELP KEEP COST DOWN DUE TO FACT THAT I USE 400 MINUTES PER MONTH ON AVERAGE

@Damon

Hi. Thanks for your suggestions on how to stop all the yahoo email that forwarded to my new gmail acct..

It stopped forwarding maybe because I deleted the in box in gmail and
changed the setting and the next day

It stopped sending me txt msgs
to my cell phone the next day.

If that didnt work on my own i would used your two suggestions which were both very good: contact gmail or ST to purge my que for txts waiting to go to my cell phone

Now i went back into gmail and using POP and i set it to start forwarding new yahoo emails as of today to test
message my cell phone. So far it has not started up texting today. But it says it can take up to 2 days for the new setting to work. im being patient. thanks again for the help !

all the best. dj

I have had the phone since the end of October. This is an good phone for the family or person on a budget. I have the 40 dollar LG from Wal-Mart, but will be buying a new one, see below.

Pros:

Good service in most places.

Good call quality.

Texts send and receive well.

Good value for the money.

Cons:

Limited to whatever is on their browser.

If you add your service card before the expiration, you lose any remaining balance.

The 40 dollar LG 220c is not a very sturdy phone. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. My girlfriend has the 100 dollar Samsung r410c and it is a decent phone for the money.

You are limited to using only and ONLY their phones. They will not activate phones from anyone else, period!

Final Word:
If you use the phone and text all the time, then the unlimited plan is worth it. It costs far less than the plans from the major carriers. I am pleased with the service and it works everywhere I need it too, from here, to Arkansas, to Illinois, and most places in between. I will be staying with this carrier if things stay the way they are.

how to clear auto-refill
1-click browser
2-click menu and scroll down
3-click clear memory
4-and pick what u like

Dear GradoFan.......You deserve the pain you went through. Straight talk is excellent and leave your political ramblings to the peanut gallery where they belong. We only want to hear about the service and not your Sarah Palin crap!

GradoFan

FINAL UPDATE TO THE ABOVE NIGHTMARE... WITH A HAPPY ENDING!

"SEE POST ABOVE: "AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!"

After a year with them they erroneously ported my number to a new customer and deactivated my phone. My account was active and current...

AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY...

At long last... after 18 days of hell... I finally have recovered my original number, and my phone has been reactivated!!!

A great customer service rep in the Miami office of TracFone (not StTalk.com) diligently worked with Verizon for two weeks to recover my number. She was great... and... never, never, never gave up... until she recovered it, and reactivated by phone with the original number.

My comments above stand - DO NOT USE StTalk.com's service, unless you can afford to experience what I experienced!

But... if you do... make sure you get to the customer service management team of TracFone's Miami office - don't spend even 1 minute on the phone with the StTalk.com customer service team - they have no idea what your're talking about... and... can do nothing more than "parrot" what's in their script (kinda like Osama Obama with his teleprompter - totally mindless drivel)!

I did ask the TracFone folks how it could happen, and how to prevent it from recurring. They had no idea how it happened, but seemed to suggest it had something to do with how their systems (Verizon's) did, or didn't integrate between the billing system and the activation system.

Their advice - monitor your credit card charges at the renewal date of the StTalk.com service each month, to make sure StTalk.com has charged your card... and... contact TracFone's customer service unit in Miami, if they haven't. However... I should note... I did just that... they had charged my card on the renewal date, which was a full 14 days, before they deactivated my phone and took my number. So... I doubt very much, if that really will help.

So... despite the valiant efforts of a great TracFone CS Rep... you're still much safer to "pay the piper" and use either Verizon, or ATT... as much as I hate to admit it. And... that's very likely where I'm headed... ATT that is... now that I have my number back.

"Over and out... signing off"

I bought a Straight Moto razar v3 it works great.will recommend it to all my friends. Thank you Straight Talk. a Great Deal

Straight Talk does not support 3 Way Calling on the Samsung R451C, or any Samsung phone. No one tell you that. So, if you make your living with 3 Way calls, like I do,you can kiss $100 good by. I'll sell you mine cheap!

Best thing i ever got, Im a student and need all the money saving i can get. The unlimited plan is great for those long calls home to the parents and there are no distance charges. And i can travel nationally and the phone works no matter if im at collage home or on holiday at the beach with friends.

I love the cheap service for 45 dollars a month but the LG have many issues. It only last 2 months and I have to buy another one, the internet stays down and the customer service sucks.

just got straight talk slider and it does not have games on it and can not down load games from straight talk. Talked to straight talk and they said none of phones have games. Whoever heard of a phone with no games.

Im getting a phone from ST. I want to port my number from tmobile. So, now here is my stupid question.

After porting my number, would there be any way tmobile could take it back?

@Jonathon

1) How long can ur text messages be
sending and incoming in regard to characters to any phone company?

I believe the texts can be 160 characters.

2) How good is the QWERTY keyboard on the Samsung R451C? I have kinda big finders lol.

The buttons are kinda small. But I'm sure after a while you'll get used to it and be able to hit the buttons no problem.

