I have been a Tracfone user for the last 7 years and have found the service useful particularly since the conversion to digital. That said, the customer service is abysmal. I have finally gotten a replacement phone working again after more that two weeks on the phone with their "techs" and supervisors. I had to agree to change my number before they would get my phone working again. This includes 2 replacement sim cards as well. After I was promised an additional 100 minutes for my patience and aggravation along with an interaction# I got 10 minutes and a 6 mo. extension on my expiration date which is meaningless to me as it was already into the middle of next year. I am currently looking for another prepaid service but this time I am looking much closer.

Bought one for my son, had issues setting it up...customer "no service" is horrible. After 2 hours my daughter called back repeatedly and asked for a supervisor until she got one, phone was working in minutes after she got the right person on the phone.

erika...yes you can get ringtones you can either pay an amt or have mins deducted from phone your choice... i have 6 songs on mine look under service and support... ringtones do come in original songs and just music

TracFone is not much different than other carriers other than their customer service is extremely poor and that they obviously are not concerned about this.

I have been with tracfone for 4 years, and have not had a problem yet, set up is easy. You can not beat the roll over min and time. Buy a phone that comes with double min for life and you will not be dissapointed with the value. Only wish is for a phone with qwerty keyboard to be added to line up.

I have been using tracfone for years. I ordered a new phone for my husband that I could not make calls in or out on. I was on the phone with a technician for over2 hours and could not get the phone to work. After being trnasfered several times I was disconnected. When i called back the whole procedure started again. Since they could not get the phone working I decided to send it back. Beware even if the phone they send you is defective they will not reimberse you your shipping charges. I wait to see if I am reinbersed the cost of the phone.

very disapointed had phone for 2 yrs 1st prob no help charged phone lost over 200 min didn't even offer bonus to buy new min

I've had a Tracfone for several years and never had a problem until I wanted to activate my voice mail YEE GADS what a mistake, I had to call the 800 number 2 times and was on hold for several minutes but we finally got it activated. Then my daughter bought me a new Tracfone for my birthday. It took 2 calls to the 800 number just to get the phone activated THEN i decided to activate the voice mail again. After 3 phone calls and being on hold for 1 hour each time, we MAY have the problem fixed. The people who helped me were pleasant enough but they could not speak understandable English and they had to keep transferring me back and forth between departments. I am stuck, at least for a year, but I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER TRACFONE AGAIN!!!!!

No stars would be better. I have spent five days trying to get my service and minutes restored, Their customer service doesn't take calls during most of the day due to their "high call volumn" i.e too small of a trained staff, whom are in Columbia, South America and speak little understandable English. I am buying another cell phone, No wonder Tracfone was rated the lowest of prepaid cell phone providers.

So far tracfone has offered good service, but I don't like the fact that they deduct about 1.3 minutes more than a call takes for each phone call. If you make a lot of calls this time adds up. I have complained about this, but they don't care. Accordingly, I will switch providers after my year is up.

Great phone for occasional use. Use it too much and it will get a bit expensive. I keep one for use while I'm on the road. They have legendary coverage almost anywhere. The one thing I recently discovered which I REALLY like is that I can phone other countries at the same rate as local calls. That is something ONLY Tracfone gives their customers. I've got a few traveling family members and friends so this feature means a lot to me right now.

I've been using a Tracfone for about 3 years and I love it! No problems with calls anywhere I go, I get the year airtime and get extra minutes with discounts when I find them. I use the Tracfone for long-distant calls because it saves. It is great for trips when you need to contant the persons you are supposed to meet on the way! I don't know how I got throught life without a *cell* phone now...

I've had a TracFone for two years and never needed service until two weeks ago. I have discovered that no one will help if you call the 1-800 help line. If you can fix your problems over their website that's OK. But a check with the BBB showed hundreds of complaines with their 1-800 service. If you don't need service I would give them 5 stars.

An update from my last post - Not willing to spend more hours on the phone with customer service reps, being bounced from department to department, supervisor to supervisor, I was getting ready to send the new phone back and look for another carrier when I got an email message from TracFone saying they corrected the problem. The features on my new T301G are now working fine. I really like the new phone and have never had this much trouble in the past. I have always had good luck with TracFone, and will now continue to use them.

On my old phone, I would have given them 5 stars. I have had a TracFone for years and have always been pleased with it until recently. I upgraded my phone. Now I can't get reception anywhere near my home, can't set up voice mail, and can't leave a message on my voice mail - it keeps saying "sorry, that number is invalid". I am going to give customer service one more try (this will be my 5th try), and if they can't get it working I will have to switch to another carrier. Too bad. My last cheap little Motorola phone from TracFone worked perfectly, but I just had to have a camera phone. What was I thinking?!?!

I have been a tracfone customer for 5 years and I have to say that the Customer Service is absolutely horrible. First, off you can understand their english, they lie and they will give you the run around. I always pray when I encounter problems with my phone that I don't have to call Customer service. You also have to pick your phones carefully. Some are good, and some suck. With the double minute plan you can get some really good minutes, however, for $50 you can get 1,000 minutes with Virgin Mobile and unlimited with Boost....so I'm actually thinking about going with Virgin, since the phone selection for Boost are very limited and they are too expensive.

We have 2 Tracfones and they can't seem to add mins to the second phone. we have to call Cust Surv. every month.

Stinks

I have had a TracFone for several years and just recently replaced it because it was simply getting old. First phone was NEVER a problem. New phone has been nothing but trouble out of the gate, and I cannot get ANYONE at Tracfone to explain why I can't get service in the same area I have always had service in (not to mention, their website SAYS the phone works here, but it doesn't). I am honestly thinking of switching companies now.

To Margie,
I had Net 10 for a few years.
I go on line,leave the phone on and in 5 minutes I have 200 minutes for $20.00.
Only problem was they shut me down when I found I could text my friend in the UK with the motorla V375 phone so they just sent me another sim card.
When circuit City closed down I purchased 6 of the low down LG 200 phones for $14.90 and they all came with a 300 minute card.
I now have the new Motorola slider phone.
WHAT A GEM
Can't beat net 10 for th echeap rates

Been with Trac Fone for close to 2 years -still using the first phone I purchased from them. Overall, good call quality and reasonable prices. But, Trac Fone's customer service is HORRIBLE! Last call to their toll-free customer service line had me handed off to four different people and I was on with them for an hour. Their website is slow and billing errors are common. After my last dealing with them, I'm done. Hate to give my biz to them, but their spin-off (Straight Talk) is a great deal for prepaid.

Well I have had this phone for about a year. Pretty long but not as long as I had wanted it to last. Anyway when I got it out of the package it worked fine up until about 2 monthes ago. When I recieve a call from somone, I have to wait 30 seconds before I can hear anything on the other line. Now when I call somone, it works fine. I don't know why this happens but it takes half a minute for each call.

I have had service with Tracfone for over 5 years, and I am pleased with it.

David's review (2009/07/07, see below) is detailed and complete.

I would add that customer service has always been good to me. Problems were solved in one phone call. Their customer service people do have an accent, but it is not bad: I can understand them and they can understand me.

Also, if your phone gets stolen or lost, be sure to contact TracFone IMMEDIATELY to have them cancel that account and send you a new phone -- so no one steals the minutes that you already paid for. Make sure you have the phone's serial number written down somewhere . . .

Tracfone is a good phone and a good deal for pre-paid wireless: especially if you double your minutes and buy minutes in bulk.

First off, Kudos to David on his very detailed, accurate and good humored review below!

I have personally used Tracfone for about 4 yrs now and have had absolutely NO problems what so ever! Infact, I love this service.. It's so easy and straight forward to use, not to mention very low cost. I spend maybe $20 every 3 months for my service.. I'm not a big 'talker' but am a HUGE 'texter'.. Infact my current expiration date isn't until next year and I still have over 1100 mins to use!

I agree that the language barrier with Customer Service is a bit much, but they do try very hard to please you and make things right.
I've upgraded my phones a few times, transferred my number and got a free SIM card from them.. all with no hassles or problems.. except maybe me saying, "pardon me?" cuz I didn't understand what was said.

The ONLY reason I'm looking into different 'prepaid' service plans, is becuz I text so much, I want a phone with a QWERTY board.. Tracfone does not supply those unfortunately.
But after reading all the reviews and complaints on other providers.. I'm really nervous about switching, when I have such a great provider now.
But then again, I read all the bad reviews about Tracfone, that I have never experienced with this company and figure there's just bad experiences anywhere you go and people that like to complain.

So.. I guess I'll keep looking around for a prepaid Qwerty phone, but keep my service thru Tracfone just incase I do end up not being happy with another provider.

Overall.. Out of all the providers I've had in the past.. Tracfone is THEE best!!!

I have been using tracphone now for about 5 years and it has served me well with no major issues. Adding airtime is a snap. takes about a minute - if you do it correctly

I was (key word WAS) a tracfone customer. Bought the phone, used less than to minutes, had over 1,000 minutes & the phone was stolen. Reported to police, called tracfone, reported stolen & was assured the phone was de-activated & "when you get a new phone just call & all minutes will be put on new phone". Went several weeks, got a new phone & called customer service. Ha Ha Ha. It took 6 seperate days, an hour each day, talking to idiots who DON'T know what they are doing to finally get to a supervisor who tells me the day after I reported it lost, "I" called & re-activated it. It wasn't lost, it was stolen & the thief re-activated it used all the minutes. Their reply was Oh Well, sorry. Nothing we can do for you. It did NO good to explain that I reported to stolen, that I did not re-activate it. The best they could do was tell me of their specials ir I wnated to hear them. I told them to delete me from their system, de-activate andy info & I was going out to the parking lot, put their stupid phone under one on my tires and drive over it a dozen times.
THE END, NEVER AGAIN WITH THIS COMPANY. Some friends have never had any problems. To them I say "Good for you, but when it happens, run like hell.
GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH

everytime i try to add minutes i have to call customer service this last time i had enough they said the minutes would be added but it never happened goodby to tracfone

I would give tracfone a 0 star. Piece
of crap. I just put 200 min. on now the phone won't charge.
STAY A WAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!!
GO TO AT&T OR SOMEWHERE ELSE. NOT HERE. Maybe if the people would learn how to speak English, not broken English. Like I stated. PIECE OF CRAP.

You get what you pay for!
I've been a tracfone customer for 4 years. I have finally had it with their lousy customer service. Every time I have replaced a phone, or tried to add minutes I have made repeated phone calls to get things in order.
I have been able to thole the agony of going through the process because it is normally once a year when I purchase a year long card. Tech help is from varying countries, which is not the problem. They need to hire only people with clear diction, and obviously have found some individuals. They could probably avoid a lot of abuse if they weren't so rigid in reading their scripts. They don't give refunds, so if you aren't willing to spend hours on your home phone trying to get it straight, forget it. I've tried using their web-site, but it is only good for purchasing air time or new phones. God forbid that you try to use it for tech help or activation.
If last go around had been successful then I'd probably have bought another phone from them as tracfone full-fills my limited cell phone needs.

I used my prepaid tracphone in the u.s know iam in israel how can i switch my mobile to company in israel like orang in other word i want to use orang sim card on my tracphone

Have used tracphone for years now, just a few problems. One is they can call your phone and use your time for their purposes:soliciting. They messed up my landlines today to supposedly update my codes with a non-English speaking person. I could barely understand him. I tried to complain using their contact site, but it didn't work. I'm really angry about struggling with the local phone company trying to get my home phones to work. As soon as I talked to the foreigner, and changed the codes, everything worked again. This is ridiculous.

My son and I have had tracfones for approx. the last year, and I can honestly say we have never had a problem with them. As a matter of fact, my son lost 2 of his phones, and when we bought new ones, tracfone transferred his same number, as well as the minutes he had left on both phones with no problems, which I was super happy about! Although it is sometimes hard to understand the CS people, they have always been very polite and helpful. I always purchase our minutes over the internet...by doing so, after selecting however many minutes you want, you can also purchase extra minutes at a discount, so I usually add those on, as well. I also like how I get to use promotional codes from their calendar (included when you buy the phone) for even more minutes. My son would prefer a "fancier" phone and plan (he's 18), but since neither one of us has had a problem with calls or texts, he's "OK" with it, and I'm perfectly happy with it!!

3+ year trac-phone user - rarely any issues, and all have been resolved w/ one call to customer service. Highly recommended. By the way, I purchased the double minutes option and am very pleased w/ it all.

ometimes I have to enter the number I am calling 3 times before it rings. I am within range.
And sometimes my Names & Phone numbers are hard to access in a short time.

Tracfone called me with an offer that if I purchased a one year card I would get 200 bonus minutes. But I bought the only one year card at the store and it was for 800 minutes. So I paid about 30-40 dollars more than expected. Then Tracfone won't honor the 200 bonus minutes because I didn't buy the smaller package. That was misleading and trickery as usual. I am done with Tracfone. Lets see you publish the truth. DO NOT BUY TRACFONE

I must add my 2 cents worth, I read a lot of the above and do not dispute any of them but I have had tracfone for about 10 years and have encountered 0 problems with either the phone or the service. I will agree that the customer service reps are sometimes hard to understand but that seems to be the norm no matter whos customer service you are dealing with.Tracfone is hard to beat as an option for cheap moblie service.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have had Tracfone for over six months now. I really enjoyed the service until my Double Minutes stopped being put on my phone for no reason. I called customer service and figured it would be straightened out fine. The lady thanked me for being a customer of Tracfone, and that it would take a while for the minutes to come back on my phone.

