TracFone Wireless has quietly launched the website for a new Verizon-based MVNO this week. Called Total Wireless, this Verizon MVNO has some pretty sweet data sharing plans that are obviously meant to compete with Virgin Mobile’s “Data Done Right” plans which debuted earlier this month.
Total Wireless is expected to be available at select Walmart stores nationwide, and Phone News says that the full fanfare launch is expected sometime in the next couple of weeks. However, from what I can tell, the website is almost fully functional and a soft launch should happen soon.
As far as plans go, here’s what you can expect from the newest America Movil brand:
Individual PlansTotal Wireless also offers mobile hotspots along with a $10 shared data plan that will give you 1.5 GB of data. The data add-on doesn’t expire as long as you have an active service, although I’m not sure whether the data will roll over month-to-month or not. Unfortunately, Total Wireless has a very small phone lineup including the Samsung Galaxy SIII, Alcatel OneTouch Pop Icon, ZTE Savvy Z750 and the Motorola Moto E. In better news, customers should be able to activate their own devices and since Verizon has notoriously lax locking policies, hopefully it won’t be plagued with the same issues that Sprint MVNOs are facing right now. As a note, the service will NOT support 4G speeds at launch, which might be a deal breaker for some people as several other prepaid brands have introduced 4G including Page Plus. However, as Page Plus is also owned by TracFone, I am hopeful that Total Wireless will upgrade eventually to support 4G LTE as well. For more information and plans, services and products you can take a peek at the website.]]>Shared Plans
- $25/month – Unlimited talk, text
- $35/month – Unlimited talk, text, 2.5 GB of data
- $60/month – two devices; Unlimited talk, text, 5 GB shared data
- $85/month – three devices; Unlimited talk, text, 9 GB shared data
- $110/month – four devices; Unlimited talk, text, 12 GB shared data
Under the Terms and Conditions section: “Phones and wireless devices that are 4G and 4G LTE capable are currently not supported by Total Wireless.”
Right on. I must have missed that. I’ll update the article. Thanks!
i have a new tracfone. when i transfer the time on the old one to the new one can i use both phones or must i use only one
It depends. If you have a SIM card, you should be able to put it either phone and it should work just fine. Otherwise, you’ll have to use only one phone.
Unlimited Talk, Text meant across other carriers or just within TotalWireless?. Can I bring my Verizon phone over?
You should be able to call anyone on any carrier. And Total Wireless will allow you to bring your own phone, provided it meets their criteria. You can check it on the website when it formally launches.
I checked my iphone 5S and it says it will work. Wish me luck! I’m going in! Just have to wait for my husband to choose a phone and then we’ll be saving $40 a month by switching from Straight Talk. Rather excited.
Good luck! Let us know if you like them or not.
Do not try this — I have been on the phone for 2 days trying to get service. They charged my card and cannot get my phones working. Now I am just trying to get money back.
Worked ok the first 4 days then called and asked them to port my old Verizon number to the new phone. Waited 3 days and called again. They said the Verizon information needed to port was not in their system so had to go through the very lengthy process again. Now 36 hours later still no port. I give up. Returning the new phone.
hey i love the sound of the this new plan. and cant wait to start. it one thing that is holding me back. the prices of the phones. theo the plan are at a great price the phones are pretty high up there. so the big question is can i use a verison phone with this total wireless plan since this plan is threw verison. or do i have to get a phone threw you?
I believe you can bring a compatible Verizon phone to use with this service.
I tried to activate 3 phones which are Verizon iPhone 4. They told me over the phone I needed to go buy SIM cards, but these phones don’t have SIM card slots. They are CDMA and should transfer right over. Their customer service folks are not aware of what is needed to access their service.
BYOP does not work. I paid $81 for plan and access code because the website said my phone was compatible. 4+ hours later customer service said it IS NOT compatible but it was too late to offer refund. Very bad customer service and a waste of money.