3) And finally how good is the reception?

I am out in the boonies in WA and I get pretty good reception. I can make calls from inside my house. The phones use Verizon towers and it works out great for me. I guess it all depends on where you are as to how good the reception is.

i love the phone just wish i could buy ring back tones and have other cool phones to choose from!!

Looking into buying the touch screen. After reading reviews, just one question; Can you send texts to out of state numbers? I have friends and family in other states that I text on a daily basis but from reviews it sounds as if I won't be able to send them texts anymore...

Can anyone tell me if the voice/text/data can rollover if not used from month to month like on Tracfone? For example, if I buy a $30 card and only use 500 voice minutes, 500 texts, and 15 MB of data, will the unused portions rollover with the next purchase of a $30 card.

@Scot, or anyone else that knows. Scot wrote that his monthly bill is $30 even, are you buying a card each month or using autofill? I went onto autofill after the first month so don't remember how much the card actually cost me, but I'm on the $45 plan and I can charged $49 per month. If I come off autofill and buy a $45 card each month, do I pay $45 at Walmart or is it plus taxes, does anyone know?

Hi I'm trying to get off my crappy contract phone and get into a prepaid phone plan since I have a budget now and ST seems to be the choice next to Virgin Mobile. I just have a few questions if someone can please answer them since I really want to switch.

1) How long can ur text messages be
sending and incoming in regard to characters to any phone company?

2) How good is the QWERTY keyboard on the Samsung R451C? I have kinda big finders lol.

3) And finally how good is the reception?

Please Help...Thank You!

@Anna: The only way to cancel auto-refill is to call customer service and not only request a cancellation but to tell them that you want your credit card removed from your account. Finally, sign on to your account on the website and go like you are going to actually renew to verify that the credit card has been removed.

i need help if anyone knows how to cancel auto refill for straight talk please let me know.

I bought a r810 Samsung Finesse. worked 2-3 weeks and kept restarting and freezing up. I went back and bought another Finesse at a diff wal mart. It lasted 1 day and does the same thing. Spent hrs online with St and Samsung. I dont know whom is worse. St said take it back to WM or its 14 days to send me a loaner. Samsung said about 2 weeks for a repair> So now I have a 40 phone for a backup when the samsung freezes it may be out for hrs or a day then its fine 2-3 days just depends.

This phone is pretty awesome! I have the latest phone from ST...a Samsung SAS451. I pay $45.00 per month and recieve unlimited voice, data, and internet (real internet!) for one low price. I buy the card at Walmart, call, and load! I get service everywhere and I live in a very rural place! The only con I have noticed is that the ringtone downloads are costly. But there's an SD card slot and slide out keyboard! It's unbeatable!

This is a whole new era for the cell phone industry. I have had this service for 3 months with no problems. The price is unbeatable and the network that is used is Verizon, so the signal strength is excellent. I changed from T-Mobile (who i was very happy with) simply because of the savings. I was a little leery of the Walmart branded phone, but through some research found Straighttalk to be part of the 4th largest mobile network on the planet.

The camera on the phone isn't as nice as i am used to, but the savings each month are about 50% of what I was paying... so I will have to carry my camera with (ooh the horror) lol

And as another bonus the total cost repeat billed to my credit card is 30 bucks (not 30 plus taxes, 911 fees, etc. like you will find with others). You will not go wrong with Straighttalk... it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Got my new Samsung R541C today. Ported my old number to the new phone within 5 minutes. So far so good. I get good signal out here in the boonies! ST works off of Verizon towers. With my old Tracfone and Net10 phones (AT&T) I was lucky to get one bar. I love the Samsung phone because it has the qwerty keyboard, camera, and the screen is a decent size. For $30 a month you get the 1000 mins and 1000 texts. I doubt I'll use half of that! The only problem I have had so far is not being able to send a MMS. When I tried to send an MMS, it used up my internet data (you get 30MB a month) and then I get an error message saying "service not activated on this network". Weird....
So anyways, so far so good. I will update a while after I have used the phone more and have had more experience with ST.

@c09
I purchased 2 razor v3a from walmart.com activated one everything went smooth. I went to activate the 2nd phone & the serial number on the phone would not activate reason that happened is someone had bought the phone & returned it back to walmart & walmart shipped it out as a new phone & I could not activate it. So I had to re-order another phone right away. I received it & activated everything went smooth. So what I'm saying is if someone has bought a phone from walmart & has tried to activate it & then returned it to walmart it will not activate. You will have to purchase another phone in order for it to activate if you have activation problems with the phone you purchased. I hope this helps you.

@c09: all the StraightTalk phones come deactivated. They don't come with phone minutes either. You activate them after you buy them. If you are saying the phone you bought has a bad serial number, simply return it to Walmart and get a different phone. Good luck.

Thanks so much Damon you seem to know alot. I went ahead and purchased the Samsung R451C before your comment so I'm glad to hear that and looking forward to switching from Verizon. Let you know how it goes!