So I waited. It's been three weeks and I haven't gotten my double minutes yet. That's why I signed up with Tracfone - for their double minutes and for their low monthly price.

Now that I am not getting Double Minutes I am going to have to switch carriers. This means I have to call everyone and let them know my new number, ect. This is a pain.

I am going to probably go with net10. They are a subsidiary of Tracfone, but at least I can guarantee what price my minutes will be and be able to budget accordingly without worrying if I can afford them.

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

Several years ago, when I was driving across the country alone for 6 weeks my daughter demanded that I get a cell phone. I got a Tracphone from Kmart and have had zero problems.

Granted, I use the phone infrequently and the phone is a simple one (read cheapie). For $100 I now buy a years's service at a time and have more minutes than I ever use.

I don't require much but the service suits me fine at minimal cost for mostly standby emergency service needs.

Customer service complaints sound vicious but I have never used them.

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

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

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

April 2009 I purchased a TracFone to save money and attempted to have an existing number transferred to our new phone. After 10 days, I called TracFone only to be told wait another 72 hours. 3 times I was told to wait another 72 hours. We called the current provider Sprint who indicated TracFone made no attempt to port the number. After 3 weeks, I received a message from TracFone that they had closed my case. Meanwhile, the existing Sprint number had been cancelled. We were advised by Sprint that TracFone cannot port numbers from an account in a Business Name. After hearing this, I activated the phone with a new number. This happened April 24. I purchased 800 minutes and had been using the phone until July 2 when we discovered the phone had been deactivated.

The first individual I spoke to advised the SIM card was not compatible with our Zip Code. When I supposedly spoke to a supervisor, I was advised that the number had been deactivated in April and they could not tell me how or why? I was told at no cost they will send me a new SIM card and provide me minutes as compensation. They sent me a new SIM card which took a full week. This is where the fun began, I spoke to 13 different people and was advised TracFone did nothing wrong and it was my problem. There was no record of Tracfone providing me free minutes as compensation. They advised my compensation for all the hassels was them giving me back the minutes we still had. I was lucky they did this. This took over 1 1/2 hours to only get a new number and keep the minutes I purchased. I believe at no time did I speak to a supervisor, each supervisor had to talk to a supervisor? When asked to speak to someone higher, I was told only a supervisor can help me. Meanwhile, my husband being a small business owner has to get new business cards once again. After we use the minutes we purchased, we will go back to AT & T.

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

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

Purchased Motorola 376G phone for $29.95 at Walmart. Comes with double minutes, bluetooth, fm radio. Excellent Phone. Just plugged it in and went online to activate which online took minutes.

Tracfone is better than other prepaid phones including Net10. Net10 refill cards are expensive ($30.00) and they last for only 60 days. Tracfone cards start at $20 for 90 days.

Had a tracfone before for about 3 years and read reviews of other carriers. This was a mistake. Go with tracfone, Quality, price and service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tracfone definitely has good points and bad points, but I've yet to be tempted away from it. I love it.

THE GOOD:

No matter what is most important to you (cheap phone, cheap monthly cost, cheap minutes, or no hassles), Tracfone has a way to do that.

Cheap phone? Phones on their website usually start at $10 + shipping for refurbished phones. Wal*Mart usually has new phones at very good prices.

Cheap monthly cost? $19.99 for 90 days is $6.66/month, which is pretty low. There are carriers that beat that. For that you get 60 or 120 minutes, depending on whether your phone is "doubled" (see ADVICE below).

Cheap minutes? $79.99 for 450 minutes, doubled to 900, plus a 30+ minute bonus code, totaling 930 minutes is 8.6 cents/minute, which is very competitive. There are also carriers that beat that. Incidently, this is how I buy my minutes these days.

No hassles? Get a monthly plan, conveniently billed to your credit card. $10/month gets you 50 minutes, doubled to 100 for 10 cents a minute. If you have more than one, the family plan is only $6/month for the secondary lines, still at 10 cents/minute. Need more minutes? If you're monthly, you can buy all the minutes you want for 10 cents/minute in $10 increments online. This is amazingly convenient and hard to find elsewhere for so little. Incidently, this is how I buy my wife's minutes these days. She uses much less than I do.

Text is cheap. Messages are 0.3 minutes, which works out to 3 cents/message if you're paying 10 cents/minute, or 2.6 cents/message for me. GO find another carrier that's as cheap. Good luck. Incidently, there used to be CDMA phones that charged 0.5 minutes/message, and GSM phones with free incoming messages, but that's no longer the case.

Days of service roll over. Most carriers will roll over minutes, but not how long you have to use them. Any time you give Tracfone money, you get both minutes, and a service extention. If you use minutes slow, you end up with plenty of minutes to cover high usage. If you use minutes fast, you end up with an accumulation of days of service. I use 300 or so minutes/month, and I've had my phone long enough that at this point my expiration date is over THREE YEARS from now. If I put my phone into a drawer, didn't touch it until 2012, made no calls, and gave Tracfone no money, I'd still have 8 months to use my remaining minutes.

Its ironic that when I had a contract phone, I was obligated to pay for two years, whether I could use the service or not, whereas Tracfone is obligated to provide service to me to three years, whether I pay them or not. LOL. ROFLMAO, even!

Nobody has coverage like Tracfone. They use AT&T (for GSM) and Verizon (for CDMA). Both kinds of phones roam onto almost any network at no extra charge, which is unusual. CDMA phones used to cost more while roaming, but that's no longer the case.

Accounting is on the phone. By default, the main screen shows you how many minutes you have left and your expiration date. Other carriers have that information available, but it's always buried somewhere, since it requires a query to the network. Having the information "in your face" means you never run out of service without realizing it's going to happen.

THE BAD:

Accounting is on the phone. Tracfone has no idea who you called or how many minutes you have left. You lose the phone, and the best that you can hope for is that they will give you back the minutes from your last purchase. You also will lose the money you spent to "double" it. Don't lose your phone.

The phones are very dated, you absolutely can only use one of their phones. They have to have the special software to do the on-phone accounting. Most phones have no camera, no web, crappy games, crappy ring tones, and no downloadable content. Tracfones are for people who want their phone for voice and text (without a QWERTY keyboard). Tracfones are NOT for people who want their phone to be entertaining.

The options are very confusing. TO get the best price out of Tracfone, you need to know what you mean by "best price", and choose accordingly. A calculator is useful. Looking up bonus codes is pretty much the norm. It used to be worse, with two-for-ones and referrals.

The customer service is trying. Tracfone is owned by America Movil, which is based in Mexico city. The call center is somewhere in Central America, if I recall. English is not their native language. They mostly work from a script, and repeat everything. "What can I help you with?" "My phone is on fire!" "So I am understanding that your phone is on fire, yes?" "Yes!". Good grief.

When they do figure out what to do, they can't program your phone over the air. Instead you get to enter 20 digit codes and read the results back to the representative. Usually there are five or six codes, and I usually have to enter one of them more than once because I mistype.

Tracfones are the epitomy of "disposable phones", like TV policemen are always whining about. You can buy them with cash. You can refill them with cash. There's no record of your calls. Because of this, some people who use them are slimeballs. If you get a new number with your Tracfone, because you are not porting in your own number, about half the time you get a "bad one". By this I mean that you get calls from lawyers, banks, bill collectors, and angry ex-girlfriends, none of whom believe that the number has changed hands and all of whom love to leave obnoxious voice mail. This is only a slight exageration... Fortunately, you can ask for a new number, but then you are talking to custumer service again.

You have to play stupid games to get a CDMA phone in a GSM area. See ADVICE below.

ADVICE:

"Double" your phone. Because Tracfone's phones can only be used on their network, then subsidize them like a post-paid carrier would. The money you spend to "double" the phone essentially repays the subsidy, so they can afford to give you a better rate. This normally costs $50, but it's down to $25 now. All the more expensive phones come with double minutes already. The only reason you wouldn't pay for a "Double for Life" card is if you expected to spend less on airtime than the cost of the "double" card ove the entire life of the phone. "Double" it.

Use bonus codes. Tracfone is always sending out special offers. Most codes add 30 minutes when you add airtime, but sometimes you can 60 minutes or more. Sign up at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tracfone_Users/ and look in the Database section, and you will find many collected cosed.

Sign up for "Buy Now". You give Tracfone your credit card, and then you can easily add airtime, even if you're stuck by the side of the road, even if you've lost your wallet. You still have to put in a PIN, so someone getting your phone can't drain your credit card. You can still use a bonus code, if you have one handy. The only reason you wouldn't do this is because you don't want anyone to have your credit card.

Consider the Value Plans. You'll never run out of service, and it's the least up-front money to get 10 cent minutes.

Prepare for customer service. Don't bother unless you have at least 30 minutes to spare. I like to do it while I'm washing dishes or something.

Don't bother with Net10, which is also owned by America Movil. The big deal with Net10 is that all your minutes are 10 cents. With a doubled phone, that's no problem anyway. Either the $10/month value plan, or $40 200 minute card will match that. In the case of the card, you can beat it just by using a bonus code. The downside of Net10 is that you have to spend a minimum of $15/month. THe only way to get better than 10 cents/minute with Net10 is to spend $400. Sure, you get 8 cent minutes, but you're also paying $200/year for service and the up-front cost is all lost if you lose the phone. Text messaging is also 5 cents, not 3. Bleah.

Consider whether you want AT&T (GSM) or Verizon (CDMA) as your carrier. Tracfone would prefer you use GSM. If you live in an area with AT&T coverage, that's what you're going to get. If you want GSM, just buy a phone. In order to get a CDMA phone if you live in a GSM area, you have to buy it online and lie about where you are going to use it. When the web site asks where you are going to use it, put in a zip code that has Verizon coverage but not AT&T. You can identify those by looking at the coverage maps from the carrier's websites. Hint: lots of that in Virginia. When it's time to put in your shipping address, you can put in your real address. It's no problem if they don't match: maybe you are buying it for your cousin or something. When you get the phone and activate it, use your real zip code. Again, no problem. Maybe you changes your mind or something. I've never had a problem, and I greatly prefer Verizon. I love my LG200 C.

Good luck. I think it's worth all the nonsense. Good rate. Good network. Good (basic) phone. On-board accounting.

This is the worst possible company to work with. It took 2 hours on the landline to activate the phone. THEN it would not roam....2 more hours with people with only passing knowledge of English. NEXT it would not accept prepaid time. Another lengthy discussion (holding) with customer service(?). Of course, customer service closes after business hours. Somehow, they never give all the "codes" necessary to program the phone for even rudimentary service. Could this not be done when the phone is sold?

I plan to stomp the thing flat and grind it to powder. That's the only value I can see for the thing - entertainment!

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

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

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

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

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

While I have used Tracfone for over two years and have been generally satisfied, I am currently having a technical issue and I need to talk to customer service. After being told by the Tracfone automated service that I should expect a ten minute wait, I have now been holding for going on two hours. Every 45 seconds I have been hearing:

"Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold until the next customer service representative is able to take your call. Remember having your battery charged and your phone serial number available will help us serve you better."

I feel that I am being lied to every time I hear:

"Your call is very important to us."

I will be changing my provider.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

p.s.-I plan on dumping AT&T for a Tracfone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the mountainous region where I live, Tracfone is the only phone that I can depend on where others, such as ATT and Verizon fail. I've been using a Tracfone since 2001, my first one was a pre-digital Nokia analog handset. I used that phone all over the country, and only remember losing service in some forsaken Illinois backwater areas.

I now use a simple LG clamshell digital, and the service is still reliable here in the mountains. A friend of mine often borrows my phone when we go camping, because her ATT has no signal.

I did remove a star, because once several years ago some purchased minutes did not get added to a phone properly, and I could barely understand the CS rep. I did get resolved, but not in an expeditious manner, due to the language barrier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bogus service provider!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If all you do is buy the phone once and use it for the year (or three months) it's an OK deal. If you have to call customer or tech support for ANY reason it becomes a horrible deal. The people have a difficult time with English, have no power to fix problems, do not understand even the most basic issues, and keep repeating "Standby while I update my system" until you are ready to throw up. You will spend an average of half an hour on the phone for even the simplest problems.

In my case I had my phone stolen, so I needed to cancel my old phone, purchase a new one, activate it with my old minutes and time and keep my phone number. This was WAY over their heads and I ended up with fewer months of service and a new phone number.
Buyer beware!!!

One great advantage to my C139 was the ease of use and clarity of sound calling the USA from Italy. My husband's (not a Tracfone) "better" phone would not get through! And we didn't even have to but any special kind of minutes!

The disadvantage is that there is no adapter available to recharge it in the car.

I rarely use it but have never had a problem when I have to no matter where I have called from. And since I rarely use it I get the annual card so I don't have to worry about it expiring ... I just try to focus on using all of those minutes I have accumulated! But then again .... it costs me less than $10/mo just to have the assurance of having a phone handy for any emergency. You can't beat that now can you??!!