Purchased Moto e from Walmart on 23Mar15. I activated it via phone but I still cannot make or receive calls.
I contacted support 866-663-3633 & 667-6470 on 27Mar and 28Mar. While on phone I was disconnected but was called & left message w/ref 868364.
Being on the phone w/your representatives was extremely frustrating! I currently have Verizon service & have a Verizon Network Extender & have excellent cell coverage in my home. I assumed that Total Wireless would work w/the Moto e as well since you use the Verizon towers.
This is not the case. I spent about 1 1/2 hrs on the phone w/your rep on 27Mar15 when she finally stated she would need to contact Verizon because she couldn’t get it to activate and stay activated. But she said I would have to call back on 28Mar15 because Verizon was closed.
On 28Mar15 I called back to only have another rep insist on repeating the same steps that previous rep had done despite my telling her that previous rep said Verizon needed to be contacted for my problem. So then I was disconnected! Now I called back and spoke w/another rep who insisted on putting me through same steps as previous reps did. I asked her to please contact Verizon! But she insisted that she had to go through same steps!!! I found this to be extremely frustrating!!!!
Now she stated that a rep had updated my “billing” so now my phone is “activated” and should be working w/in 24hrs. If it doesn’t to call them back!!! Well, I really don’t want to call back again & go through the same repetitious cycle that the rep have to go through!!!
Is there anything you can do to correct my lack of staying activated?? If not, I will return this phone to Walmart and get my money back.
Total Wireless = Total waste of time and energy. I can not say this clearly enough- do not buy this phone or service. I bought a phone on Saturday and started the activation process. By Weds. after talking to no less than 12 customer service reps- they still could not activate the phone. Some of the reps told me the phone was active- then when I played the activation message to them said oh, let me check system. I finally returned the phone weds. night to walmart and got a Straight Talk, Within a half hour, I had an activated phone and no issue. I then had to fight like hell to get my money back for the service card because Total Waste of Time Wireless thought they were entitled to keep that $35 because it is in their terms and conditions that service cards are non-refundable. (even when they can not activate their own phones).
This is more against Total Wireless and to some degree a negative review about this Walmart. I wanted to switch my phone over to Total Wireless so I went on line and verified that my phone would work on their network. Their web site said it would so I went to Walmart to get it switched over. The Walmart employee dialed the number for Total on my phone and then handed me the phone to talk to some guy I could hardly understand. The guy tells me after some time goes by that my phone will not work on their network and I will have to purchase their phone. Most of the phones that they have are not ones I or many would want. I was there for more than an hour just to get to this point. When I got home I checked on the computer again to see if my phone would work on their network and this time their website said it would not. Something is hokey since before I went to the store their website said my phone would work and then after that it won’t? The price sounds good but it appears to me they want to get you to buy their phone and not bring your own. Just so everyone knows, the phone I was bringing was an Iphone 4S. The 4 and 4s are not 4g phones or 4g lte and should work.
I purchased a Moto E and a one month plan for my son. The phone worked great, coverage great. No problem. So I decided to make the switch for my husband and myself. Then the problem began. It is at this point near impossible to switch over your existing number. I had to be on the phone for over an hour regiving my information twice. Then they said it may take up to 3 days to switch. WHAT?! So day 3, new phones still do not work. Now I am on the phone again with tech support. The first thing they wanted was my information again! What?! Don’t you people already have that? Then they transferred me to 3 different people! In their defense, their workers are nice, and well trained to handle upset customers. They are simply following their computer screen dialogue. Still waiting… Buyer beware just get a new number.
So all i am reading here is about people with problems. Is anyone having success with Total Wireless?
These jerks tried 10 times to get my phone to work and it wouldn’t work so I asked for my money back. It was refunded and then took back out the same day. DO NOT IN YOUR LIFE GET WITH THIS COMPANY! No, just no!