As of right now, my comments to ST is very poor. I'll feel better when I get my phone working and up and going by faxing them my proof of purchase. I don't understand that when I bought it from Walmart and ST customers service said that the serial number on the box hasn't been activacted. Was it walmarts fault or you say that ST has a very poor time of keeping track of their phones. The funny thing is that walmart has it locked up on the self, and no ones going to steal the phones easily. To this point I'm upset but I'm looking forward how this will turn out.

I give this phone r451c & the company 5 stars b/c I've had my phone for about 2wks now & I'm enjoy every minute of it. I chose this phone b/c I knew that with all my saving I could spend a little extra on the phone. I even spent extra for a USB cable & microSD card. I started out with the unlimited plan maybe if my budget get tighter I will go to the $30 plan. I did have issues with setting up my voicemail but CS resolved it in less than 10 mins. Thanks Again straight talk!

i transfered from t-mobile to straight talk. it took about 3 hours to port my number (i was able to use my t-mobile phone all but about 5 min) i am getting 1 bar better reception than t-mobile and 2 bars better reception than at&t. voice mail was easy to set up. i just got the cheapy $40 phone from walmart and bought time online (cost $32 after tax for the all you need time) the phone is easy to use and customizeable (different ringtones for dif people) i havent found a way to check remaining min bal from phone (although it does tell you before phone calls) all in all i am very satisfied and would recommend to my friends.

@Janek: leave your AT&T active and port the number over to your StraightTalk phone via the StraightTalk website. AT&T should then automatically shut down your account and stop charging you, but check later just to make sure.

@Amanda Felt: switching your StraightTalk phone number between StraightTalk phones takes five minutes on the StraightTalk website, and there is no charge. Once the number was moved off the old phone it should have been in a 'deactivated' state, at which time you could activate it on the StraightTalk website with a new number. You went to a lot of trouble and wasted time for nothing and it was your own fault.

@Kristina: I like the R451C because it's only $100, has a full QWERTY physical keyboard, but is still small enough to fit in a pants pocket. It also has an internet browser and MP3 player. The Finesse has a much larger screen, but is 3.5x the money, and it's bigger. I like the looks and style of flip phones, but typing text messages or browsing without a QWERTY keypad sucks.

@Catarinah: yes, you can keep your old number. You can do this with any provider, including StraightTalk. Just go buy a phone from Walmart, bring it home and use the website (do not call customer service) to activate the phone--choose the option to port a phone number from another provider. The number should be moved to your new StraightTalk phone within 24 hours (mine took 10 hours).

@Jeff: even if you have to pay a penalty to get out of a contract to move to StraightTalk it probably wouldn't take long to recover the loss if StraightTalk costs you $30 per month versus $70 (for example) at Alltel. Do the math.

@DJ: sounds like when you set up your POP in Gmail you picked the option to pull all emails from Yahoo. There is also the option to just pull new emails, which is what I did. Now that you already did it, I don't know how to stop Gmail from finishing what you told it to do. You can try contacting them (I've never tried it since I've never had a problem). You can also try contacting StraightTalk customer service and see if they can purge your text message que, or you may just have to delete the gazillion text messages via your phone :(

@Mark: The only money you could possibly waste is on the phone card since it's not returnable. The phone is returnable. You should have used the StraightTalk website to activate the phone anyway. I do agree that it is annoying when the CS reps continually say they are going to put you on hold, talk to a supervisor, et., but they have been mostly helpful for me. The initial time you spend setting up your account is well worth having great service on the best network for an amazing price. Suck it up.

@SK: you don't need to buy a second set of StraightTalk phones to port your phone numbers over. You can let your StraightTalk phones run out of time/money and deactivate, or call Customer Service and ask them to deactivate the StraightTalk phone(s) immediately. Once deactivated you can activate them on the website the same as if you just bought them, choosing the option to port the phone numbers from your old provider.

@Mel: buy a USB/PC cable for the phone from Ebay ($6) and copy songs or ringtones over to your phone's MicroSD card ($12 for 2GB size). I'm told that if you put mp3's in the ringtone folder you can use them as ringtones (plays only the first few seconds of the song, though, so you may want to cut the song down to the good part in an editor).

I transferred my old Net 10 number to my new straight talk phone without issue. But i attempted to shop around for ring tones it told me there was a prob with authorizing my account, so I called the customer service number. First there was so much background noise and interference I couldn't hear the operator. After being on the phone for an hour I said I need to go to work I need to get off here where are we on this issue, and they had already hung up on me!!!!! Big mistake, waste of money!!!!

I am not sure why all the problems are noted here. It might be that CS is less effective that starting up service on line. I initialy bought a LG 220 a few months ago. I activated on line in a matter of minutes. A month later I liked the service so well I transferred my ST assigned number to a LG 290 - again in a matter of minutes it was working. In a couple of months my contract with my contract carrier runs out and I will be porting those numbers over to ST. I intend to buy two new phones and do it on line. That seems to be the most problem free method according to all the postings here - and not using a phone that already has an assigned ST number. I did make one call to CS to see why my first phone wouldn't receive pictures and was told in good English that I needed a camera phone. Thus my current LG 290. I hope this helps out future ST customers cause the plan and coverage is the best deal in town.