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

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

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

Didn't mean to drag out a sob story, but want to stress what HORRIBLE customer service they have. They will tell you something, but don't back it up with the service. My husband has a Trac Fone, and he has had the same problem. The phone itself is fair, if you don't mind having to always add minutes. Personally, I DO NOT have a Trac Fone and you couldn't pay me enough to own one!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

We have two tracfone phones right now. My oldest son's phone is the cheapest base model (the 10 dollar phone) because it's his first phone and I didn't want to get him anything expensive just for him to beat it up and lose it. I got the double minutes promotion for him, and it's worked out okay. He doesn't really need to use it very often so it works out and it's cheap.

I also have one of the LG600 models, and for the first month it was fine. Now every time I try to purchase more airtime the site tells me the transaction cannot be processed. I sent a support ticket and they replied back to me "You need to purchase additional airtime for this phone." Well, no crap, that's what I'm trying to do.

Basically as long as your phone is working and you don't need any help from a person you're all right! I've never had my calls drop or anything like that. But, getting real customer service is pulling teeth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am surprised how most of the guys in this forum pass sweeping statements without any knowledge!! One, customer care for tracfone is horrible. But it is NOT located in India. I am an Indian American and have a hard time talking to them!! To put facts right, they have call centers in Colombia, Guatemala, Belize, Guyana, and Philippines. Just go to the reputed website like wikipedia.com to find more before you say something.

However, I have to agree that its customer service sucks. Other than that, I find the service good. Nice coverage at most places and good rates. I gave it 3 starts due to poor customer service; it took me 15 days to buy tracfone online!

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

cant get it activated, cant understand customer service techs and got sick of being transfered to other ones so they could activate it!! Scam???

I have had my tracfone for years. I have an old Nokia phone. Never had a problem loosing calls, or adding new minutes. I only have to recharge the battery once a week. I love it.

I wish I had seen this Website before I purchased 2 tracfones one week ago. I could not get mine actived at all & we wanted the phone #'s that we have had for 10 years with our previous carrier, transferred to these 2 new phones. Well that didn't happen. After 2 calls to customer service in Africa (1 hour+ each) my # was finally transferred to my new tracfone. However my husband has lost his old phone number forever. (They said it had already been reassigned to someone else.) I haven't even used either phone yet. (HAVE TO WAIT 24 HOURS!!) Looks like I have made a big mistake.

If only these reviews were mandatory reading for anyone considering this sham of a company. Rest assured every negative review is true and then some, and then consider how many more people have similar experiences and don't post here. DO NOT labor under the illusion, perpetuated by Tracfone, that you'll be able to port an existing phone number to a new Tracfone. You won't! It will not work, and they'll have no clue how to fix it, but they'll tell you -- day after day after exasperating day -- to call back in 24 hours or 72 hours or 4 hours... essentially, what that means is we can't fix it, but let's get you off the phone and if you don't tire of calling us, we'll deal with you later. 50 bucks thrown down the drain and not one minute of calling service! I'm going to contact the BBB, and when the class action suit is filed against these thieves by some lawyers looking for an easy win, I dearly want to take part.

This company in an ABOMINATION.

I can't think of a really really bad word, but abomination about does it.

CHEATERS. THIEVES. LIERS.

Seriously, I am not kidding.

I purchased a Double Minutes for LIFE card and they "turned it off" suddenly and told me that I never purchased a Double Minutes for Life, but a Double Minutes for One Year. Since I don't print receipts of my orders, I have no way to defend myself. And now, I don't have double minutes even though I paid for them.

The aggravation I have gone through with them has taken 2 years off my life. TracFone is a swear word in my household and my sister says it to me when she wants to see smoke come out of my ears.

BUYER BEWARE!

I just got a TracFone and I've been using it for about 2 weeks. I'm a teenager who wants to pay for everything herself, so for me, when I found the Motorola phone with the Double Minutes loading in, I thought it was great.

I'm computer savy, so I didn't use costomer service. I activated my phone through the internet and it was VERY easy. Easier than I thought it would be.

I love the phone itself. It's atractive, has a camera, easy to text with. I also love the feature that allows you to put minutes from a card onto the phone.

I've never been gyped of minutes and I've put on about 5 phone cards with no problems. I've downloaded ringtones and graphics, sent text and photos no problem.

I'm only giving this 3 stars though, because for me the phone isn't so great to have. First off, minutes are exspensive! The Double Minutes helps, but I'm still spending as much money as I would with a regular phone service plan. (I don't want that because if I don't want to have to pay monthly.) For me this is very hard to upkeep. I'm looking a bit for a cheaper phone service right now, but I really am sad to leave the phone itself behind, cuz I love it.

I was a Tracfone customer for many years (2001-2007). I had no problem w/the phones or customer service until 2007. The debit card I used to pay for service each month had expired and my bank had issued a new card w/a new number. I informed Tracfone so there wouldn't be any problem w/charging the wrong card. Well sure enough, even though I'd tried to ward off this problem the did indeed try to charge the expired card even though I'd given them the number of my new debit card as a replacement! For about four months every time payment was due they tried to charge the expired card number even though I called and spoke w/cust service (all the reps spoke broken English) each time and was assured this problem would be corrected and I wouldn't have to deal w/it the following month. Each month as they tried to charge the expired card I got emails stating that payment was denied and my service would be terminated within days if payment wasn't made! I got so fed up that I wrote a letter to their corporate HQ. And man, who spoke perfect English, called in response to my letter. He also did NOT understand the simple problem of replacing the number of the new debit card for the old expired card. He told me that Tracfone owed me minutes-- I knew that wasn't true, I had no extra minutes due to me, but he told me to punch in a code on my phone to get the minutes. I tried anyway, thinking the least they could do was give me extra minutes for all my trouble. Well the phone displayed a "code denied" message b/c, as I originally stated, they did NOT owe me minutes! He still didn't understand that my complaint was about Tracfone charging the wrong card each month! Finally in January 2008 Tracfone cust service told me the problem I'd been having was b/c they were trying to charge the wrong card! NO KIDDING?!!! What a bunch of morons! When payment came due that month, you guessed it, they once again tried to charge the expired card! So I dropped them like a hot potato and switched to Virgin Mobile and haven't had a problem since!

BEWARE, be informed of "Free 3 day" shipping from Tracfone. Tracfone offers free 3 day shipping on many of their phone offers thru fedex express. They do not inform you until after checkout that a signature is required for delivery. WELL thats fine for folks that are at home during the daytime, but for most people who work during the day it is not possible. I missed delivery 3 days and finally had to drive 50 miles to the fedex facility to pick up phone. SO you see it is niether FREE or 3DAYS! Do yourself a favor if you are not at home during the day and spring 6 bucks for the USPS prioity mail! Otherwise I've been using tracphone for many years with great reception and little issues and I will follow up this review with a W376g review.

Bought mine 2-1/2 weeks ago, and then one for hubby a few days later.

So far I'm out $50 for 2 phones (one for me, one for hubby) and I STILL can't use mine after 2 weeks. I ported my AT&T cell # to my new phone and wasn't told upfront that I'd need a new SIM card to make it operational with the ported #.

(Can't they inform you of this when you are purchasing online -- i.e., if you will be porting a cell # from another carrier, you'll need a new SIM card, and here's where you order it while you're arranging to port your old number?)

So I called CS to port my old number. Thank G*d I called from a landline or I wouldn't have any minutes left. What a CF. Can't understand the CSRs. And the people in CS in Direct Sales aren't much better ... but at least their English is a little easier to understand. I thought I'd get the SIM card with the 2nd phone yesterday, but nooo. Another call to Direct Sales, another 20 minutes out of my life.

I'm really PO'd because I dumped AT&T to do this, and my AT&T plan was a low-end one which they don't offer anymore but I was 'grandfathered' into it. So I can't get back on my old AT&T plan even if I wanted to, and even tho' I have AT&T everything else in my house (landline, DSL, U-verse)! Plus, everybody but G*d has my old cell # & it would be a major PITA to change it to a new one. Resumes, family members, you name it. I bought a Family Value plan to make sure we'd both have minutes automatically added each month, but I can't add his phone to the plan until mine gets straightened out.

I mailed a nasty letter to TracFone's Executive Resolution Dept. yesterday, but I don't know if it will do any good. If not, I'm taking my case to a local TV consumer reporter.

And these phones had better work after all this hassle. I'm unemployed and was trying to save money, but so far it's cost me all sorts of aggravation.

When I first got a Tracfone about 6 years ago I was happy with it for a pre-pay though it was a bit expensive for the calls. Since the phones were "upgraded" they recalled my old phone that I had spent about $60 on the phone, power cords, case, etc for. The "trade" they gave me is the phone Wal-Mart sells for $13.00! My phone was one of the nicer phones and they send their cheapest to replace it due to their own "upgrade" which 1.Does not allow me to program different rings for different callers (I drive for a living and don't want to have to look @ the i.d. - one of the reasons I'd gone with Tracfone in the 1st place) 2.The lighted display cannot be adjusted to stay on for more than a few seconds (The old phones were adjustable so that I could keep this lit. Since I work out of my car at night this was a key feature) 3.My phone and instructions say that the phone can lock but none of the reps can help me get it to work and the following the included instructions does not work either 4.The calculator buttons are exactly opposite from the old phones so now when I'm trying to add together totals for my customers, I have to be careful not to hit the subtract button! IDIOTS! 5.I can FEEL the new service through my spinal cord! The signal vibrates through my spine when my phone rings but the signal cuts out all of the time and I have LOTS of dropped calls since the upgrade (nice, strong signals with the old phones, guys, without the spinal injury! 6.NONE OF THE REPS SPEAK ENGLISH! 7.One second of the phone ringing costs 1 full minute if I end the call after 1 second! 8.The company sends TONS of messages, tying up my phone while I'm working, costing me $ since I'm a food delivery driver and sometimes miss customers as a result 9.The company reps DO NOT HAVE A MAILING ADDRESS TO SHARE FOR THIS COMPANY AND CLAIM IT'S JUST AN ON-LINE COMPANY! How can a company not have a mailing address!? Do they pay taxes? When I ask the reps what country the company is located in they just say on-line! ON-LINE is NOT a country!!!! 10.There are at least 1000 reasons that this company reeks of filth like AT&T (who are also dirty rotten thieves - triple billing my debit card one month, bouncing my car insurance and then just crediting my bill instead of rectifying their error!)
DEREGULATION IS THEFT!!!!!!!

Wow! Talk about a tale of two companies! Either great or terrible. I guess I'm lucky; the Tracfone company I've been dealing with for the last seven or eights years has been the great one. Never a dropped call; coverage from D-C to the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore to Disney World. Minutes carry over and the expiration date is extended -- and it's all right there on the screen. TracFone's phones are getting more "hip" all the time -- if you care about that sort of thing (I don't). I purchased "reconditioned" phones for my parents and those phones have been fine. I've looked at other companies plans...and my eyes glaze over! The bottom line: get TracFone and keep life simple.

So far so good.

been trying for better than 2 weeks, on the phone more than 6 hours, they sent a new w376g, and still cannot get cell tower signal. wife has a tracphone and it works fine, so needless to say our cell tower works. i'm not sure i am up to calling them again! there is not enough time in the day to deal with them. i guess you get what you pay for and it's not much.

I have three tracfones for three members in my family. I have enrolled all the phones in the value plan which costs about $26/month for all three phones! Our need (along with landline) is fulfilled very well. May not be good for people who depend on cellphones alone.

Customer service is no more with this company have call 10 times and issue still not resolved! Do not use!

i dis like tracefones becuase uv the units when bieng real low and not able to reloaded on time it takes more cash and cuase cant even have a calling log records uv every out going calls and recieved calls..

I have owned my TracFone for several years now and never had any problems with it. Remember, Tracfone has disabled you from connecting to a computer, so, if you have a picture phone, you can not download your pictures to your computer (even with a SD card, they have disabled that too). The best you can do is send your picture via your phone to a computer or another phone. I normally buy minutes that last a year so I only need to renew once a year. My suggestion for some of the people who are having problems returning their phones they are not happy with is to buy from some place like Walmart who has a pretty liberal return policy. If you have problems with the phone (or service), simply return it....the only problem being any unused minutes you may have bought.

tracfone is a ridiculous plan made for people who don't use theur cellphones.

Terrible. Would never use trackfone again. Customer service was awful. Course who knows what country they are even in.

For the sake of time and space I will not even share the ordeal I endured with this "cell service provider" simply because I purchansed a new phone and attempted to actually get it to work. I will leave it at this. Anyone that is even remotely leaning towards using Tracfone, please take note of the negative remarks posted here by others as I can assure you that they are all true. Dealing with Tracfone "customer service" will be the biggest frustration and excersise in futility you will ever have the misfortune to endure in your entire life as a consumer. There really needs to be a 0 stars option for rating this particular company.

I saw a phone that was affordable and looked nice but when I went to find out how much it costs per minute and per text I get nothing. I call the tracfone office and I can't even recieve a conversation with a live adviser. I am grateful for having read these review before making a horrible purchase.

Ehh, I know why this phone sucks, Tracfone is pissed because they lost their lawsuit a few months back by not being able to stop people from converting there phones over to other carriers. Now they want people to pay for every little thing they can get, these are the worst type of people in the world. When I can't even download a freaking ringtone from an outside source that tells me one thing. Greedy S.O.B.'s.