Anyone have a good experience when you purchase all new phones? We would like to keep our current numbers though. Should we try or not
False advertising and terrible customer service! ! The Comercial and the website says to “bring your own phone” you can even check your phones compatability on the website before you buy the service. The website said that both my note2 and my husband’s s3 are compatible so we go buythe $110 plan and buy 2 other pphones for his parents called in to activate the service they “activate” all the phone charged us another $40 to transfer our numbers only to find out two days later that 2 of the phones will not work. Call them back they could care less, they offer no help fixing the problem or to refund the money.
Bought 2 new phones and wanted 2 keep my Verizon numbers on both. Took me about 3 hours and 4 calls to get the first one done. I decided to get a new number for the second one it only took about 5 mins. It seems like problems occur when switching a number from a different carrier. All the customer service people were nice but a couple were hard to understand. Everything has worked great so far. Gonna save 600 dollars a year by switching.
Do not buy this total wireless bullshit its a scam all they do is burn people I bought a phone with service plan and activated it and texted about 50 people and got no text back.. come to find out my friends where texting back but I wasn’t getting the text messages somebody else with verzion phone service was. I called total wireless and I was hung up on over 15 times they won’t even give me a chance to talk everytime they ask for my number and I give it to them they automaticly hang up on me because I want my money back for the service card… I don’t understand how walmart can sell their product. I finally got a hold of someone she said she would refund me my money back asked me what the pin number was I gave it to her and click.. she hangs up on me I would like to see this scam business get shut down and I want my money back they won’t refund me.
I have 2 4g phones that I was going to bring over to total wireless and I checked online and it said they would work so then I called them just to make sure they would work and they said that the phone would work so I went to Walmart and bought a 60 dollar airtime card and then when I called back to activate the phones they had informed me about the 4g phones not being about to work. then they wanted to check the airtime card to make sure it was active so I have to scratch off the pin on the card and then they told me that they cant issue me a refund even after they told me that my phones would work even though they wouldn’t. so long story short they screwed me out of 60 dollars and there isn’t a thing they will do about. DO NOT SWITCH TO TOTAL WIRELESS!!!!!
I brought my own Verizon Iphone and purchased a LG ultimate 2 for my wife, the network is great, because its Verizon, Customer service sucks, but so does Verizons, Total Wireless website DOES NOT WORK, there is NO way to track Data usage at this time. Customer service keeps telling me to wait 24-48 hours, even the texting Balance don’t work, Best thing to do is go straight to Walmart Corporate, they will appoligize with a gift card, I got 25.00, but I still cant check my usage, & no one at Customer service speaks CLEAR English !
Can anyone tell me how the service is when you buy a new Total Wireless phone and a plan from the site?? Thanks
Bought total wireless’ cheapest phones (2) LG Optimus, no problem getting them activated, switching my numbers to it etc. except they were unable to transfer our contact list. Had them a month now, no problems so far every thing seems to work well and recharge was fairly simple and quick, can buy extra cards and build a reserve, or do a monthly auto pay on line for recharge. Happy with every thing thus far, and beats our Old (Verrizon) bill by being half as much. Like the savings and service/coverage appears to be fine, I’ll see how well it works while I’m in New Orleans for the summer.
Did I get screwed also. Website stated my phone was supported. Purchased the airtime card paid the fees to transfer my phone and then I lost all service. After calling they explain my phone was not supported. No refund for the airtime.. why should I have to pay for a service I did not receive???
I’m on the phone with total wireless right now. My service end date was yesterday. Yesterday I went to Walmart and bought a card to refill my phone (service plan) for $35. I called total wireless 10 minutes before closing and they said they were all ready closed. Idk how long they have been closed before that.
So I went on-line to add the service PIN # and I get an error ” Your airtime card is not compatible with the # of devices on your plan. Go to your account and delete a device(s). I only have 1 device on my plan. A Moto e.
