My latest divorce

[susandennis]

When I use up most of my current Tracfone minutes, I'm filing for divorce.  They not only let me down, their competition picked up the ball and polished it. 

It all started when I decided I really did want a flip phone.  I like the candy bar but not nearly as much.  So flush with cash from my bascillion hour work weeks of late, I decided to indulge myself.  So I went to the Tracfone website and did my research.  Yes, you can upgrade and yes, they will move your number and all your minutes and stuff to your new phone.  Buy one and then call us.

So I did.  The phone arrived yesterday.  I liked it.  I was jazzed.  I charged it up and I called them.  4 hours on hold.  Seriously.  After the first hour I just put it on speaker and went about my day.  Finally I did give up.  Then I tried again about an hour later and this time it was only 2 hours.  That would have been enough but they sweetened the pot.

After 43 minutes of really godawful conversation with their service rep while she put me on hold a million times, asked me the same question a million times and was really not pleasant... she finally told me, no can do.  Since my number was ported into Tracfone, they can't move it to another phone.  Then I got to spend another 36 minutes with the returns lady wasn't nearly as nice as the first bitch.  I'll be seriously surprised if I ever see that money.

Then, because 8 hours isn't enough time for me to be on the phone, I called Virgin.  Talk about a completely different experience.  I was careful to avoid their sales people and went to their technical support.  I was on hold for under 5 minutes.  I got a very clear, coherent, totally understandable representative who assured me no matter how many different ways I asked that I could keep my number and change phones every week if I wanted.

She could have been lying out her teeth but I decided that I'd rather be lied to by Virgin than deal with Tracfone again. 

I have 144.1 minutes which will probably take me for freakin ever to use up but what.ever.  I did try and figure out if I could give my minutes away - I know I have two LJ friends with Tracfones who might like them.  I couldn't figure it out.  seattlejo and canuckgirl if either of you can figure out how I can give you my minutes, tell me and they are yours!

Comments

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

How weird! Sorry about the sudden bout of shitty service. Between this and clearwire, i think I'm done giving advice suggestions. Well unless they are food related.

[susandennis]

Oh, no worries. I still find your opinion and your experiences very valuable. My experiences may vary but when you tell me it works for you and then I find it doens't for me at least I don't feel like a giant sucker who should have known better than to fall for the scam!

And that recipe is one I would have never found or tied without you.

[jawnbc]

Virgin mobile Australia and UK have both been very good to me. Were their product competitive here in Canada I'd use them here in a heartbeat. But since we don't have landlines, none of their plans suit our needs. They don't have the full range of phones on offer, but their service is cracker-jack and after only a year on prepaid they even unlocked my phone so I could use it when travelling.

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

I'm going to tell you the secret of why you got horrible service at Tracfone and good service from Virgin. It can be summed up very easily.

At Tracfone, you're already a customer.

At Virgin, you are a possible *new* customer.

Unfortunately, most cellphone companies operate that same way...possible customers are treated much nicer than already customers.

[susandennis]

Ahhh but I am a Virgin customer (I have an Oyster bought from their website) and I was NOT talking to sales. I talked to their technical support group.

Your point is one that is on the money. For sure.

I called Tracfone sales to start with because I knew there would be no wait and there wasn't but they also refused to help and send me to wait-on-hold-forever land.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

My T-Mobile customer service has always been good. The signal here is great, probably in part thanks to the North America headquarters being one suburb away, so bigwigs notice dead spots just by milling around town. That's so much better than I had with Verizon Wireless, even though Verizon had the best customer service reputation at the time.

Anyway, Susan's idea of calling tech support and testing them out is clever, since that's mostly for customers, rather than potential customers. When I've had customer support problems in the past, I've sometimes found it useful to call the sales number for help, since they're meant to show a good face for potential customers. Mentioning the possibility of being an ex-customer often puts the sales people in a mood to help deal with sluggish customer support departments.

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

Here its just the opposite. If you want pretty phones, you go T-Mobile or AT&T. If you want a phone that actually works but may not be an iPhone, you go with Verizon Wireless. My friends with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint have trouble with dead spots all over the place. The only dead spots I have are deep in the sticks in the next county over, which is even more rural than my own county is.

[geordie.livejournal.com]

I have always been pretty happy with all Richard Branson's efforts, even when they left us sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow for seven hours they fed us, let us know exactly what was going on and then provided everyone with a personally signed letter of apology from the big man himself. It was just after a 747 lost two engines and plowed into an apartment building in Amsterdam, so when they told the pilot there was something wrong with an engine he told them to change it and Richard backed him up.

I'm pretty sorry they pried most of his fingers loose from Virgin America, I hope the people who did get control are clear on the reputation they have to uphold.

Anyway, thanks for experimenting with phones for me. I have a friend who needs one inflicted on her and I wasn't sure what to get, I was going to try Tracfone but now they are off the list.

[susandennis]

You might find some good bits here:

http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

One way you could give away your minutes would to be to hand over the phone itself. That wouldn't do them any good for incoming calls, but they could use up the minutes on outgoing calls.