I bought a re-conditioned Motorola phone in October '08, and it completely died March '09. When I called, a customer service rep assured me that he had ordered a replacement for me then and there. Not only that, it would be an upgrade and I'd get 200 free minutes for the inconvenience. That was 3/12. I waited--no phone. I called on the 24th and learned that there was no order in the system and it was not TracFone's policy to do anything except replace the dead phone with the same model, and refund the unused minutes. The rep I spoke to on the 24th took no responsibility for any mistake on TracFone's part, in fact she tried to blame ME. Since then I've gotten form letters with some lame apologies. It's been very interesting to see that TracFone rates so poorly when it comes to customer service! They just don't care, I guess. I'm looking for another service.

My wife bought me a Tracfone for Christmas with the idea that it would be a cost-effective alternative to AT&T. One day I turned on the phone and found "no service." Our credit card had been stolen, there was a charge-back to Tracfone, then a full proven reimbursement from our credit card company to Tracfone. After calling customer service for weeks and literally being kept hanging on the phone for nearly 2 hours each time, they couldn't reactivate the phone - even if I used a completely different credit card and offered to again prepay for minutes they had already been reimbursed for. Easily one of the worst customer service experiences I've ever had. We're going back to AT&T.

Got a Tracfone for occasional use and am basically satisfied. Only major problem is that whomever had the phone number before me must have skipped out on her bills, because I am getting lots of calls from angry creditors...

Tracfone's much vaunted customer service has deteriorated into disservice. Thanks to the behavior of their CSRs (and their inability to understant english) a minor problem turned into a major one. After 4 1/2 hours of phone calls over three days, they were still unable to provide service to what had been a working phone. I was never able to get an explanation of what they had done on their end to screw it up. Finally had to threaten to turn the whole thing over to our state attorney general to get them to act. If any one wants a Tracfone--just check my trash can out by the street.

If you don't keep feeding the pig for more air time your paid minutes are lost. I lost 124 paid minutes so far. In addition, at times they don't honor the double minutes they promote.

The international friends and family numbers are a scam and cannot be used by the friends in other countries. The numbers are all subject to long distance charges as they are not local numbers. This seem to happen as a result of a lack of knowledge of the phone systems in other countries.

I have used Tracfone for over 6 years and have been very pleased with it. A year ago I switched to AT&T prepaid - and dropped it after a month - I never could get reception in my area with that phone. I went back to Tracfone which I never have problems with . I do all my business with them online - and I have never had a problem - I did have to call service once - again - no problem.

We were happy tracphone customers for many years, until the phone I purchased last Fall did not work. Tracphone sent two replacement phones, neither of which worked. We sent back the replacement phones after we got the original phone to somewhat work. Since then the company cannot find the replacement phones which were returned. They called many times and were told the phones had been sent back. Two days ago my phone did not allow me to make any calls. I had been using it up to that point and the screen shows an expiration date of June 09 and hundreds of minutes left. After literally hours on the phone with customer service, they have not offered any satisfaction. They insist we have not returned the replacemet phones and yet they say they have no way of tracking there whereabouts. They have terminated the phone I was using with no warning or explanation. The customer service since this began in October 08 has been horrible. I could not believe your statement that tracphone is known for it's great customer service. We have experienced the exact opposite. We are going to cancel the two phones our family has left with tracphone. We will be filing a complaint with the BBB. They owe us hundreds of minutes. If I could have, I would have given them -10 stars!

the phone works everywhere we go no problems. easy . did not come with a COMPLETE manual found one online tells more detail information. but for the money no big bills great

I am also surprised at the bad reviews. I have had my Tracfone for three years and love it. It's a little C320 (I think that's the number). I paid $28 for the phone and charger. I bought a lifetime double minutes card for $140... it came with 800 minutes. The phone costs me like $80 a year to use... at the most. Great reception, and the battery lasts for days on standby. Now my wife and daughter have Verizon. Their phones cost over $2,400 in fees in two years! And their account has over 6,000 rollover minutes, unused! Maybe if they had the phones glued to their faces like many today, $1,200 a year would seem reasonable... we can't wait to dump the expensive plan, and get two more Tracfones. If only we could convert the Razrs to Tracfone, life would be perfect... Work on it guys, and you will get all those millions of customers who don't want to give up their fancy phones...

Have owned the Motorola C139 for a little over 2 years now. The best thing that I can say for Tracfone is that I can almost always get a good signal. My first cell phone was with Verizon; never good reception esp. in our area. 2nd cell phone was Cingular; also poor reception. So far, Tracfone has the best signal, usu. 5 bars. Can even get a good signal when friends can't get one on their newer, fancier models. Love not having that monthly bill. ;)

Rating for my experience is a negative 10. Nothing but frustration. Bought 2 tracfones, one for work only, the other for personal use. LG for 49.95 activated but did not work--couldn't hear due to static. As per customer service, another was sent. This one was refurbished (original one was brand new) and it didn't work either; also the 809 minutes I paid for but never had the chance to use were not included on the replacement. Spent 49 minutes on the phone with tech and cust service only to find that the serial # was wrong for the phone and they would have to send out yet another one. Phone #2: this one was a tmoble for 29.95. Activated ok but the airtime card I paid 99.99 for would not work. Another 20 minutes with tech suppport. I have to take the card back to the place I bought it (Kmart)and have it rescanned. Then I can try again and maybe it will work. All in all, I still don't have a phone, and I am about 200 dollars in the hole. Trying tracfone was the biggest mistake I ever made. Buyer beware.

Got their c139 motorola one year ago. No whistles or bells. Drove to California & back. I never text, so can't comment there. Never had any problems. Oh year, I transferred my old cell phone number to this one, they mailed me a new sim card. Never had a day of difficulty with them. Just a dead area at church, but then my wife's phone (different carrier) goes dead too, it's behind a mountain.

Good luck to all you people thinking you're going to get refunds. They make you ship back at your expense (and these people clearly can't be trusted so it only makes sense to ship back with receipt verification service, which will take more of your money), and they charge a restocking fee. Never mind that their garbage product never worked, and never mind that the service is beyond atrocious. I gave up and ate the wasted money. It wasn't worth the few cents I'd have net of my own costs to go to the trouble. I hope someone starts a class action suit against this deliberate ripoff company and puts its sorry rears out of business.

*I agree with the person who said why can't there be ZERO stars!

Terrible service.
Poor business practices.
Below standard equipment.
Incompetent Technical Support.
---And, I live in AMERICA!

Could someone please connect me to someone who speaks English..No, english..What, no I said.........E N G L I S H Geez.

I first bought these phone for my children, the phones that I bought from Walmart would not work in my area...3 weeks for Tracfone to send out replacement phones. Drove cross country and added time..missed 1 1/2 hours of a business meeting because Tracfone didn't know how to load minutes properly (long story I broke my Verizon phone, so I was using my son's phone!) Even with the 'new, better phones" we were still getting shoddy reception ON BOTH so I didn't buy more airtime.
Today I spent 3 hours w/ customer service. Issue:
Cannot load airtime.
Phone not accepting airtime.
Phone takes 24hrs to activate.(I didn't see THAT in the paperwork anywhere)
One of the phones took the airtime after an hour of programming BUT it doesn't even have a phone number!
--Now, I can't get the $40.00 back that I put on these phone this morning..I STILL can't use the phones AND I WONT use them!
Tracfone, good job. I am impressed and will be puchasing Verizon phones for my children. Tracfone, you are a ripoff and I will tell everyone that I know how much I deplore your company.
Q. Anyway that I could sue for the monetary damages Tracfone cost me..not to mention the mental anguish that I have suffered due to this company?

When I make a call, everyone says I am hard to understand, and it sounds like I am talking underwater. It happens at all times of the day, from different locations, and to any number I call.

I called the service department February 25, 2009 at 11:13 a.m. and described my problem. The service person said he would make a note of it and if I had a problem, to call back in a few days.

The phone continues to have problems. No one can understand me, and it sound like I am talking underwater.

I called the support number again on March 13, 2009 at 12:09 p.m. and explained my problem again. They called my phone and said it sounded fine and there was nothing they could do to help me. I asked for a replacement phone, and she said it was not possible since the could hear me "fine".

I told her again that no one could understand my phone calls and there was a problem with the phone. A replacement phone would solve the problem. She talked to her supervisor repeatedly during the call, but they refused to replace my phone.
I explained that I shouldn't have to pay for a service that didn't work properly, but the supervisor refused to replace the phone.

I asked to talk to the supervisor and she said she was on her way to a meeting and please hold. I held for 40 minutes, and the service person came back on the line and said that the supervisor is now out of the meeting and would take my call shortly. I said thank you, and then she hung up on me.

I was on the phone for 1:59 minutes. Nothing was resolved, my phone still does not function correctly, and they refuse to even try to solve my phone problem.

Terrible support. Terrible service. And a call center in India that feels that they don't have to listen to anyone. If they wait long enough, maybe I will get tired of holding, and just go-away.

A dis-satisfied customer.

There's only one reason to buy a Trac Fone. Only do it if you have a friend or relative working in the call center in India. Because you will be talking to them ALL the time.

1 star is more than generous.

This is absolutey the worse company for customer service imaginable. I live in a rural area, so I have to buy more minutes and time on my land-line phone or the internet. For 3 days and numerous calls and on-line attempts and promises of callbacks from them (which doesn't happen), I haven't been able to buy more time. Trac Phone customer service is beyond ridiculously bad.

I have never been able to get my phone to work. Its been 2 weeks and it still wont work. I call customer service and they say wait 24 hours. Now they tell me to wait 48 hours. On top of that the customer service people barley speak english and you can barley understad what they say. After 2 weeks and dozens of phone calls I realize I have been screwed. Oh well live and learn

I have to give Tracfone two stars because I have used Trafone for 2 years and was very pleased with it, thus the two stars (otherwise I could not give them even one star!!). I made the mistake of ordering a new phone on-line so I could have a camera phone, now two weeks after receiving it, I have been forced to demanded my money back, otherwise I may loose my sanity trying to deal with the offshore tech support. The phone they sent was broken, the next one they sent was a net10 phone and reconditioned. I made it clear that I want a NEW phone that works since that was what I paid for and then they sent a reconditioned phone. I now have three phones to return and today I demanded the refund. I was told by the offshore support that "this will be a very long process". I would be very surprised if I ever got a refunded. In the last two weeks I have had to call them seven times and have spent hours on the phone with them, on hold for most of it. Tracfone is great if you are never in need of tech support. I think the goal of the tech support is to drive Americans crazy.

Worst Phone Ever! Go with AT&T's go phone.

I have tried for three weeks to up grade my old trac phone to a new trac phone. every time i try, the call center in india say it will take 24 hrs.24 hrs later i call and they say 24 more hours.IF YOU WANT GOOD SERVICE DONT USE TRAC PHONE.

I purchased the phone for "just in case" issues as I have a 40 mile commute. That means I have a lot of minutes on my phone and if I don't want to lose them, I have to buy more minutes. I would like it if they have cards with 10, 20, or 30 minutes and to make them rollover minutes.

twice now have paid for mins and they did not put them on phone they are dishonset

For what the tracfone w3763g does, it does well. The plan is actual reasonable and thats what I like about it. However if you want to use mp3 for ringtones you can't. The USB function is disabled and you have to buy their ring tones. So far I haven't figured out away to actually get a mp3 on it. If you email it to yourself, it gets stripped off. I think if you pay for the phone, you should get the actual features of it. The sad thing is that I JUST got this phone today and I'm already looking for a better phone.

As others have stated, customer service at Tracfone is absolutely horrible and you will spend hours on the phone only to be told to call back in 24 hours. We have three members with tracfones, and used the service for years without problem, but that was until the phones needed to be replaced. Just as others have reported, moving your phone number and minutes to a new phone is a nightmare that will cost you many hours on the phone, possibly take weeks to complete, and is not likely to end with success. The reps at tracfone are polite, but seemingly unable to actually solve problems. The dialog with customer service is almost laughable, but after an hour or more on the phone you lose your sense of humor. And of cours, every call ends with "it will take 24 to 72 hours to process this change, so please call back then".

THANKYOU BILLIE!!! we have been working on a problem for over a month!! One phone call with the exec line and 5 minutes done and over with. *228 reprogrammed our phone off roaming!!!

I just got a tracfone and i would say it was a pretty good deal... I just need to know how to download different ringtones onto it. Pluss one thing that i don't like about it is that the bluetooth does not work... : ( Otherwise, overall happy.

I Had 3 different trac phones I had lost calls and dead zones almost every day. I wouldn't buy another one. Also i have another prepay carrier that works perfect for 10cents a minute 24/7 .

I've had Tracfone and never had any problems. I do agree that the customer service is REALLY bad but it's such a super deal in the long run. I only long for the day that they offer mobile web. I want to access my Facebook like everyone with a "real" phone.

Where is the O stars option? This ridiculous outfit and its sorry excuse for a cell phone deserve negative stars. Bought the phone, went to activate it on the web site. Error message, though I followed instructions to the T -- web activation failed, call Customer Service. As many here have already noted, Tracfone has none! They only have idiots in India who are stuck using a system that doesn't work and are incompetent liars, besides. I was taken through a series of questions, told to hold, spent 30 minutes at a time, at least 10 times over the past 2 weeks now. STILL no activation! They have no clue what to do. But they will only refund my money with a "restocking fee" and I have to pay to send the phone back. Basically, Tracfone is stealing my money and telling me it's tough luck. I'm going elsewhere, and making a complaint to the BBB. After seeing the other reviews here, and on Amazon, I'm convinced this is a scam operation that needs to be stopped.