I call back in the morning (now) and luckily my phone still works. I call several times and enter my phone # as asked by the automated system, it keeps telling me to enter it and then says “goodbye” a& hangs up. It never registered. I call back for the 3rd time and speak my pone #, I get transferred to an agent. He gets the same error when trying to enter my airtime card.
He tells me that he can’t fix it and I “have a 24 hour turn around time” & I must call back then. What does that mean? I ask. He just repeats the same thing. I said, Well will my phone work until that time? No, he says. WHAT?!
I asked “How is that fair that I have paid for & done everything I can on my end but my phone will be shut off anyway & I will lose my phone #?” He says, I’m sorry. I ask to speak to a supervisor knowing that it won’t matter anyway because TW is outsourced & they just read from a script.
I wait anyway & all I hear is dead silence & no one ever picks up.
So I have called again and am going through the same conversation with another rep.
I will post again to share the outcome.
Let me add to the above comment I posted (Just Me).
The phone I purchased is a Total Wireless phone so it is definitely compatible. I bought it at Walmart in a total wireless box. I just got off the phone with rep # 2 and was told the same thing. My phone will not work for 24 hours. But this time I was told 24 to 48 hours! Not acceptable. I am a cancer patient and am waiting on test results from an oncologist!
I have a feeling that even after 24-48 hours while my phone is not working, it will never work again and I will never get my phone 3 of 20 years back again.
The total wireless website never works either.
Yes some people are have good luck with total wireless. I switched 2 verizon iphone4 and verizon landline a month ago. It did take sometime, but every number ported over within hours. I did purchase a very cheap lg phone for my and landline number, it works great thus far. From what I understand…you can not byop if it has a SIM card. You will need to purchase one of their phones.
Total Wireless SUCKS! It has taken me over a week to try and port and activate two phone. One from Net10 and one from Verizon Wireless. I have been on the phone with these people for over 6 hours in the past five days. Every time I talk to someone, it is like the entire process starts over again. Their motto is a “Hassle free phone company”. I don’t think so. How can the process be so difficult when they are part of Verizon/Tracfone/Net10???? I give up. I think they are going back to Walmart. The only problem is I will lose the $60.00 that I paid for the minutes. TOTALLY FRUSTRATED!!!!
They are the worst company ever. Their website said that my phone would work and I ported over to phones and only one worked. The second number never ported. I cancelled after arguing with them and both phone numbers were stolen by then and verizon tried their best and couldn’t get the numbers back.!i spent 4 hours at Verizon trying to get them to get my numbers back. A spiteful and horrible company.
WOW IS THE WORD SOUNDS SIMPLE MAKE SURE YOU SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE SO FAR TRYING TO SET UP 3 PHONES ON 1 PLAN WITH SHARED DATA A %#@%$@%@^ NIGHTMARE WHERE IS MANAGEMENT ON THIS
Total SCAM Wireless
BYOD a Samsung S3 was approved and Billed for activation. Only after did they call to state phone will not work since they require do NOT support SIM cards. They still BILLED me for the activation and 1 MONTHS service.. They took my order and then told me it would NOT work, and now they will not return my payment and I was NEVER activated.. SCAM ALERT
Tracfone and the others use multiple networks. Each phone is different. For example the older Iphones on straight talk are on Verizon towers. The newer Iphones on straight talk are on sprint and att towers. Don’t go into this thinking you will be on Verizon towers. That is why they ask for zip of where you will be using the phone when shop for phones.
Took IP 5s to total wireless web page, compatibility was fine, purchased 30 day plan and activation, but that is as far as it went. Called customer service, was told only IP 4 will work and no SIM card phones. My refund, had issues, still waiting to hear back. Do not rely on Total Wireless web site compatibility check.
Don’t be fooled by TracPhone, They just got sued for $40 million for throttling.
Visited the website and used the compatibility checker to see if my phone and tablet were compatible and it said they were.Proceeding to the signup process, it required a street direction in the address field but there is no street direction in my address so it would not let me continue.
