Loading ...
Madness as in anger, that is.
Tracfone ripped me off last week. I paid a hundred dollars for a one year card. I gave the card to The Girl for her phone. She told me it worked just fine. But then a couple days later she claimed they had given her the minutes/year then taken them back. But she kept the card. That should have been the tip off. They never gave her the minutes in the first place.
When we entered the pin from the card, they kept giving us a “system unavailable” message. Totally bogus. Don’t ever believe them when they give you that kind of message more than once. I called the number on the card and tried to add the time that way. Still no go, but at least now they told me that the phone was deactivated. It shouldn’t have been. According to the phone, we still had one day coming to us.
I tried calling the same number and talking to a real person. I wish I remember the name of the person I ended up with. She was quite unhelpful and just a touch snarky. Or rather, she became snarky when I got upset.
What’s to get upset about? The minutes had been put on a different phone. She would not give me the number of the phone they’d been put on. She wouldn’t do anything for me at all. She didn’t even have the kindness to suggest that I take my receipt back to the place I’d bought the card and prove I’d bought it. Smart me, I figured that one out all on my own. At this time I’m so angry I’m shaking. Then I find out from a careful grilling of The Girl that the card had never worked even once. Egg on face for Alice.
I called WalMart, where I’d purchased it from and told them my tale of woe. The guy there, Jay, was sympathetic, but couldn’t help me right then. He told me to come in the next day at 8am. This is a bit of a hardship for me as I don’t typically get to bed until around 3 am, but for a hundred dollars I’m willing to do it.
So I got my self out of bed at what I consider a barely-Godly hour only to have him go through exactly the same routine I did, and then tell me that as far as TracFone is concerned, he is no more significant than anyone else. It didn’t matter to them one wit that I had the proof of purchase in my hand, or that they KNEW the number the card had been put on. Without the serial number from the phone that stole my money, they wouldn’t budge.
I think it’s an act of God that I lost the stupid phone card on the way home. I checked everywhere, but it’s gone. I think it dropped out of my pocket at the gas station. That pretty much put the end to my plans to take them to small claims court.
Mr. Al took the receipt down and talked to management at Walmart, but again – no help.
The thing is, the card wasn’t out of our possession at all until it dropped out of my pocket at the end. The only think I can think is that it was scanned by one of those illegal while still in the store. It wouldn’t be hard for them to do it.
Moral of the story – DON’T BUY PHONE CARDS FROM WALMART! DON’T TRUST TRACFONE!!!!!
So, obviously I’m in the market for a new phone company. What do you suggest?
Wow, I’m sorry to hear you’re having to deal with all this. I’ve inherited all my phones from my gadget-loving spouse, so I have no advice to offer in that department. Did you check that you didn’t lose the phone in the car, though? I’ve lost mine several times in and around the spaces near where the seat of the car bolts to the floor, wedged against the inside of the car, etc. There are several small, dark little places where it’s very easy for a phone to slip and be nearly invisible.
I checked in the seats and everything. It was the card, rather than the phone itself, so I might have missed it even more easily. I’ll check again. Not that it will do me much good.
So sorry to hear you have this problem. Although I don’t quite understand what a phone card is (I am assuming it’s like SIM card in my country> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subscriber_identity_module )…but I know how it feels to have something doesn’t work properly but the seller can’t do anything about it.
Be patience Audrey…there is a saying here in my country, all good things always come after bad things.
I could use some good things. It occurs to me that in the four years since I’ve moved to this town I’ve lost two bicycles, the phone card, and a web site to theft.
ow my…sounds like a town full of bad lucks
*sending a lot of good luck wave at you*
Thank you.
Ouch, that sucks big time. When it comes to using a mobile phone I’ve always just used top-up vouchers – basically a receipt with a code number on it that you dial in to get your top up. Since I hardly ever use my phone though, I’ve never bought more than £10 top ups at a time. I use Vodafone, and aside from annoying text adverts they send me once in a blue moon, I’ve never had any trouble with them.
Either way, that’s some pretty crappy customer service from TracFone.
The phone card is supposed to work the same way.
ugh sorry this happened to you and cant believe how much of a hard time they are giving you over it…they should be able to see it is not working…
Oh, but it is working – on someone else’s phone.
I would be unhappy with both TracPhone and Walmart, as well. Too bad you lost the card, although – wouldn’t the card’s serial number be on the receipt? I know when I’ve bought gift cards, they’ve always come with a receipt that contained the serial number.
Apparently this doesn’t mean anything to WalMart of TracFone. What they want is the serial number off the phone to which the money was incorrectly applies. Like I would have any way of getting that. Grrrrr. Seriously, I ought to be illegal. I can too easily see how TracFone in particular could be making millions off this system by bilking customers.