Forgot to mention in my last post that the bundle was $30 and included free double minutes for life, usually a $50 added cost. Also, when I was done setting up the phone online, it asked me to complete a survey. I agreed because i wanted to let them know how easy it was for me to set the phone up online, and then the survey started getting legal (do you have the customer service phone number and do you understand that you have to buy minutes before the end service date even if you have minutes left...) and asked for personal info (age, income, gender,etc). They also wanted to know what other phones I have and who with. Basically, it's none of their da** business so I closed the site without finishing the form. Why would i give a company in another country that info? It's bad enough they will know the numbers I call, etc....

I have had Tracfone for several years and have never had any trouble. The phones have always worked fine and customer service has always been able to help me with any problems or questions I've had. I'm on my 4th Tracfone only because I keep buying phones with more features.

Great cheap BASIC phone,If you don't talk a lot. Nationwide coverage.You can get the phones with double minutes for life, included, for $15 at Walmart. 1 year of service and 450(900) minutes is $99. So you don't have to keep buying airtime or paying bills every 30 days. Minutes left and expiration date shows on the screen. Buy airtime at your convenience 2-3 times a year and text or talk for about $15-25 bucks a month with no hassels.

I purchased the TracFone Bonus package from WalMart on Feb 27th, 2009. Today, 2-28-09, I easily activated the phone via TracFone.com and it went without any problems. In fact, it was easy enough for a child to use! However, I can see how they drain your minutes setting up the voicemail, etc. When i set up the voicemail, the recorded voice tried to go through the whole tutorial while i was on the phone and minutes were being deducted. It will also ask you stupid questions over and over like "Do you want to change the greeting" and you press 1 for yes. Then it asks "Are you sure you want to change your greeting?"...c'mon, very obvious they are trying to tie you on the line to drain your minutes. But so far Day One with tracFone has been a breeze, just beware the "minute Drainers"!

If I could give 0 Stars, it would still be too high. I run a food pantry and we just moved to a new facility this week. Last week I purchased and activated my Tracfone to use as a filler until our landline can be restablished. I verified the number that afternoon and then notified the various media outlets of the temporary number. On 2/26 I discovered that the phone did not work. I spent over 90 minutes on my personal Unicel account minutes trying to straighten out the number. It was Kyocera's error, and they were unable to connect that number to the phone. I need this phone because I provide food assistance to low-income people. After over 90 minutes I was given no choice but to take a new number and was given 10 free minutes for my frustration. I then had to renotify EVERY media outlet and social service provider with the new number. Hopefully, my clients will be able to find our facility on 3/2. 10 minutes of extra time wasn't enough. Your service is time-consuming, and frustrating. Very few people, including my husband of 30 years, have ever heard me use foul language, but I did yesterday. I have posted my Facebook page and emailed everyone I know and told them to never use your porduct. If I ever see someone picking up one of your phones to purchase, I will do everything in my power to convince them that using a your services is a mistake and to take their business elsewhere.

What a rip-off. When I bought a new Tracfone they wouldn't transfer all the minutes a had from the old phone. I had 720 and they only would transfer 280. They don't transfer bonus minutes or minutes carried over from a previous period. They are beyond a doubt one of those most arrogant and inconsiderate companies i have ever dealt with..

My husband and I have used Tracfone for well over 8 years now. We only use them for short talks with each other about errands and such and for emergencies. I had to contact Tracfone customer service shortly after arriving in Florida a few years ago and they were great. Even gave me some extra minutes for the imposition, which it wasn't. I like how easy it is to add minutes online and the phones last for a long time. Great Service. We wouldn't use any other.

Best value for my situation and location. I have had no issues with my 2 tracfones and have done all of my transactions online.

Horrible customer service! After five months of trying to get the previous owner of the phone number off my caller ID, I give up! After a number of emails and phone calls, I was assured that this had been corrected, but it has not. When I try to call someone, this other person's name appears in the caller ID and they don't answer the phone because they don't know it's me calling. Getting out when my minutes expire!

The one star is for their customer service. I moved from one state to another making it necessary to change the phone number on my Tracfone so I would no longer be roaming. I called in, they deactivated the phone and reactivated it so the computer system would assign its new number. The new number would not work. They deactivated the phone then reactivated it again. The computer system assigned a new number, but somewhere in the process the computer system crapped and now the phone will not send or receive anything.

A ticket was issued and I was told to check back in 24-48 hours. That was 8 days ago and again, today, I was told it would be 24-48 hours. For this I was on the phone with them an hour and 20 minutes, pushing codes into the phone - again.

Tracfone works fine as long as you don't ever plan on moving or needing any customer service. If you do either, you are screwed and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

Customer Service is the worst I have ever encountered. Renewing contracts is anything but easy. Web site never allows this and always requires a phone call. Most recent debacle involved over 2 hours of my time, lost minutes and still no resolution to the problem - they took my money but haven't provided any service. Use extreme caution...

i have had several tracfones over the past years and i think they are ok. The reception is pretty good and there very easy to use. The custumer service is terrible though. The first day I got my phone it didn't work so my dad spent three hours on the phone with some indian guy just to have him say he had no idea what he was talking about. The phones themselves realy arn't that great, there arn't many choices and you cant instant measage people or download anything or basicaly do anything ecxept call people. If your looking for a phone that is pretty inexpensive and your going to only use it once in a while for emergencys and what not then tracfone is a great choice. But, if your looking for a phone that has lots of options and like to text dont get tracphone. The phones do absolutly nothing except the basics and there are no special packages for measaging which makes texting very expensive. Im am going to switch to either verizon prepaid or at&t prepaid soon because the tracfones just are not what im looking for right now.

p.s. If you do get a tracfone always refill your minutes before they expire. I waited to long once and so I basically had to reactivate my phone (its a pain). Later, I realized that the stupid tracfone people gave me a new number, meaning i couldn't access my voice mail because the voice mail number was different from my phone number. When we called custumer service they basically told us that they could do nothing about it and that I had to buy a knew phone (but they didn't give me a free one). After buying a brand knew phone i was playing around with me old one and somehow managed to change the voice mail #. Now i have to phones, one that was supost to be broken (oviously that tracfone people have no idea what they are doing.

DON'T use their website for anything. Customer service is terrible. I would never use them if I had known better.

I just want everyone to realize that on ALL of the tracfones the USB is DISABLED, and none have the ability to use a microSD card. (Tracfone states in the small print on their website that it is purposely disabled - but it doesn't tell you that on the back of the box in the store - so beware, just because a known model may have the capability to do a certain thing doesn't mean it will work, Tracfone may have disabled it - even the salespeople in the stores didn't know this to be true until they saw it stated on Tracfone's website - one girl was explaining to another customer about being able to use the USB and bluetooth to send things to your computer and I had to speak up and say that this wasn't true so the other customer wasn't mislead).

As a matter of fact, Tracfone has disabled just about everything that the phone is actually capable of doing. I know it won't matter to those who only want a phone at .10 per minute, but to a teenager or someone who likes to listen to music if they get caught in a long line at the store, or play a game, it might matter. This is only to let you know to check all the phones you are considering on the company's website before buying, or at a review site. The back of the box doesn't always tell the whole story. (don't rely on the phone model's website, go to the tracfone website).

This means that you CANNOT download anything from your phone to your computer, so if you take a photo with your camera, you cannot hook a USB cable to the phone and download it. The only way you can do this is to picture message it which costs you for every photo you send.

I spoke with a lot of people who did not realize that this was the case, but if you read the details of each tracfone on their website, it states that on models that have a USB function it has been disabled.

This also means that you cannot load music from your computer onto your phone. You can pay to download music from tracfone, but you cannot take music, ringtones, pictures, etc. from your computer and put them onto your phone.

Tracfone and Net10 are the only two prepaid companies that do this. All of the other prepaid services (T-mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc. allow you to use the bluetooth and USB functions to download and upload and some even come with USB kits for free).

I realize that most people who use Tracfone and Net10 are trying to keep costs down, but it really is handy to have a phone that uses either a USB port or has the ability to use a microSD card. At least with a microSD card you can put music, games, pictures, etc. onto your phone at NO cost. Most contract phones have a microSD slot now. Guess Tracfone doesn't want to give customers too much for their money *lol*

I never would have thought it was a huge deal until I had to take photos of a car accident one time during a hit and run. I didn't have my camera so I used my phone, and because the photos were on a microSD card I was able to put them on my computer and email them and print them out for the insurance company.

If you can, it really is worth trying to find a phone that allows you to use the USB at the very least (the phone actually had the capability to do it, but Tracfone & Net10 DISABLE this function so that you have to pay for each and every message sent, song, etc. when the phone was really meant to do this for free - it is Tracfone's way of making us pay for something that was supposed to be free in the first place).

One more thing - don't let a salesperson tell you that Tracfone and Net10 use "all" cell towers. They don't! Tracfone and Net10 do not use Verizon towers. If you have good reception with a Verizon phone but not great reception or none at all with say AT&T or another company that uses a GSM network, you won't get reception with a Tracfone or Net10 phone. Again, Tracfone and Net10 DO NOT use Verizon towers. Check the maps on the Tracfone and Net10 website. Their service is pretty comparable to AT&T service, so if you live in a remote area don't expect to get the greatest service. I live in an area where we get excellent Verizon service, but practically no AT&T service (because of the GSM network). Tracfones are great for those who live in or close to larger cities.

But, who can complain about getting a cell phone for almost free and only paying .10 per minute? Just don't expect more than the basic of basic phones from them.

This has got to be the most undependable cell phone ever, but Tracfone's excuse for customer service is beyond awful. For awhile adding minutes on their web site worked fine, the last 3 times, 2 months apart from each other and on 2 different PCs, it gives me an error message and forces a call to the dreaded, nearly iunintelligible support folks in India, who combine poor English with a consistent, broad incompetence that boggles the mind. Am I calling to have the space station's orbit re-routed? No, I'm calling to add minutes, but they can't seem to do it without multiple calls and long spells with me on hold while the rep goes to check with "another department." Now my current effort to add minutes is still pending, with service days winding down, but they've charged my credit card impeccably, and they refuse to credit it, though I have no minutes to show for it! On top of wasting a good part of a week trying to add minutes, I have to call my credit card company to dispute the charges. Not to mention shop immediately for a new cell phone and service. I can't take these morons any longer.

The customer service is horrible. When I tried to add minutes online it told me to call customer service. 45 minutes on hold to the outsourced rep later I asked to speak to a supervisor about my dissatifaction and all i got was dissed. Plus I didn't get the extra minutes the promo promised!

I just changed over to a w376g Trac Phone I received as a gift for X-mas 2008. I really like the phone and its features, but I am getting the little red x when I want to view pics sent to me from friends with blackberries. I am bummed out that I cant view all pics sent from any other cell phone. The minutes do get eaten up fast that is for sure. I went thru 130 minutes in a few days, just texting a bit and sending some pics and downloading a ringtone. The double minutes cars seems the way to go. I spent a whole weekend activating the phone. They said I was issued a deactivated phone number and I had to wait for a SIM card to be mailed to get the new number activated. Then next thing I saw was new number in my phone without having to change the SIM card. Everything thing was good except the browser wouldnt work. After talking to about 10 different customer service agents, I found one who knew what he was doing and got me hooked up to the web just like that. I can't believe no other operators could figure this out. I do like Trac Phone and will give them a chance, only complaints are the cant view all the pics sent from other phones and the minutes get eaten up really fast. Other than that I can live with it.

I am seeking to switch to another company because "tracfone" is getting tiresome- all those long codes to put in, and recently I completely lost a carryover of 30 minutes when adding minutes, and the company would do nothing about it, nothing to correct that. I also frequently cannot dial out ("code restriction" comes up ) with normal numbers in well served places such as Detroit and San Francisco, so what is the point of having one?

I had Tracfon for years and I’m very satisfied with its performance locally and on the road. You have to keep in mind that it a just a basic phone, no bells and whistles. The phone (Motorola V175) comes with text messaging and internet, but if you really want internet you may want to try a Verizon or AT&T service. The major issues with Tracfon; (1) if you want change your phone, you would be better off by letting your old Tracfon run out and buying a new Tracfon with a new number. (2) Their customer service is not so bad if you can get past the language barrier, but you can do most things online through their website anyway. If you need an inexpensive simple phone then Tracfon would be a good choice.

had phone for three years never had a problem, got another phone with a better plan I'm well satisfied with their service.

I rarely use a cell phone, and this seemed the answer. But every year I have problems with their purchase/renewal procedures. Today I was told to call the 800 number for specific help that would require a live person. Not available! I'll lose my balance rather than continue to deal with TracFone.

I wanted an inexpensive cell phone just for occasional use and utility, not for chatting. Tracfone seemed to fit the bill. Although all the negative user feedback concerned me, it seemed worth a few buck investment to try it. Boy was I wrong. 2 phones, 2 SIM cards, MANY long, exasperating phone calls to customer support people in India who barely speak English later, I sill don't have a phone that works. Tech Support hasn't the foggiest idea what they're doing or how to fix a problem. But they tried to sell me more minutes every time I called. Why would I want more minutes for a phone that's never worked? Someone else who posted here said something about low cost plans with Virgin mobile so I checked it out. I got a new phone from them last week, activated it without any help from tech support in less than 2 minutes, and signed up for a no-contract plan for $6.99/month and 10 cents a minute. Everything is working beautifully and for a couple of bucks more a month than Tracfone would have cost, I've got a REAL cell phone, a REAL provider, and no headaches. It's said you get what you pay for, but with Tracfone you get much, much less.