Gave me a number to call which I did and explained I was trying to signup online to transfer my 2 devices from Verizon to them. She ran a compatibility check and said yes they were compatible. After taking my information and I was going to pay the activation fee and first month of service with a credit card, she said she got a system error and couldn’t proceed with transferring the phone which she was doing first. Told me that it was because I was using a credit card that it was creating problems so I should go to retail store and purchase a service card because that would make the signup process go through without any problem.
Drove 20 miles into town to Walmart, purchased the card which was $60 plus tax ($65) and back home to call the number she gave me to call back to proceed. Second rep and explanation of what has occurred up to that point. She ran another compatibility check for the phone to start and proceeded as before using the pin number from the service card. Another system error.
When I asked her what the system error was she didn’t know and transferred me to a third rep to try to get me signed up. This one said she got it to go through and started with the tablet. Reached the point where she told me that I needed to input the network access code into my tablet. When I asked her what the code was and where I was to input it into the tablet she said she didn’t know.
I asked if she didn’t how was I supposed to know what it was. Then she tells me I would have to check the manual for my device. I said my manual is not going to give me the access code for your network. Then she tells me that my tablet should be working on the network and that once the request succeeded in going through for the phone it would be done.
I asked so the request hasn’t even went out for the phone and she said no there was a problem and that it should go out within 24 hours and that if my phone had not transferred to them after that amount of time to call back.
Needless to say at this point I am frustrated beyond belief because I had been lied to twice that I knew of, wasted 6 hours of my time, wasted gas to drive into town to purchase the service card at their request, wasted $65 for the card since she had been unable to activate my devices onto their network, and $20 which she had charged to my credit card for the activation fee. I said apparently you are not able to transfer my devices to your network for whatever reason so just forget it, cancel my request to transfer my service since you are unable to do it anyway and refund my charges and since it was their request that I go buy the service card I should be able to have that money refunded also.
Was told I was out of luck on getting the $65 refunded for the card because they are nonrefundable but the charge to my credit card would be refunded (which it has not).So my recommendation is if the signup process is this horrible, imagine what the customer service would be if you ran into a problem after getting onto their network, STAY AWAY from Total Wireless.
Ported my iphone4s feom verizon and it worked seamlessly. Saving big money!
They won’t let you bring a Straigt Talk phone to the Total Wireless network without buying a new phone. Even though they are from the same damn parent company.
I bought 2 of the total wireless phones, both samsung galaxy s3’s. We got new numbers cuz we were ok not carding over our old numbers. Love everything. The phines work perfect and no issues. Everyone posting bad comments are when they tried to make non compatible phones work or whatever. Its a great price for great phones and great service. Follow the rules and u will have the same great experience.
I cat active my phone
Purchased phone and card from Walmart. Worried about reliable connection as we live in a semi-rural area that not all carriers have coverage. So far so good. We don’t travel out of our area very much so I can’t comment on how the service is outside of our area. Did not port my old number and from what others reported I probably won’t go through the hassle. Haven’t received wrong numbers on the number I was given so I will just stay th the new number. Am a newbie with regards to Smartphones so will have to learn how to use it. The only problem I have come across is finding the $25 service and $10 data cards. I really don’t want to purchase them over the internet so will continue to search the various Walmart stores in the area. So far I have been happy with Total Wireless. It has met my needs at a lower price than what I had before.
Just wanted to add that I purchased the Moto E phone and the $35 service card as there were no $25 service cards available in the Walmart store where I purchased the phone.
I got the LG Optimus last month and it’s the slowest phone I have ever had….
I have total wireless, the plan is fine. I don’t have much trouble calling or texting. Got a new number with the phone. I don’t have good signal with the phone though, my verizon phone had amazing service. I also get weird calls all the time from the “company” number I assume. It sends me voicemail texts from weird numbers and when the number calls me if I answer it just keeps ringing, if I let it ring until voicemail (not to mention I answered the phone call, didn’t call them) the voicemail gets sent so someone else with this plan. I get other peoples voicemails where they have answered all the time. My husband has a verizon phone and it does not do the same as a total wireless phone. I would not recommend it, as soon as I get the money for a new phone I will be going back to verizon.