I wasted $75 to buy a phone and card and after wasting 3 hours on the phone still no service and no one can explain to me why. The customer service operators barely speak english and constantly put you on hold to "update my supervisor" who never seems to do anything. The final straw was having my call transferred to another department which never answered to call! I will be filing a complaint with the attorney general and anyone else I can find since the company has no complaint process itself.

@ Damon HELP...

i set up a gmail acct and set up POP for my yahoo email to forward and all the yahoo email in my in box moved to gmail! all of them not just the new ones for today only. now my phone keeps texting me all the emails it forwarded. i went in and changed the settting to disable forwarding but it still fills up my phone to 100 text msgs that are from before. after i disabled POP i deleted all the messages gmail ported over from my yahoo acct. so my gmail inbox is empty.
i still keep getting texted those old yahoo emails.

any suggestions to fix this? gmail still wants to forward all the yahoo msgs that were in the yahoo in box.

thanks in advance.

To have a number ported over from AT&T do I have to have it still active, or can I terminate contract with At&T before buying S/T ?

straight talk is awesome!! very affordable...i canceled my contract phone and am very happy i did.

I think that Sraight Talk service is great. I have the $45 unlimited plan and I have burned up the airways without a missing a beat. Alot of people complain about customer service, but I find this to be true with alot of companies these days. I love this service because it is worry free. At least if you become unhappy with your service you can walk away. Open your wallet if you try that with the post paid plans. Believe me, they will charge you if you choose to leave even if it's their fault.

If there was zero stars I would choose it. I purchased a new cell phone for my husband for his birthday and he was on the phone for 4 hours transferring his number from his old straight talk phone to his new phone. Then i called to activate his old phone with a new number and have been put through the ringer. I have spoken representatives for 4 days and nothing has progressed. Warning if you want to activate an old phone with a new number good luck. I am no longer recommending straight talk to anyone.

Im currently with Alltel and they've been great for 10 years.. Great customer retention policies... Etc.... The last time i renewed my contract with them I asked if I could increase or decrease my plan as financially required as unknown health problems we starting to arise.. They agreed, as did I... With financial issues unfortunately getting hold of me I was forced to call them and attempt to reduce my plan... That's when they told me that I had the lowest smart plan and I was bound for the remainder of this contract....Sneaky right! On purpose or not! they got me!! Until I started readind all of these reviews and seeing how basic it is! Love the Idea! Think I'm gonna go 4 it... Unfortunately for alltel (tho they've been good)they cannot retain this customer due to a minor slip up or attempted slight of hand! So be it! your reviews have helped alot! WISH ME LUCK!

I went from Sprint to Straight Talk going on 4 months saving $1,473. per year.I did the math, paid the termination fee and still on top. coverage is great,data is fear,text I like. But for me, talk is cheap without losing signal..I did call customer service, and asked them if there was any way they can remove the minute message reminder,and they did.If you receive poor customer service, hang up and call again, and most likely you will get someone can help you.Once again,any one that can save me $ 1,475. per year with excellent coverage deserves 5 stars in my book.

so im wondering about purchasing this phone.
i think that this is an amazing phone considering currently i have the rumor 2 with virgin mobile. the phone is nice and costomer service is great! but the minutes suck and i use them up way too fast, they also are expensive and im buying them about every 2 weeks! its terrible. and theres no internet on my phone, so i wouldnt mind occasionaly some internet complacations. i also have an ipod touch. so i will have to get used to not having a multipurpose touch screen.. which will confuse me. but i really like this phone and the plan, well the plan is amazing! i dont care about costomer service because im very careful and probably wont have many issues if any at all.
and its made me even more excited, can you really get your old phone number on this phone??? that would be amazing!! because then i wouldnt have to send a mass text message of the 233
contacts on my phone ; hey everyone i know! i got a new phone ! this is the number. when half the people probably are too lazy to change the number and will ask who it is whenever i text them. so please please let me know if you can change the phone number to your old cell phone . because that would definately make me buy this! thanks.

Ok thats helpful. What do you think is the best phone to get and do any of them have removable memory capability?

I've had Straight Talk for 3 months now and have had absolutely zero issues. Each month I go to Walmart, buy a $45 refill card, and renew my minutes online. No problems. I check this site daily and really appreciate how we've come together to provide support in so many ways. You guys are awesome! BTW, I have the Samsung R451C and love it. I bought a skin at skinit.com and am a happy guy free of a phone contract.

@Kristina:

If you look up the Samsung R451C phone on the Walmart site it has a zip code checker to make sure you can use the phone. That says the phone works in Lincoln, NE. As further proof, go to your local Walmart to buy the phone. If they have it, it will work there :)

I'm interested in this service. I am from Lincoln, NE does anyone know if it will work there? Or will it pretty much work in all of the US. The web site says it will not when I put in my zip code and customer service says it will, so I am hoping someone knows.