I bought a Tracphone two years ago to put in our service vehicle so we could call AAA in the event of a breakdown. Since then we have neede it two times and both times it had no service. It takes an average of one and a half hours on the phone to correct the problem with Tracphone in India to get reconnected. Tracphones are cheap to get but are not reliable and expensive with your time to deal with the service. Don't get a tracphon unless you have a lot of time to talk to their service.

i exchange my old cell for a new one with the old one i had signal when i go to tijuana now with this new one i dont even have signal anywhere im here in san ysidro (next to the border)got no signal and they are taking time out of my prepaid minutes this is realy bad for my economy i replace my cell just for update reasons now i regret my decision.

I have had a tracfone for years and overall pleased with it. It's very simple, but I don't want to pay what my friends pay ($100 A month!!! I pay that a year). The company doesn't own its own towers; it sublets time from other companies. I live in a rural area with poor coverage. My old phone apparently uses Verizon towers which works best; I tried to upgrade several times but the new models seem to use AT&T towers, which coverage is poor. I'm afraid when my current phone dies I'll have to go to Verizon which is lots more expensive, but needed to have a signal at my work. Tracfone seems to be switching over to mainly ATT based coverage.

It's a good plan if you don't use the phone a lot & don't want all the extra's. Their "camera" phones can only take 6 poor quality pics, which you don't find out till after you've bought it. Remember you get what you pay for.

Tracfone is great as long as you don't need customer service. If you do, skip the phone number provided and instead call their Executive Resolutions Department, 1-800-876-5753. That is the only way I have ever had my problems resolved. People who have answered at their call centers have never been able to resolve my problems. I spent 2 weeks trying to transfer minutes and my old phone number to a new phone, and only after learning about the Executive Resolutions number was I able to get that accomplished! Please spread the word about this troubleshooting strategy.

Wow,some of you folks are really unlucky...I have been using tracphone for 3 years with no problems at all.This includes getting a replacemrnt phone after getting one stolen(got all of my minutes and double minutes back as well),buying and switching my number to a total of 3 new phones,and have dealt with customer service on the phone each and every time.I got disconnected a total of 3 times i 3 years...not bad at all.They do need some english lessons,and it can take some time on the phone with them to get things done,but for the money,there is no better service out there.

Im not sure what some of these people are talking about but from my experience with tracfone i am very impressed . it works great and i have no problems what so ever. i have had 3 phones with them and each one one worked like a charm. their phones are very easy to activate and only requires that you buy the to phone and follow the directions in the box. please be patient tho as it may take around 24hrs for your phone to activate. their phones are very good, durable (alittle outdated tho for some) and very easy to use. adding airtime is as simple as buying a card and putting the code into your phone. ok features, does have real music ringtones,and they give away lots of bonus units. my phone gets service nearly everywhere and i have been trips from virginia to new jersey and even the amish country. all in all great company. any questions feel free to email me at shatty206@yahoo.com since their customer service isn't that great.

Have the new Motorola C261 with camera. The camera works great, was able to take pics of house and print them out clearly for insurance purposes. Great camera. One problem. I work at ASU's west campus in the basement and can not get reception. Now, my coworker sitting right next to me has an older Tracfone Motorola model and does get reception in the basement. Huh? Did call customer service who walked me through several coding functions, then determined something was wrong with it, sent a new one. Same problem. Won't bother trying for more service. After hearing the problems of some of you folks, I should count myself as hitting the jackpot!!!

I agree with the person who said TracFone should get 0 stars. I suppose if you didn't need anything from customer service they might be okay, but their technical staff is incompetent and/or their system of tracking phones (how ironic) is completely moronic.

My problem (?) was that I wanted to transfer my landline number to my new TracFone. This was 3 years ago. THREE MONTHS LATER, after spending DOZENS of hours (absolutely no exxageration - I have a log of all the calls) on the phone with them and them shipping overnight phones and SIM cards on multiple occasions, I finally got my landline number transferred to my cell.

A year later I needed to replace the phone because a button broke. Again, HOURS on the phone and multiple shipmensts of new phones and SIM cards before I could get up and going.

As an explanation, I cannot explain. All I know is that every every phone call of 30-90 minutes, they say they need to ship something else or try something else. They just don't seem to know what they're doing.

I wanted to quit them all along, but I'm terrified that the hassle of moving my number to a new service will be just as awful. I've had this same number for THIRTY YEARS and I'd rather not lose it. So sue me.

So now my phone is broken again, a year later, and I'm going through the same thing.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!!

Many time text message fails and I am still charged for the time.My current phone has restricted me from 411 access,customer support informes me I will be charged 25 minutes per call to activate 411 information.Net search has revealed no additional charges are imposed.Tech support seems to be lacking technical knowledge and English comprehension.

I am a new customer to this service. I am very dissapointed in the fact that I pay for a minute and if I make an 8 second call I get screwed for a whole minute!! To me that is a genuine RIPOFF to the 10th power. I am about ready to use the recycling bag to send this thing back. By the way, this is the first cell phone that I have owned and am not very impressed

If I could give Tracfone 0 stars, I would. I bought a new phone to replace my existing Tracfone. Big mistake. The activation / phone number transfer via their web site yielded an error message. Over the next 10 days I sent 2 emails via the web site and made exactly 12 calls to their alleged Customer Support line, and no two times did they ever tell me the same thing. Each time I had to provide the same information – over and over – and would eventually be told I could call back to complete the process in 1 hour, or 4 hours, or 24 hours, or 72 hours.... again and again and again. Even after the porting was complete, they couldn’t get the phone activated, and the porting had killed my old phone that still had 60 more days of service left on it. On the 12th call, they told me the porting was not complete (although they told me several days previous that it was and the ticket status on the web site told me it was). I’d have to call back in 48 hours when the appropriate department was available, as they weren’t working that day. Giving up, I emailed asking for an RMA and mailing label and a refund. Tracfone replied that shipping the phone back was my responsibility and the refund would be minus a restocking fee. Not worth the effort for what paltry refund would be left, I trashed the phone. Tracfone essentially stole $45 from me with the phone and killed airtime. If my story was unusual it would be one thing, but reviews all over the web indicate it’s just another day of business-as-usual for Tracfone. I have gone with an inexpensive, no-contract plan with Virgin Mobile, and am quite satisfied.

This is a question, rather than a review. My Tracfone is preprogrammed to dial 911. It dials 911 even when my phone is locked. How do I deprogram it.

Tracfone is one of the best prepaid ph. Customer service is great.They're very accomodating. i really love my tracfone.

I have liked my tracfone, but now, you cant go online without errors knocking you off their site, so I had to call to have minutes put on, but now you cann only do that during their business hours. Starting to be a hassle. anyone else out there having the same problem? Its not our computer, but their website

Horrible customer service! If you have a problem with the phone or with adding airtime, you can just forget it because there's no one competent enough to help you. I was even hung up on when I asked to speak to a supervisor! Ridiculous!

Well I got my TF in December 2008. I have never called customer service, all i ha ve done it using the internet and online. They have a good web site, activated the phone, added minutes, even added International calling.

Buuuuuuuuuuut

I live in Chula Vista, CA, there are too may dropped calls. Some times i can not dial the international numbers to México, it seems the network is over-selled in my area that calling international is very difficult. International call quality stinks (for say less) you can get a very annoying pitch tone on the line. If it is evening the international dialing just drops, no reason, no explanation, and YES IT CONSUME MINUTES so Tracfone false claims that not completed calls won't deduct minutes. It does.

You can try to call international 6 times, the drop will call in the evenings and they WILL DEDUCT AIR TIME.

Local calls seems to work fine.

So this is the last prepaid card i add to this phone. I'm giving it up, just no case to have a phone you can not make calls when you need to.

biggest joke on the market. I bought a phone and added 60 min in Sept 08, the phone worked untill Nov 15 and suddenly quit, when I finally got ahold of someone at tech support they told me I transfered my minutes to another phone in Oct. ???? they should really hire people that know Nov comes after Oct on the calender.

this company should not get any stars.they treat people like children . ask stupid questions then Verify the answers just so you get so annoyed you hang up . I bought a phone 5 miles from my home and was told by crapfone there was no service for that phone in my area after complaing they sent me a new phone YOU gussed it the same type phone

I just got a phone for this company today i will say that the website was very user friendly and ordering was very simple also this website here was extremely helpful i was able to use the compare feature and one by one reduced my choices from 26 down to 9 then i read reviews and reduced it down to 4 and then i went to each site and found the best deal phone to suit my needs. Thank you for having this very helpful resource.

i have had this phone for 3 yrs and i love it would no want another phone !

I love Tracfone! It's one of the cheapest pay as you go cell phone companies, and it is a bargain for those who want a simple cell phone without a lot of extras (and their newer phones have some of those too.)
I don't use a cell phone much, just for emergencies and carry in my car. I don't want to pay $50 a month! Tracfone has simple and cheap payment options--you don't even have to use a credit card if you buy the time cards (available at just about every gas station!)
I use their web site a lot, it's easy to add time, etc.
I am on the cheapest service protection plan which only bills me $5 if I don't add time every 60 days. So I'm basically only paying $5-10 a month!
Their phone service is OK, usually someone who does not speak very good english, but my experiences have been pretty good, they have been very nice, but I usually use the web site for most of my issues.
I have a Motorola C139, which I paid $10 for at Target.
They also give lots of bonus minutes.

Motorola W260g phone is advertised on their site as having 35 pre-loaded ringtones. I bought it and also a double minutes for life of phone card plus an airtime card. Paid $150.00 for the bundle.

It has ONE ringtone which is very annoying. There are not any ringtones pre-loaded on this phone and you cannot download any ringtones from anywhere to this phone. This is false advertising. Tracfone's reaction to my complaint, TUFF.

I called Motorola and they told me there was nothing they could do as they don't sell it and the buyers for tracfone know it has no ringtones and cannot download ringtones!

And they still have this phone on their site stating 35 pre-loaded ringtones! They simply don't care.

Save the hassle and go with a verizon plan for 39.95 a month, my great phone was free with a 2 year contract and I get 450 prime time minutes(7.5 hours) a month and unlimited evenings and weekends.

Have been using tracfone for years and have upgraded twice. I love Tracfone, and the only problem I ever have is sometimes I cannot hear the cust. serv. rep. due to echo and accent, but I have them repeat whatever it was that I missed and they gladly do it. The service is phenomenal and I highly recommend it.

when transfering to a new cell they actually lost my number that I had for years with the previous company (US Sprint) and had to use a brand new one....

i love tracfone good service and when i got the phone it doubled the minutes and the lady gave me ten extra minutes tracfone is the number one prepaid phone i love this company

Have had 3 different phones LG'S,They are all JUNK Don't work half the time.

I have had tracfone for over 5 years and have had no problems--ever. I did have ATT and they were horrible (at least at that time). I find tracfone a great value. I have no problem adding minutes either on-line, on the phone or with a purchased card. There is always a promotional code you can use with an on-line purchase to get "extra" minutes with your purchase. Never have been ripped off--and all my roll-over or extended times always carried over. (ATT was horrible about this.) You can even add minutes to your phone even if you don't have it on you (my wife added them on-line while I was away!!) Additionally I have NEVER have a problem with dropped calls or reception.

i love my tracfone!
it's great!
before i had an ATT go phone
which was a MAJOR rip off.
i was able to purchase my phone at WAL-MART
for only
$9.99!

My wife and I received a Tracfone for Christmas three years ago. Loved it. Bought another on about a year ago. I use the new one... she uses the older one. Never a problem with either phone. We bought her mother a Tracfone last year for her birthday. The only problem I have ever experienced with any of the three phones is 3 months ago when I added minutes via online for her phone, I didn't have the phone with me because it was at her home. This was a mistake because I wasn't able to turn the phone on and off as instructed. So, what happened was that the minutes were indeed added successfully, but the display on her phone didn't update the next due date. Don't get me wrong... the minutes were added AND the 3 months were added too, but the display itself didn't properly update the new "due date." But now that problem has been solved also. It's been three months, so I just now added another three months service along with 60 minutes. As I was adding the minutes online (this time I had the phone with me), the system detected a problem, and I had to go through a reprogram process. This involved entering a couple of strings of numbers, but it wasn't difficult at all. It was very similar to the strings of numbers everyone has to enter when first activating the phones (serial number, PIN numbers, etc.). Anyway, after re-programming her phone, within seconds her display correctly updated the new due date AND added the 60 minutes AND, as a bonus, gave me about 180 free minutes. I'm not sure why. I didn't enter any promo codes. My only guess is that they gave me some free minutes because of "putting me through" the re-programming process. IF that's so, then it was certainly worth the small effort. Heck, it's taken me more time to write this review than it did to re-program the phone. I must say though, I have read many of the comments people have about the lousy customer service Tracfone has... and since I've never had to call and wait and then talk to a person... well, let's just say I feel lucky that that has never happened to me. But from my own experiences with Tracfone registration and adding minutes online, I have always had success and their phone service has been excellent.