We have successfully ported three iPhone 4s devices and we were able to keep our original phone numbers as well. We are saving loads of money. Be prepared to spend some time on the phone with customer service, it is apparent your information is not available to every representative that you will speak to you and as previously stated, you will have to go through the process with several reps several times until it is right. Be patient, be persistent, and follow the guidelines to a T . Once you are finally set up you will soon start reaping the rewards of a reasonably priced cell phone service that is not charging an arm and a leg to increase their advertising and real estate outlets!
Total Wireless only has the Phillippines answering for Customer Service….. Be Ware!!!
I have had nothing but problems since I got Total Wireless…Service is lousy, my phone is slow and I got screwed over this month by not getting my data I purchased.
I’ve been using Total Wireless for about 4 months. It was a bit of a struggle to get my iPhone 4 set up but once I was activated I have had no issues. I love the extra data that i have available and have had no call quality issues. The only downside to this plan is that I cannot upgrade to the iPhone 4s and above because they are GSM phones. 🙁
I currently had a paid up plan. However I cannot text nor call from my phone (not even 911). It says “call failed”. If I can’t make nor receive call or text then I should be able to be refunded. I havent been able to get text since the 12th. EVERY single month that I run out of data, I lose the ability send and receive text reliably. People tell me they call all the time but I don’t have a missed call from them. I live in a big city with plenty of verizon towers and a verizon phone. I called to see what was wrong with my phone and the first rep told me to dial *22890. When I did it said “call failed” so she told me that it’s because I’m calling from a different zip code than my service contract. I called from 37129; I live 37128. The day that I activated the plan/phone, I did it from 37129 because I was at work the same way that I am today. When I was transferred to a supervisor (Tadia was what she said when she answered), she was even more rude than the people before and did not help me at all then put me on hold or mute and never returned to the phone. She initially picked up, she immediately put me on hold and while on hold 25 text messages came into my phone at the same time so she said “that it must be fixed now if I got messages and she can only address issues that are current”. When she came back, I sent myself a text that said “test” and I still havent received it 30 minutes later. When I asked her to spell her name for me, she said her name was “Tara” and she refused to spell it. Then she disappeared. Hold? Disconnected? Regardless she refused to help me any further at that point. I’ve restarted my phone 3x. All called still say failed and no one will help me resolve it! EVERY MONTH or at least every other month, I call with similar problems and EVERY TIME I get disconnected, hung up on or put on hold for an hour at a time. This is work avoidment and fraud of their employees to have someone on hold for an hour and not taking other calls! In the past when I’ve been without service, they refuse to give me credit or a refund for the days that I don’t have it. At the very minimum, Tara should be written up for her poor customer service. If I were her boss, I’d fire her and anyone else that makes Total Wireless customer care poor. I wasn’t screaming at anyone. I’m sure the call is recorded and should be listened to immediately. One of my best friend’s is a tech support supervisor for Verizon. I’ve had to de-escalate customers for a call center. Heck, I worked for 911 for 10 years before that. You don’t hang up on people evenif you don’t like them. The customer service is going to be the dowNfall to this company. With the right attitude, you can make bad coverage more acceptable. I havent been receiving text since the 13th and I still can’t make calls from my phone. 1/18/16
I’m a current VZW customer and trying to get out of this $157 mo (with a discount) phone bill with only 2 phones and a tablet. $85 a mo is extremely attractive; especially since it’s for three lines (I have two kids) and essentially it would be for the same amount of data if I had 3 phones. Is there anyone in the Chicagoland area has TW and can give a review? I also have a iPhone 5c and a the Droid by Motorola. I see you can byop, but will these work?