Prepaid cell ph doesn't work in our house!

[dispor]

I bought three prepaid Net10 cell phones for the kids for Christmas (they were thrilled!!!) but found out that we can rarely get a signal inside the house.

Is there any way that I would be able to return them? They were purchased at Best Buy. Can we keep the phones and get another provider, or is that tied to the phone?

Any help is appreciated...

 

[momof1princess]

i'm sorry i have no solution for you, but i know how you feel. we got DD a kajeet phone for Christmas, which is on the sprint network, and coverage is non-existent out here. if you even blink, you lose the signal, which is only one bar to begin with.

 

[disneymarie]

I bought three prepaid Net10 cell phones for the kids for Christmas (they were thrilled!!!) but found out that we can rarely get a signal inside the house.

Is there any way that I would be able to return them? They were purchased at Best Buy. Can we keep the phones and get another provider, or is that tied to the phone?

Any help is appreciated...

Did you try to coordinate to the nearest signal?
I think I use *228
The rear of my home picks up a further signal, the front area picks up the closest tower. I update every month.

Call tech support too. Sometimes you need a certain phone. When I buy the tracphones I had to put in the zip code. Once ds bought me a tracphone in Ohio at SAMs and it did not work I had to exchange it.

Good luck,

 

[jjccfam]

We also also had this problem with tracfone. We bought the best phones they had for our area. Tracfone tried to fix the problem (not sure how), to no avail. I finally returned the phones. We jumped through all their hoops and there were many. I made about 20 phone calls. Half to the corporate offices and 3 months later we finally got our refund. One of the worst ordeals ever! Their customer service is terrible. Don't get me wrong, everyone is always very polite, but they are definitely offshore...hard to understand many of the accents and you spend much of the time just going around in circles. Best of luck.

 

[NotUrsula]

You could try installing a repeater in your home to boost the signal.

Do you have other cell phones that work fine in the house? Sometimes it is the network, and sometimes it is the house itself; too much metal in the construction creates a de facto Farraday Cage, which will attenuate the signal. A repeater mounted in the attic can usually help greatly in that case.

 

[dispor]

Thank you for your suggestions! I called Best Buy and they said to bring the phones in and they "should be able to help" us. Not even sure what they meant! I assumed it meant they would let us exchange them, but maybe not...???

I have Sprint and have NEVER had a problem getting a signal inside the house. Dh has Verizon and has said that sometimes he has trouble. I wonder if there's a way to figure out which prepaid company uses the same towers as Sprint? I'll ask at Best Buy.

Thanks!

 

[hsmamato2]

depending on where you live you get better or worse service- around her net10 gets the BEST service,2nd only to at&t-
I advise yout NOTNOTNOT call customer service, you will accomplish nothing(I promise you,I know from hard experience) and waste a LOT of time.
Bring the phones in and get a refund,you could try a different prepaid service to see if it works in your home,t-mobile is cheap too,maybe even tracfone which is the same company as net10,but gets diff.service.

 

[luvmy3]

We have that same problem, Verizon is the only one we get in our home and its still only a few bars.
I was just researching new phones for dd because her latest tracfone won't even get a signal until she's practically out of our subdivision. There were a few sites that let you put in your actual address to see the coverage, but I'm sorry I can't remember what ones. (Tmobile may have been one). When I put in ours it said *fair* which also stated that you could sometimes recieve signal outside, but not inside of buildings. I guess we just live in an almost dead zone.

Whats the signal booster for the home?

 

[angwill]

Kajeet uses Sprint network. DH has sprint and DS kajeet. There is a zip code map on their site. Tracfone was $20 every 3 months for 120 minutes and it was 2 texts per minute and Kajeet costs us $45 every 3 months for the $14.99 per month plan which is 60 minutes per month so 180 mins every 3 months and unlimited texting. The phones and service with Kajeet are better for us where I live but the better phones are expensive.

HTH

 

[swilshire]

Did you want service in the house because you have no landline?

After years of trying to make my teens understand that they should NOT use their cell phones when a landline was close by, it's hard to picture encouraging the use of cell phones in the house. I only allow it when it's a free mobile to mobile call.

Sheila

 

[NotUrsula]

Looks like Tracfone and Net10 are part of the same company, and the networks that they use for the more affordable CDMA phones are Verizon and US Cellular.

FYI, Virgin Mobile uses Sprint as well.

A signal booster for your home is essentially a wired antenna gadget that picks up a weak signal from a tower and intensifies it. Just search for "cellular repeater" and you'll see what they are.