This company is a living nightmare. The premise of the service is great in theory. However in reality the simple task of purchasing a new Tracfone and getting the number and remaining minutes transfered does not work out so well. As a matter of fact I finally have given up and gone with a reputable provider. After nine days of no service (they could never get my old # attached correctly to the new phone) "customer service" gave me a new # (my suggestion since I could see that any more attempts with the old # would be useless) for the new phone. Great, except I never did get credited the hours worth of talk time I had remaining on the old phone. After nine "customer service" calls and 4 e-mails initiated by me "the valued customer" the only thing I have to show for my time and efforts are an endless stream of tracfone spam e-mails with offers of double minute refill cards. Yes I have attempted to unsubscribe. Five times now.

John, I'm sort of in your situation- only need phone for emergencies and the occaision errand. Which phone & plan do you use?

You wrote:

( have been a tracfone customer for three years and it has worked fine for me. I have only had to call customer service once and they were fine. All adding minutes and transferring minutes can be done online with no problem. I use my phone sparingly so I do not have to depend on it as much as other people may but for emergencies and calling my wife as to who is picking up the kids or pick up agallon of milk, it works great. All fo about $100.00 per year. Beats $49.95/month as some of my friends pay)

First let me start by saying I would give them a lower rating if it were possible. I bought a tracfone for my daughter to use. Seemed nice at first...... she could text and call friends at an affordable price and I didn't have to worry about her going over her minutes. Well now she cannot text anymore, it just deducts her time and says it cannot send the message. I have talked to tracfone custome service and all they can come up with is text messaging "might" not be available in her area. We have not moved! It worked when we got it and she can still receive them, just NOT answer them. They did not offer to replace all the time lost while trying to send them, even when they asked us to try to send them and minutes were still deducted. Tracfone has very poor customer service. Cheap or not, it is not worth the hassle! We have paid for her to have time on her phone only to have it thrown away.

tracfone is a joke....got a tracfone for christmas well opened it dec 23,2008 from my grandson. here it is january 9th,2009 and 9 calls and 2 sim cards later to tracfone customer service...still nothing resolved. it was a motorola W175g double minute phone. i activated it online dec23 and it gave me a missouri phone number...I LIVE IN KANSAS....zip code 66701. the numerous customer service reps(hard to understand them and what they say) actually ask me what zip code i was sitting in at the moment. took me 5 minutes to regain my composure. mame are you sure you are sitting in zip code 66701.....i proceeded to tell them i worked for the post office in my home town of fort scott,kansas 66701...and assured them i knew where i was. then was ask what the problem was again. i told them they gave me a 417 area code which is for missouri. i needed a 620 area code which is for where i am sitting right now. upstairs in my room in 66701 zip code on roaming!!!!!!so on the 9th call to them (each lovely teli visit was over an hour and a half) they tell me they are going to send another sim card to me...i said nope, don't think so, got 2 now that are useless. you will get this problem resolved NOW. so he puts me on hold for 3 minutes comes back on (probably after playing world of warcraft) and gave me 5 different sets of codes to enter into my phone. then after that crushing half hour he proceeds to tell me that in 15 minutes my phone number will match the one that is on my account (620) bla bla bla,the new number they put into my account, but not my phone. hmmmm getting interesting lol. i said yeah right. then he said you have a good day mame. so like a idiot i hung up. sat patiently waiting for my number to change on my phone.......that was 49 hours ago. so i have spent the last 48 hours and 45 minutes sending not so nice and i am going to sue your arses e-mails to tracfone and all of theirs that has flooded my inbox, i forwarded to them. i hope they have a great time reading all the e-mails that has flooded their inbox.

you gave them 4 stars for customer service.thats a joke i see you have never tried talking to them.i have and i'm pissed.they don't speak english.they don't care.i have had nothing but problems with them.in 430 minutes i will be a custermer of another company.they are nothing short of thieves.and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Do not buy from tracfone. I've had three of the worst customer services experiences ever with them. The last one - which is too long of a story to tell here - resulted in me having to actually change my BANK account for fear of identity theft. This company is awful. It doesn't even deserve one star.

I recieved a tracfone for Christmas of 2006, and I loved it. The Service was great. The Coverage was even better than most anyother phone you could buy on the market. The Only thing was that the minutes run down quick. They Charge .3 for every text sent and recieved. I never call people, all I do is text. If your a text-a-holic, I sugest you get a plan with tracfone.

i love my tracfone i get good service and they do what i say but i can't hook up my voice mail so its a little trouble for me so i gave it 3 ***s so it not that bad for me

Very upset with extremely poor service when calling with a problem. They obviously do not know what they are doing..except how to waste our time and make us very very angry...I have been on for hours, for days and no one is able to help...and tell me what blue tooth headset will work with my phone.. While all retail outlets are telling me the phone is defective, tracfone does not agree. They can not tell me how to fix it though..DO NOT PURCHASE FROM TRACFONE!!!

I've been a tracfone customer for 6 years and I'm very satisfied with their products. I've called customer service numerous times for various support. My wait times averages 5-10 minutes. The reps have always been pleasant, knowledgeable, and professional. My issues have always been resolved quickly and accurately. For those complaining about others accent, patience goes a long way. If you think about it, you too have an accent.

Don't trust them not to cheat you out of minutes when changing phones.

Absolutely the worse customer service.

Never have been much for small talk on the phone, so this has been good as a couple hundred units might last me half a year! I had an ancient nokia 5100 tracfone for years until just a few days ago, when I updated to a no frills 10$ phone. Other than spotty coverage outside of the metro area where I live, can't really say anything negative.

For someone who doesn't use the phone much, Tracfone has saved me a fortune through the years. I try to do everything online and have only had to talk to tech support once or twice.

Have used Tracfon for over year now. Use it for my business - wanted simple no frills phone. That is what I pay for and what I got. No surprises. No extreme expectations from a no-frills phone. I am very happy overall and adding minutes and getting help has been no trouble at all. My wife uses T-Mobile and we both like mine better.

Tracfone will take your money and give you nothing but grief. The company cheats and refuses to do anything if you complain. Check http://www.complaintsboard.com I would rate them as terrible.

anyone who sticks up for tracphone has been one of their lucky buyers.the phones suck.the network sucks more,double minutes for roaming which is all the time,purchased minutes ,time and promos entered do not take. cust service is a total joke calls sent to some foreign country cant speak english...then phone goes dead no reasonall the investment and credits are lost...who would say this is a good choice for consumer is nuts

It works...sometimes. That's about it. Service is sporadic around the country. Customer support is TERRIBLE. I am an older person and have yet to be able to understand the technician. More than once even asked to talk to someone with a not so strong accent...never got one. They hung up. Twice they were unable to fix my problem. Changed phones to a smaller one and they could not transfer my old number. Now to call local in town, I have to dial the area code with this phone since the number they gave must have been out of state or out of Area Code. It does serve my wife well though since she just uses it once in a while around town. But for use in travelling..forget it.

Terrible Custoner Service. Tracfone cancelled my Lifeline account when I obtained a new Tracfone to replace my older model. When my next credit card statment arrived and the Lifeline charge was not on it I called to have service restarted and was told it would not be a problem. Now 1 month later my service has been discontinued, over 340 minutes of airtime lost and they will not restart my service unless I purchase more airtime and still will not give me back the 340 minutes for their error. Spoke with 4 supervisors who agreed Tracfone was at error but would not correct the problem unless I bought more minutes. I will not pay another cent to this company until they correct their error. DO NOT BUY A TRACFONE!!!

Tracfone is awesome! I think it is way better than the other prepaid companies. The only thing i dont like is the fact that there is no internet (other than the Tracfone page). I use a w370...no USB connection though....other than that Tracfone is perfect

be careful of both them trancfone
and net 10-phone ok customer service
is lousy-search first talk somebody own trancfone and net 10-go from there
other word you make decision net 10 and trancfone con-man company[trancfone and net 10]

I like the service, but recently started a job that requires itemized billing for reimbursement of business related calls. Tracfone does not provide statements of any kind; itemized or otherwise.

I'm now going to have to explore other providers for this one reason alone.

At 15¢ a call they are among the cheapest. But that the cards expire after a set number of days can offset that drastically. I also have great service since TracFone subcontracts networks from a number of providers.

I have been a tracfone customer for three years and it has worked fine for me. I have only had to call customer service once and they were fine. All adding minutes and transferring minutes can be done online with no problem. I use my phone sparingly so I do not have to depend on it as much as other people may but for emergencies and calling my wife as to who is picking up the kids or pick up agallon of milk, it works great. All fo about $100.00 per year. Beats $49.95/month as some of my friends pay

Have been a TF customer for about 8 yrs. Recently I decided to upgrade to a LG600G. I have had nothing but trouble with it since. It constantly drops calls even though I have 4 bars for a signal. I have talked to no less than 16 service reps. Their lack of command of the English language is totally maddening!!! They sent me a new phone, JUST LIKE THE ONE I'M HAVING TROUBLE WITH!! They tell me my area won't support the technology. Then why send me the SAME phone?!? DUH.
It even dropped calls in the area that DOES support(supposedly) that phone. The customer service is a bunch of inept dolts, who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and therefore are no help at all. When I told one of them that this phone was worthless, he asked me "why you say that?" Well, if you can't make or receive calls because the stupid thing keeps dropping calls, I'd say that's pretty worthless!!!

Joh, the Columbian set up representive asks for your SSN when getting a cell hook up, what a group of cons. I am going to report this to the BBB.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE ON EARTH: seven customer reps from India to Costa Rica were NEARLY COMPLETELY unintelligible, parroting back whatever was said, and, in the end, sening the calls away. WE SPENT HOURS setting up a phone, only to be told another would be sent in its stead, it was a rehab. So was the second. The third worked, after my guide from India suggested the phone be taken outdoors, walked up to the cell phone tower nearest my home, and if I would kindly TOUCH THE CELL PHONE TOWER while setting the numbers....it was FEBRUARY IN NEW YORK... two months after purchase, due to the unintelligible customer service. Hellish.

had phone for more than 2 yrs. never able to have auto time added to phone always have to call sustomer service. sutomer service filled with people who don't speak or understand english very well. lately have met people who speak better english. will keep phone and getting another because after looking at revies of other phone this is best deal not in amount of time you get for money. but if you buy online i get 19.95 monthly plan for 100 minutes. i don't used that much but if you buy card at store or online you only get 60 minutes. so i buy 1995. then cancel plan until i have used up minutes. minutes roll over for 60 days

Good rates, poor service. My husband and I got identical phones and plans. His has worked great, mine has been a constant problem. At first incoming calls on my assigned number were routed to someone else. After an hour with tech support that was finally corrected. Then I discovered voice mail didn't work on my phone. 30 more minutes with (non-USA) tech support only to have to change phone number and sim card to resolve the problem. About two months later, while on a trip, the SIM card suddenly became "unregistered". More tech support time only to be told my phone was "too old to work in that area." Funny...my husband's identical phone worked great - got them there! More time with tech support to finally be told that the problem was my phone and I would have to buy a new one since it was no longer under warranty. Thanks! I did persuade them to transfer my remaining minutes and service time to my husband's phone since I won't be staying with Tracfone after all the problems. I just hope his phone continues to work.

I've been using tracfone since I THINK around 1999. Well, was. I upgrade my phones on occasion when one starts wearing out. Never had any issues with transferring numbers to new phones, or whatnot.
Except when I acquired a V170.
The girl forgot to de-activate my old phone number, which caused every issue I believe. Not sure, so, don't quote me on that.

Pricing was great, texting always worked, calls rarely dropped.
Anyway, when she went to activate the new phone, I was getting their 'test calls' and 'test texts' to the old phone still.

Finally, the girl was pleased that the phone got through to the new one and asked if I had any questions.
My phone working I said none.

Unfortunately, while I can receive texts from tracfone like clockwork, nobody else can receive or send them to my phone with any success.

If you can, avoid pre-pays or only use them until you can get better.

I used to like Tracfone and their service until the past year or so. First of all, when you call them with an issue or problem, it seems like the only people they hire are foreigners, and have of them dont understand or speak very good english. At least 95% of the times that ive called them, I can understand the person on the other end! Everytime you send a text message, whether it goes thru okay or not, you still get charged for it. Ive had several text messages not go thru to the other person and I still get minutes deducted for it! From the very first time that I purchased a tracfone, my service included receiving text messages for free..it would cost me to send one, but I received them for free. Last year, I purchased a new tracfone and all of the sudden, im being charged for receiving text messages! When I called Tracfone about this, they told me it was because of the model of phone that I bought. What a bunch of bull, I never heard of such a thing! Also, last year I called Tracfone because of a problem that I was having with my phone and they told me that there was something wrong with my phone and that they had to shut off the service to this phone and I had to go buy a new phone. I still had minutes left on the phone that they shut off, but they refused to turn the service back on, until I bought a new phone, and then they would transfer the minutes that I had left. I didnt have the money to buy a new phone at that time, and I argued with them for at least 30 minutes about this, but it did no good! Very bad service!!! I have bad credit, which is the only reason that I use tracfone. If I was able to get a cellular phone, from a regular cell phone carrier, I would not use Tracfone!

For Susan Sorensen: Whoops, I mis-spoke. There is the usual 1 unit/minute charge to call this no. You can call your own cell from a landline and then there is no charge.

For Susan Sorensen: Here is the number my phone dials when I check voice mail by pressing and holding the number 1: 1-480-225-2975. This is for a phone with AT&T sim and there is no charge to call this number. Is this what you are looking for?

tracphones are not only reliable the styles of the phones are in date and they appeal to a young crowd.