Reminder: to get rid of the annoying "you've got x minutes of call time" message when you make a call, contact customer service and ask them to turn off the 'pre-call message'. Yes, it would be nice if you could do this via your phone or the website, but at least you can do it.

@Chase: no, they don't have push email. Just have your emails forwarded to yournumber@vtext.com. You won't get the complete email if it’s large, but enough to see if it's worth looking at; then you can use the phone's browser to get into your email account to read/respond to the email. Works fine unless you're a heavy emailer.

FYI, I bought a PC cable for the phone off of Ebay for about $6. It works fine, charging the phone. The first time I used it, however, Windows wanted to install ‘Samsung CDMA driver’ software which apparently doesn't exist. I just canceled out of that popup message (marking it not to ask me ever again); then Windows detected the MicroSD card in the phone and allowed me to copy files to it. The phone’s MP3 player didn’t detect wma files (the Windows format), but found mp3s no problem and played them. I also bought a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor from Ebay ($1), but when I push the male end into the phone all the way I only get mono sound to my 3.5mm earbuds. If I pull the plug out of the phone a couple of millimeters I get stereo sound. I ordered a different adaptor to see if it works better, but at least I know I can get it to work. The MP3 player allows you to play all songs if you want, or an album or playlist, etc., and you can shuffle the play order. The sound quality seems as good as my dedicated Fuze MP3 player.

to port your number you have to have your old phone still active or it won't work. anyone buy the Samsung Finesse R810C? want to know how this compares to the Samsung R451C. costs a lot more but screen is bigger wondered if it was better for internet usage or same. wish they had a HTC hero.

@ Damon

I went and created a gamil acct. I went into setting and found POP. It seems really complicated. I'm not sure if I completed the process to have my yahoo eamils forwarded to my new gmail actt and then have the gmail txt me the yahoo email to my ST phone. It's almost like I need tech support to go step by step since this is all new to me. Thanks in advance for all your helpful suggestions. Wish you lived locally in Miami Beach so I could hire you for your tech suppost... :-)

Best,

DJ

Hi!

I've had the service for a little over one month now. I give the straight talk 4/5 stars. Below I give more details about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: Overall, the quality of calls are excellent, I always get a strong signal, my phone is working fine and the PRICE is phenomenal! I used to have t-mobile which had astronomical fees.

The Bad: the selection of phones sucks! The design of my phone is awkward and It still takes me WAY longer to text than usual, even with the QWERTY keyboard. The keys stick together!

The UGLY:It's true about what other people are saying below...the customer service is HORRIBLE.They are polite but the communication is bad because of SERIOUS language barriers. I was on the phone today almost FORTY (40) MINUTES with customer service just to buy more minutes because she had to hear me spell EVERYTHING twice. God forbid you have to do something more complex (i couldn't do it online bc their site is having issues apparently). I also forgot to mention that in the beginning they wouldn't refund the money from a problem with the service cards.

Honestly...Straight Talk deserves about 3 stars, but for the price it's unbeatable.

My final say: If you are a moderate phone user (meaning you don't need it for business, but you text moderately, and talk a bit each day to a family member/friend:I used 800 min out of 1000) then this phone is for you. If you are high maintenance and tend to need a lot of help setting up things then you will be a miserable person.THE QUALITY OF COVERAGE AND CALL ALONG WITH THE PRICE ARE AMAZING!!!

Great for college students and normal, working people on a budget!!!

After 1 month, I can honestly say this is the best cell provider I have ever had. The deal is simply unbeatable.

Got a Samsung Finesse phone tonight. Works GREAT! No, it is not a smart phone, but it works very well for what it is. I already pics, movies and ringtones loaded. And YES it receives international calls and text messages. You can't make international calls or text to international numbers, but you can use a calling card and e-mail through a text gateway to get a text to an international location.

For those of you who yell at customer service, good luck. You'll get nowhere. They do try, and although they are offshore (you want cheap, you got cheap) they are not bad if you are patient.

Carry on! I will NEVER go back to Verizon. (even though I am still using their system)

I called customer service to fix my browser that wasnt working. They were polite and fixed the problem fast!

The coverage with straight talk is okay, but it is possibly the worse customer service EVER. I don't believe it's worth the money that you save on the plans. It's okay as long as you don't have any issues and if you do don't expect customer service to be of any help.

STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE. POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE.COULD NOT USE MY PHONE FOR 2 DAYS AND THEY WOULD NOT OFFER ME ANY DISCOUNTS!!

I bought Samsung at Wal Mart for $99 and signed up with a $30 plan. It took about 15 minutes to reach c/s, but the number porting and activation went smoothly. The call quality is adequate and the reception is good. I can not get rid of annoying reminder of how many minutes I have left every time I make an outgoing call. Another drawback is no email capability. I have to forward my email to ##########@vtext.com in order for me to get my email messages on my straight talk phone. The problem is that most of my email messages are over 160 characters and they get cut-off. another problem is international text messaging - there's none - you can NOT send or receive any international text messages. This is the reason why I would have to go with another provider. Otherwise, this would have been perfect plan - the phones lack capability, but the call quality and c/s is good for basic user. Web browsing is slow, but reliable, although, the phone has a very primitive web browser.

