DATE: 25 JULY 2007
PROBLEM: Unable to resolve Tracfone account
for the past 6 or 7 years, I have been a loyal Tracfone customer. Each
year,
I purchase their 12-month card for about $95, which supposedly gives me:
1. uninterrupted service for the next 12 months
2. 250-400 minutes of airtime (depending on the bonus program in effect at
that time)
3. able to keep the same phone number
4. unused minutes ac***ulate, as long as I keep buying airtime.
Generally, I've been happy with their service. I don't use the phone
often,
usually only for emergency calls, or to let someone know that I'm running
late, so my calls typically last a minute or so. As a result, I've
ac***ulated a lot of available airtime over the years, 1570 units
(minutes)
as of the middle of last week.
Last Wednesday night, my phone began showing a message saying that the SIM
card wasn't registering. I called their service number, and after a
lengthy
exchange of numbers to test the phone, the tech decided that I needed to
re-register the phone, which would require a new SIM card.
They sent one out, and it arrived on Saturday, 21 JULY, meaning that I was
without the use of the phone for those 3 days. I called the service number
again, and went through the process of re-registering the phone. They said
that they were unable to give me back all the time I was due, but that I
should call the next day and they would credit the balance on the phone.
After waiting an hour for the phone to be registered, I tried to make a
call
to it, without success. That's when I found out that they had also changed
my phone number! I called them back, and after another extended call, they
determined that we would need to use a new SIM card and start all over
again. About 2 1/2 hours wasted!
On Sunday, I called them back with a new SIM card from a new phone, so we
could get my original phone working as soon as possible (it was still
dead!). They were able to activate the phone, change the number back to
the
original number, and restore another 170 or so minutes to the phone,
leaving
me 600 minutes short. I was told to call back in 2 days to get the
remaining
time credited to the phone.
Today, I received a call from a Tracfone representative who told me that
they would not credit the remaining 600 minutes back to my phone unless I
could prove with receipts that I had actually purchased the time!
Certainly
their own computer records show that I was a loyal customer for the past 7
years, and that I made regular purchases during that time.
Basically, they have inconvenienced me by causing me to lose the use of
the
phone for much of the past week. They have caused me to waste somewhere
between 3 and 4 hours of time on the phone trying to resolve the problem.
And now they are cheating me out of 600 airtime minutes I purchased over
the
years.
I went back through my VISA account records, and found entries in the
annual
re****ts that sup****t my having paid Tracfone about $100 each of the last 3
years. Although there are no details, that should be sufficient to prove
that I have been a customer:
12 OCT 2004 .... TWI*TRACFONE WIRELESS 800-816-0663 FL $ 94.99
15 nov 2005 .... TRACFONE WIRELESS 317-7072355 IN $ 101.59
28 SEP 2006 .... TWI*TRACFONE WIRELESS 0-816-0663 FL $ 99.99
I suppose I could send them the information, trying to clear up the
matter,
but at this point I really don't care about the 600 minutes. There is
nothing Tracfone can do that will make me a happy customer again.... that
****p has sailed!
As for keeping me as a customer in the future, I doubt very much that will
happen either. There are many other cellphone companies out there, each
with
their own version of prepay plan, all using the same infrastructure, and
all
with nice, cheap phones. I'm sure I can find a company that will be happy
to
take my money, just as Tracfone has done for 6 or 7 years.
My hope now is to warn away as many potential customers as possible. I've
attended many sales and service-oriented seminars in the past few years,
and
they all emphasize the same thing: it costs MUCH more to attract a new
customer than it does to keep an existing one. Apparently, Tracfone hasn't
heard about that.
The person I spoke with this morning is Chantal, at 1-800-626-4883,
extension 6132.
Their mailing address is:
Tracfone Wireless
8390 Northwest 25th St.
Miami FL 33122
Their ticket number for the problem resolution is: 20583215
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