Had the phone for a few months now and no issues. I use this phone primarily for emergencies and this more than serves the purpose when using the 60-minute/90day plan.

since ive had my tracfone (about a week), ive talked a total of about 10 minutes ...and i only have 29 minutes left ... i started with 120 minutes ..where did all those minutes go??? they're a ripoff

Tracfone has made some real improvements to their customer service. My last dealings with them was actually a pleasure. I've also found their web support system to be quite effective. Just head on over to http://www.tracfone.com/contact.jsp?task=contact for support. They reply fairly quickly and efficiently. It seems with almost all of the complaints being about customer service, with them improving this they will be a force to be reckoned with. Tracfone is still the best choice!

I am so glad to read some good reviews. I too have had TF for years and have used many different phones. The phones are so inexpensive it is no problem to try different ones. When I cannot understand the Representative, I tell them I am going to hang up and call back. You will always get someone else and can move on from there. I have never had a problem that was not resolved with some patience. I have several active phones and am very happy with the service.

There are two different technologies available (GSM and CDMA) and you just need to do some research and find which is best for you. The cost is very inexpensive compared to the post paid plans.

Absolutely the WORST customer service anywhere. My phone stopped working in two months, they dragged out trying "stuff' to make it work another month and then gave me a hard time about sending a new phone. I had to spend HOURS on the phone dealing with their incompetence.

Have a Tracphone that has had a signal issue for more than six weeks. Technical services were slow to respond, and never helped the problem. Never offered a new battery or to replace phone.

I have had Tracfones for more than 10 years. My first tracfone (a Nokia) sold for $99, but i still bought it and it not only still works, but is still using the original battery.
I did replace it with a Motorola that I absolutely loved, but when the area made the switch to GSM, the Motorola would no longer work. I was sent a replacement phone at no charge. The only problem that we had in the change-over was that I lost my original telephone number. I was given an additional 20 minutes as compensation, and the minutes already on the Motorola were transferred to the new phone with no problem. I have kept the Motorola as a portable phone book, as it still works and i really like it.
The biggest problem I've had lately with Tracfone is not being able to purchase my minutes online. For some reason, my debit card no longer works for these purchases, but the refill cards are available in so many locations this isn't really a major problem.
I love the fact that I can use my phone anywhere in the country without having to worry about roaming fees, or not being able to get service. I've even been able to make calls in an area I visited where my friend tells me her husband has to literally drive up a hill to use his cellphone.
I did get a Blue Wireless phone, and am regretting it every minute. I lose calls constantly, and the cost is ridiculous. If I could do it without having to change my number with so many people, I'd abandon the Blue and go back to having only the Tracfone. The only advantage to the Blue is the unlimited minutes and texting. If Tracfone would come up with a monthly plan like that, the Blue would be out of here!

I did have a couple of issues a few years ago where I was buying time every 60 days and the #s weren't taking. Called customer service and it was straightened out in a few minutes (though a lot of number entering). Went to a full year plan after that with no issues.

They replaced the original phone last year as the old phone couldn't handle GSM and my area was cutting over to it. Took about 20 minutes of entering tons of numbers to transfer everything to the new phone.

I have had issues where you can't understand the C/S person because of feedback and echo on the phone. In those cases I tell the C/S person that that I can't hear them and I'm going to hang up and try again. The 2nd time I've always been able to hear C/S just fine. I never had issues with their english. The C/S people have come through for me every time. I believe C/S is out of Mexico City.

I have no reservations using TracFone. They do have rules and they state them very clearly. It would be nice if they bent them for people, but they do say what to expect so it shouldn't be a shock when they stick to their guns.

I've got a 10 dollar tracfone for emergencies. If you like things simple, this may be the phone for you. If you have to deal with CS, then good luck but I've only had to do it once. To be honest, I have found that all cell phone companies are hit or miss with their CS. If you want all the bells and whistles, or live in the sticks, you may want to reconsider. I've been happy with mine, but I like it simple and I don't venture much outside the city. When I do, I notice that the bars tend to go down quite a bit.

Strike One: They won't transfer the minutes due to expired airtime from a previously owned phone. I'm talking 150+ minutes. Understood, but, WOW, they keep saying I'm a VALUED CUSTOMER. Strike Two: I broke the screen to my phone, sent it in to them, they replaced it, but wouldn't replace the "double-minutes on future cards" deal because they say it is a "NEW" phone. For goodness sake, it's a replacement phone. They consider it new. So don't damage your phone and expect everything to be transferred. Like some of you say, "It's ok if you don't run into problems." Otherwise, I still love it. What a marriage, but, Baby Bye if it comes to Strike Three.

As a formal customer of Tracfone, their quality was average. Their customer service was good for the most part because of representatives repeating what I said what the problem was with my phone so there wasn't any misunderstanding, and usually would solve the problem within a short amount of time. Also their cellular coverage was very good not having any reception difficulties. On the other hand, why I'm no longer with them is because of these reasons:

1. A limited number of phones
to choice from which can depend on your zip code.
2. The cost of airtime was overpriced for the amount needed.
3. Trying to buy airtime from their website was always a problem because the pin code didn't process correctly.

4. Having only the two choices of either shipping something I brought from their website to my mail box and not being able to track it, or FedEx which from my experience is a very incompetent delivery service.

5. If your phone was either lost or stolen you couldn't be able to retrieve your amount of airtime units since they wouldn't have it on file therefore it would be lost permanently.

6. The final reason is that there wasn't any benefits as a customer
such not being charged when calling other Tracfone customers.

So overall, the cons of this particular
cellular service outweighed the pros so to speak. My advice to anyone who reads this should do research for what others cellular services offer when in comes to prepaid plans. It just on matter of what works for you. But given the reasons why I left Tracfone, I wouldn't recommend them.

Avoid this plan at all costs. Basically there are big problems with this company.
1. It is almost impossible to add minutes without a customer rep.
2. Reps barely speak English.
3. Coverage STINKS !! I was at Disneyworld in November 2008 and had no signal!! And Tracphone is a FL company

These things are really really expensive, they drain your wallet without you knowing it. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE.

I have bought Two Phones from them and then I added extra minutes and all of a sudden after I bought 800 minutes it discontinues the minutes are there and the plan available till the year is up. When I call them I am not able to re activate the account Unless I send them My Sales Receipt and upc symbol and photo copy of a photo ID. After I had already activated it before. DO YOUR SELF A FAVOR DO NOT BUY From them.!!! IF I could have given them a -3 Star I would have. THey will steal your min if they can!! BE VERY CAREFUL!! Stick with one of the better Companies. I DID NOT EVEN REPORT MY PHone Stolen and they do this.BEWARE BEWARE I Can not write a bad enough Review of them

Liars, thieves, and criminals. It started when I would answer stored missed calls and they turned out to be sales calls from Tracfone which cost me 25 cents each. The incoming stored calls were unlabled, of course. When it came time to add new minutes from a card, I spent an hour a day trying to make it accept the card number. It never did. I called customer non-service to solve the problem and got an answering machine that did not give me time to press buttons and went in a loop. When I finally got a human, I spent an hour talking to him, but I could not understand him because he did not speak good English and mumbled. At one point he told me the card I entered had been entered and used up already. I told him I also noticed they had charged me to talk to their machine earlier because I had used the Tracfone to make the call (it's my only phone). He said, that's the way it is. The phone's menu is too complicated even for me, and I couldn't even figure out how to make it ring (it vibrated only, and then not even every time I received a call, so there were many missed calls mixed in with Tracfone sales calls. When my remaining 120 minutes is up, I'm going to throw the phone away (a wasted $16) and go elsewhere. These people are criminals.

are you kidding me...ive put up with tracfone for two years..about every fourth time i reload it its some major hassle, but once you're in you're better off to keep up with it as you've paid for double minutes and term extension...it's a venus fly trap.

I have had TracFones for several years and have been completely satisfied with their service. I don't use mine much and can keep my number for less than $7 per month. They do have International call service available to selected countries at no extra charge. They have an 800 number to call with your Tracfone to access International calling.

I will second this is the most worthless piece of equipment I have owned. Therre are not the correct numbers to receive service, and there is no webform to contact these worthless businessmen. I will be rid of this when the time runs out as it is completely worthless unless you just answer it. PU and shame on the s***s!

I purchased a TracFone along with a 60 minute card. Within 15 days the phone quit working so I took it back to the store where I had bought it. They replaced it. I called TracFone customer service to get everything transferred to the replacement phone. At first they would not transfer my unused minutes but when I got "in their face" in outrage they said they would give me my minutes back. I went thru a lengthly process over the phone and was told to wait 15 minutes for the transfer to show up on the replacement phone. 2.5 hours later I called back and had to go thru the same lengthly process again. This time I was told it could take up to 72 hours. 4 days later I called back and spent about 2.5 hours on the phone going round and round over this matter. They finally said that they would not give me my unused minutes back. I was furious and told them what I thought. This is no way to treat customers. I told them to deactivate the phone as I was taking it back for a refund and that they could bet I would be doing all I could to enlighten others as to how they treat their customers. I later emailed TracFone about this matter to give them another opportunity to do the right thing by me. That got me nowhere so now I am keeping my word to them. I want others to know how they treat their customers. I have been reading online reviews of TracFone and nearly all of them say the same thing ... customer service is terrible. I regret that I didn't check the reviews before making the decision to buy their product and service. Don't make the mistake of doing so.

I've had my Tracfone for 2-1/2 years and have been very satisfied. Poor coverage in remote areas of Maine (wonder who gets good reception in such far away places) but calls from Hawaii to NJ were received as if I was in the room with recipient of my calls. My Motorolla phone is somewhat klunky compared to my sisters' sleek ones and I have been considering a new one but you folks have me nervous about my number and minutes transfer! Communication with customer service can be difficult but I have always had my minimal problems pleasantly resolved. I don't like that my minutes are charged for incoming calls and for checking my voicemail. Don't know if others are the same though. I'll most likely stay with Tracfone.

I bought an airtime card and it has 11 digit pin on the back - not a 15 digit number. I guess you are suppose to save the sales receipt and it has the 15 digit pin.........but the back of the card doesn't say that........it says enter the 11 digits and the menu will prompt you and you will get a 15 digit pin.......I've been on the phone with them and emailed them.....no reponse yet...just a big runaround...I wasted $20.00 for nothing.......and now have no phone to use.

YOU NEED A 0 TO CHOOSE FROM ON YOUR RATING! PEOPLE BEWARE! THEY LIE AND STEAL! THEY SET THERE AND READ FROM THEIR LITTLE SCRIPT. WE NEED TO GET THE WARNING OUT THERE FARTHER THAN THIS.YOU CAN BET I WILL. I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY CLAIM TO BE NO.1 IN THE NATION. AT LEAST THEY DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HAVING PLENTY OF MINUTES ON THEIR PHONES CAUSE I SEE THEY ARE STEALING MINUTES FROM OTHER PEOPLE ALSO!

DO NOT BUY. THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER!I HAD 819.5 MINUTES AND ADDED A 60 MINUTE CARD AND THEY STOLD MY 819.5 MIN. THEY LIED TO ME AND STOLD FROM ME. I PAID FOR THOSE MIN. AND THEY TOOK THEM. NICE WAS FOR THEM TO GET MIN. ON THEIR OWN PHONES. I WOULD NOT EVEN GIVE THEM - 10 STARS. WILL MAKE SURE TO TELL PEOPLE TO STAY AWAY FROM TRAC FONE CAUSE THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF! MAYBE IF THEY HAD CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE THAT WE COULD UNDERSTAND AND TAHT COULD UNDERSTAND US THEY MIGHT GET IT RIGHT! SORRY BUNCH!

I have enjoyed my tracfone. From what I read I have actually gotten a very good deal. I have double minutes for life at point of purchase and with coupons I have managed to purchase minutes for 10 cents per. There is no $1 day access fee. The only drawback is coverage. I don't care about having the latest bells and whistles I just want to be able to make calls as cheaply as possible. And for the most part that has been Tracfone. Wish there was more coverage.

I'm going to give Tracfone 3 stars for now. I have only had the phone a short time, but so far so good. Tracfone works very well for me as someone who doesnt use too many minutes in a given month. I used to have regular service thru T-Mobile, but I got sick of paying $49 a month for an infinite amount of mins (unlmited) that I didnt ever use. I at most used up about 200 mins in one single given month. So I purchased a refrub'd Tracphone to get the offer of "double minutes for life". So far I am spending $20 every 6-8 weeks, thats gets me 60 mins, + the double, so 120 mins, plus I use a web site with bonus codes that I get 30-60 addt'l mins, like today I just got a total of 170 mins for $20.11
So for me, a low to moderate cell phone user, it works perfect, about $10 a month, cant beat that!

I have never used my phone much, but like to have a phone for security. Recently upgraded to a W370 phone to the tune of $49.95 with double min. added. The phone quit in 6 months.. asked for a NEW phone
they sent me another crummy phone- and I mean crummy!! They weren't going to give me my carryover minutes either but finally talked one of their operators into giving me the stupid minutes WHICH I HAD PAID FOR!! I have been a customer for about 4 years and got this treatment. I am looking for another company now. By the way all their customer service people are in the Phillipines and have no idea of what is going on here.. guess that is why TRACFONE is
so cheap.You get what you pay for.