DO NOT BUY INTO THIS SERVICE I REPEAT DO NOT GET A ST PHONE THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE AND U WILL SOMETIMES HAVE TO WAIT FOR A NUMBER TO BECOME AVAILABLE WHICH COULD BE 24 TO 48 HOURS OR PROBABLY NEVER

I just bought my phone two days ago and frankly I LOVE IT!
straight Talk Cell phone plans are great

Chase.... Walmart is Walmart... The kid behind the counter couldn't answer any questions or even dial customer service correctly... BUT do what I did. I bought the phone and took it home, called the 800 number on the box, had them switch my T-Mobile number to Straight Talk and set it up that way. It's costing me $45 a month for completely unlimited service that was costing me literally HUNDREDS through T-Mobile! And no contract which is fantastic when you consider T-Mobile charges you $200 to cancel their service!!! If you want better customer service, I'd suggest Virgin Mobile. It uses Sprint towers and has decent coverage for the most part. They have a $49 unlimited plan. My girlfriend uses them and is very happy with their phones etc... I went with ST because they offer the Razr phone which enabled me to do a quick transfer of my 90 contacts within seconds & remove all my pictures via computer!

QUESTION???

I was thinking about switching to this service. Can someone help me?

1)Does Walmart provide customer support at their locations for this service?

2) Can I use any unlocked phone with this service or do I need to buy one off of the StraighTalk website?

3) Do they have push email?

I am an airline pilot, got Straight Talk on the recommendation of fellow piltos who have it, have used it for a week now. It works beautifully.

Goodbye rip off AT&T. $45.00 a month is nice.

Complaints: Web browsing is a bit difficult vs. the AT&T smartphone I had, but usable. But then again who am I to complain for $45.00+Sales tax vs. AT&T for the nearly the same thing at over $138.00/month.

As the other posters here state, READ the INSTRUCTIONS. Be prepared to wait for customer service, and be VERY careful if you get a person who does not understand English or Spanish (if Spanish is your native language)..

If they can't undestand you, they can screw things up worse. Better to hang up in my opinion and get someone who can understand and converse with you.

To send text from Email: (10 digit Number) **********@mypixmessages.com

@Courtney. Your email address is: 1234567890@vtext.com (obviously area code and then seven digit phone number).

ANY plan is better than what I've had to deal with at T-Mobile!!!! Their hidden charges, voice mail retreival charges, 411 charges, fees, etc... would make my so called "Unlimited $89.00" plan end up well over $200 every month! The last straw was when my bill topped $425 for the month!! I'm really looking forward to Straight Talk! And if they don't work out, there's always Virgin Wireless or Boost! Got to say, love my Motorola Razr though!

Okay so I just activated my phone and so far I am having on problems... however, I am pretty confused. I used to go through t-mobile and in order to send pics to my phone I'd type my phone number at tmomail.com.. what is the "email" address for straight talk????

@DJ. I haven't browsed through all the remarks lately, so I apologize if this is old news to you. I have my gmail emails forwarded to my Samsung slider as a text. You do not get to see the entire email. You can recognize it's an email and not a regular text as it has gmail and vtext at the beginning and then it will show you the beginning of the message. It just depends on how big the email is, I think the text is limited to a certain amount of characters. It's very useful though and very easy to see the text, then just open your browser and go to gmail. I was originally on the 1000 text plan and used them all half way through the month because of this forwarding. I am now on the $45 plan so don't worry about how many texts come in. Setting it up in gmail was a bit of a pain, you have to use the "filter" tab. First, I unsubscribed to a bunch of useless emails that come in and in filter, you can set it up to forward you a text if the email contains certain words in email address/subject/content. I've found that using my first name as one filter does indeed send me all the emails that I want to receive. Hope I've made sense!
By the way, the tip on using the volume bar as a page up/down is excellent - thanks for that.

@DJ: I think all the email services allow pulling emails from other providers via POP. In Gmail, you go into the settings area and then POP tab. You can then specify another email provider web address, put in your username and password, and how often Gmail should pull emails from that account. It will then do it automatically. Google 'POP email' for more info. If you don't mind changing email addresses, just use Gmail instead--I like it the best of all the services I've tried, including Yahoo, Hotmail, and GMX.

@JP: you're right that the browsing on the R451C phone isn't great. The Droid phones are way better for that, for example, but then you have to pay $70+ per month and be in a contract. The R451C is fine for checking and replying to email (Gmail and Hotmail work fine for me), checking movie times, and getting text directions on how to drive somewhere. For serious browsing you need a much larger screen with touch capability (i.e. a smartphone).

@Damon

Thanks so much for writing back. I checked and yahoo was at one time offering a monthly rate now it's a yearly rate to have yahoo premium email that lets you forward your email.

i can create a gmail email address that's fine espeically that fowarding email in a txt to a cell phone is free.

But I don't know what this means what you typed: "get around it by using a Gmail account, and pulling your Yahoo emails over to Gmail via POP."

How do you pull your yahoo emails to gmail via POP? What is POP? Thanks in advance for your help !

All the best,

DJ

I am not able to receive incoming texts on my phone just bought my phone yesterday and after texting a lot of people I have had no texts in return, I have talked to these people on the phone and they have all said they replied but I never received any of them. I bought the slider samsung phone. I am very mad right now since I bought the phone for the keyboard so I can text, and customer service is not open right now.

So I read the Straight Talk Terms and Conditions on their website. I read how they are able to cancel your service if you text to vote for things on t.v. and contests, etc(called "third-party" or something like that). I have a Facebook and you can update and get notifications from Facebook throught texting on your phone. If I signed up for that, will Straight Talk punish me and cancel my service? Someone please answer my question! Thanks.

so far this is the best cell phone provider i have ever had . very few places i loose signal . they have pretty nice phones to use overall the best.

Got my phone last week. No problems. I followed the instructions exactly, - READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!! Web browsing on my Samsung R451 is ok. For the complainers, what do you expect for a low price? you want blue chip service? go pay for it. Me? I wanted a low price and am willing to work a bit for it.

Quit yer whining, and follow the instructions. I have a bunch of friends who switched, NO PROBLEMS. NOT ONE!

I purchased my straight talk phone yesterday. The phone is a SCH-R451C Activating was easy. I love it so far, I emailed pictures with no problem. It is a little hard to get aquainted with all the features, but I am 71 years old, and a little new at this. I would recommend this service to anyone.I have had a cell phone for many years, and this seems to be among the best. The big name carriers, are not the best buys.

I've had my Samsung 451C for a couple of months & have had no problem setting it up. I like the phone but need to know how to use the MP3 and get ringtones from my PC

I have been trying for 2 months to be logged in to be able to personalize my ringtones to no avail.very disappointed.

my service has been down for 3 days now and your costing me money!!!!no respect custormer service wont even take my call
??????????????????????????????/

@ amanda
or anyone with the razr
I put ringtones on the phone with the computer. Find the ringtone you want and download it to your desktop.
I found an old version of motorola phone tools on the web and downloaded it. As soon as you run the program it searches for updates.
I got the most recent version for free!
I then use mpt to transfer ringtone(or whatever files I want, including mp3's) to phone with a usb cable

I purchased the Samsung phone. Using the website, and needing no interaction with support, I was able to port a number and have my new ST phone up and running in 15-20 minutes, literally... Fortunately for me, I was porting over a Verizon number, I had current and correct account information including PIN, and my service was current and in good standing. During the process, I was directed to Verizon's site to confirm my port request and some security verification. I did a great deal of research on the ST service before buying. I got the impression(from user reviews and the many disclaimers during the porting process) that it's really pot luck as to how successful you will be. I suspect that the experience could be totally different from user to user, depending on who your current carrier is and the many variables that factor in to the whole port process.

As for the phone, I have been pleased with the decent battery life, and easy to read display. Calls are clear, and in my rural area, I have minimal problems with Verizon coverage, even considering terrain. Camera seems on par with most, although this is my first camera phone. Note that the trigger to pull up the camera is touchy and located in a spot that is apt to be pressed inadvertently.

My biggest disappointment with this phone and service is the web. I have found the web service to be of no use to me. I am a total newb to mobile web, so my experience is based from that perspective. If you are like me, what you need to know is that you should not expect the web to look anything like what you are used to seeing on your home PC. Web pages seem to be random pieces of text from the source page and a few crude graphics here and there. Now I'm not suggesting that is the fault of ST, but be aware. I guess if you want to spend $3-400 for a phone, the browser would be better featured, but I can't do that. Somehow, I just expected a scaled down version of a normal web page, and that is not how it works at all. Part of the problem is page formatting, which is the responsibility of the designer, and you will find some sites that are designed for mobile web browsers, and I suppose thats what you should look for. Obviously, my expectations were based in a misunderstanding of how things work, and that's my fault. On the other hand, what's not my fault is the many errors that have prevented me from any substantial quality mobile web experience such as 'bad gateway', 'http unable to connect' etc.. I cannot use my Yahoo email even with their 'Yahoo Mobile' service. I even tried to download an alternative browser from Opera, but of course, they have nothing that is compatible with this phone, which you will find to generally be the case considering that this is a lower end phone that is probably built specifically for ST by Samsung. Little chance of any 3rd party software development for something like that.

Bottom line, despite purchasing the $45 unlimited card, I will definitely be switching to the $30 card since the web service has absolutely been the biggest waste of time for me.

Good for phone calls, texting is fine, but don't expect much else. And good luck if you ever have to speak with support.

Hope this helps......

I bought my Straight Talk phone and card from Wal-Mart on 1/16/10 came home-read all instructions first-placed my call to activate and port my number from Verizon-Phone call took about 10 minutes and within 20 minutes total I was using my new ST plan. Verizon was great but costly for what I needed-I receive pics-text-can get on internet-no problem. If you read all "INSTRUCTIONS" first and have everything in order when you call you will be activated in no time. Phone has better service range than my old Verizon phone.

I have had my Straight Talk plan for 30 days now. I switched from Verizon Wireless. I wasn't sure how service would be---They had my phone actived and number ported over from Verizon in about 15 minutes--service is excellent and I can get on intenet with no problem. I had read several bad reviews but I have nothing but good to say about this new service---it saved me about 50.00 per month on my cell phone bill.

the only way 2 get ringtones is a credt card that pissed me off i dont not have a credt card and i try gettin free ringtones from mytinyphone.com and they dont not have my phone my phone is MOTORAZR V3a i tryed myxer.com they send me the websit to my phone but i cant download it 2 my phone any1 help me here

I like my phone i bought from walmart.. everything went great for me... to make everything easy for everybody.. go onto straight talk's website and get ur phone activited.. it goes so smooth and fast.. no need to get an headache when you dont have to... tryin to talk to someone on the phone.. hope this helps anyone out that needs this kind of help.. it helped me. I give it an 10+

I ported my number from virgin mobile only took a couple of hrs and i am satisfied i was paying 63 something a month compared to 45 with this and getting the same things here so i am hapy

Hello,
Can someone tell me what will happen after a month without refilling your account? Will they deactivate it immediatly or will they give you a grace period?

Thanks!

I bought a ST phone today. Ported my number from verizon. noproblems. good by verizon.

Trying out this service, bought the $40 plan and everything is working great...except the browser, I keep getting the message "Network Connection Lost" think I might have to contact cs. Anyone else having this problem?

straight talk sucks!!!! I had them for one hour... they had the phone programed then hour later it wouldnt work.. they tried to reprogram it again and said it wont work, i ask if i could get my money for the card refunded, they told me "that we dont give back refunds you are paying us at your own risk" and it cost other cell phone users money to call straight talk phones..they dont tell you that either, there is so much in there fine print that we dont get too see..

Ported my Verizon phone number over to Straight Talk. I did it about 2 hours ago. It took awhile with customer service, but it was smooth. It took about 5 minutes and it was active. Good bye Verizon and good riddance. 45.00 a month for VZ service is alot better than nearly 100 I was paying.

If you port your number, have patience. Tell them you want to port a number first. It is best to port your number to a new phone and a new service card. Had I done it to the existing Straight Talk phone I had, it may have taken up to 4 days.

Also, NEVER let your account run out. Or put it on a credit card for auto-refill. I was told by a supervisor, if you let your account run out, you are risking losing your cell phone number, and then it is alot of nonsense work to get it back. A shortcoming of pre-paid service I guess.
They warn you about this.

Oh well, I had another buddy port his over tonight, it worked smooth.

The only shortcoming of Straight Talk (if it is a shortcoming) is they offer only a limited number of phones. I suspect as the service grows, the phone selection will increase.

I don't think they are going anywhere soon, since they are owned by America Movil, who has a couple hundred MILLION subscribers in both North America and South America at the various companies Carlos owns.

Again, goodbye and good riddance Verizon, I'll be using your system, but not at your rip off (IMHO) prices.

I read initial reports of poor customer service and troubles dealing with the Indian call center. I activated my Straight Talk phone and woke up without my Sprint number having been ported (even thought my Sprint phone had been de-activated). I called the call center and my call was promptly answered by a tech support specialist. The gentleman spoke nearly flawless English and was helpful and thorough. Within 5-10 minutes he helped me through a few steps to getting my service up and running. I am very happy with my service thus far and the ST customer service. I am very happy with the price (the $30) one. I wish their website was a bit more complete (isn't the most user-friendly....design/content-wise). Very Happy to be rid of Sprint!!!

I have had StraightTalk service for over a week now and I am EXTREMELY pleased. Activation was relatively pain free (READ everything they send you before you start. It's all in there.) Voice and service quality is crystal clear. No dropped calls. I was spending $100 a month with AT&T. Now I get MORE for $30. What a GREAT service!!!

When I said in the last post "Verizon and AT&T can be sued" I meant ALL wireless carriers who refuse. And yes, I have used this phone from Anchorage to Miami and a dzen other cities coast to coast in the last two weeks (I am an airline pilot) AND have had about a dozen other pilot buddies use this phone nearly everywhere Verizon has service (we brought our Verizon phones) and it works GREAT! I have been a Verizon (former Airtouch, US West Cellular, etc) for about twenty years and I am cancelling within the week AFTER I port my number and BEFORE my bill cycle with Verizon ends. Straight Talk CS was ok. Not the greatest. When I decided to change my phone from a LG220 to a Samsung R451, I called customer service, had to wait for 10 minutes, but the gal (from MNL) got it done within 10 minutes. Goodbye Verizon contracts and good riddance.