TracFone Minutes Question

[kilee]

We got my son a Tracfone last year. It's the cheap little Nokia model for $20.00 at Walmart. Ironically it gets better reception than either mine or DH's cell's, which we spent some decent money.

Well, just yesterday I reloaded it with all sorts of minutes. Now, today it went through the washer. I don't think the phone is going to "come back". (Funny enough though DH had this happen w/ a phone 2 yrs ago and it did still work once it dried out.)

I am so mad at DS (who is lucky he's not home right now). It's not really the cost of the phone, since I'm going to make him pay to replace it. (Since, he's been told 100 times if not 1000 that once items go in the dirty wash basket that all pockets have to be empty and clothing ready to go right in the washer.) Anyhow, it's the minutes that I just put on it yesterday that I'm more concered about. Does anyone know if Tracfone will transfer those over to a new phone??

Btw, before anyone flames for giving my son a cell phone, not sure if there are any here that think teens shouldn't have them.....he uses it to call us for rides after football practice and soon games. It's actually not allowed to be used for social purposes since dh and I pay for it.

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

Tracfone transferred all my minutes when I upgraded phones a few months ago.

If they say no (I don't see why they would), just ask to speak to a supervisor (or call back).

 

[HOGFAN]

can somebody tell me how these things work?
I am considering getting DS13 one of these for Christmas

 

[Nancy]

They can transfer minutes but you will need both phones to do it. I had to take the minutes off my old phone and then add them to the other one. Mine were transferred because they terminated my service without notice when I used it from Canada (even though I have used it befroe from Canada) of course they didn't terminate my service till they let me use up over 200 minutes in airtime (long distance rates). They wouldn't refund the money at all for the remaining minutes so I had them transferred to my husbands phone, then we used them up and we terminated all service with them.

BTW...I spent 2 hours on the phone with them before they would agree to transfer the minutes. Probably talked to everyone in the place!

 

[kilee]

They outsource their call centers to somewhere oversea's and they are so hard to understand too. I actually have another Tracfone, but it's not "active". I let it go inactive at the start of summer. I wonder if they'll transfer them onto that one..... . I'll have to give them a call, at least I know others have been able to do it. I'm persistant. I got them to give me 20 free units awhile back because I was upset w/ their CS.

W/ the Tracfone-- you buy the phones. Walmart & Dollar General has a cheap Nokia Tracfone for $20. I think it even comes w/ 20 units. I don't know how the units are actually billed-- I think 1 unit is 1 minute in your "local calling area", but I could be wrong. Anyhow, you then can buy phone cards or add units right over the internet. I like it because the phone was cheap (for cases like this if DS ruins it). I also like it because I usually only put the lowest amount of units (I think it's 60) every 60 days. Which runs me $21.64 after tax. It's not to bad for 2 months worth of service. Like I said though DS doesn't get it for social purposes. So the units always last the 60 days. I keep control of the phone, and he gets it when he's going to school events that he'll need a ride home from. He does get to take it to school, it has to stay in his sports bag though turned off, until he's ready to call for a ride home after practice. You do have to add minutes every 60 days to keep the service active, unless you buy service for 1 yr at a time, which I think is about $100 and it gives you 1 yr service and 250 units I believe.

 

[eddad]

I have Net 10 which is a division of tracfone, recently my phone stopped working and I called the support # they actually replaced the entire phone and forwarded all my minutes...............I can't complain about the service,try giving Tracfone a call.

also with Net10, it's 30 dollars for 300 minutes(2 months)but the phone costs 29.99.

 

[kilee]

I'm going to have to check them out for future reference. See what Net 10's calling area is.

 

[Deb in IA]

You might want to shoot a PM to Imzadi. She is the resident Tracfone expert around here!

 

[Robinrs]

I've owned and sold Tracfones on eBay for years. I have one and my son has one. I refer A LOT so I never pay for minutes.

I agree about the outsourcing, sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a machine. They are very polite and customer friendly but you can spend an afternoon trying to figure out what they're saying!

 

[S. C.]

can somebody tell me how these things work?
I am considering getting DS13 one of these for Christmas

Here is a link to a conversation about tracfone.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=729066

 

[Nancy]

Don't get me wrong. As upset and discouraged with them as I now am, I loved the service for years! When the kids were younger it was definitely the way to go. The phone was only used for pickups from school after sports and in emergency situations. Now that they are older they were actually costing us way too much because they used them more. The clincher for me was the terminating my service without notification. That is what mad me a non Tracfone user, plus the hours I spent trying to find out why after years of using their phone from Canada they decided to do it now after I used up over 200 minutes of airtime.


But I would recommend them to those that have younger kids that need a phone. It worked great for us for years.

 

[Imzadi]

You might want to shoot a PM to Imzadi. She is the resident Tracfone expert around here!

LOL. I shamelessly admit, being a Tracfone expert is very self-serving - I just want to keep the company in business so I can continue to have a very cheap cell phone! I got one of the first Tracfones when they first came out, about 5 years ago, because I simply couldn't afford Sprint at $50 month. Back then, for less than $10, (the price of monthly beeper service then,) it was a luxury to have a fully activated phone & phone number that I could carry for emergencies, or to check who called my beeper instead of running to a pay phone to find out. (Glad those days are over! ) Since I didn't want to give out my cell phone number, I used to carry around my beeper AND the Tracfone until they finally included voice mail & Caller ID. Now, I still don't give out my phone number much. And it's great to have a voice mail for people I don't want to talk to at that moment.

Also, as someone else mentioned, Tracfone's outsourced customer service is not very good. One of the few downsides of the Tracfone company. I've noticed other than their first idea of launching a low-cost, affordable cell phone service, they aren't very forward thinking in this area. I'd rather answer/clarify as many questions as possible than have people so frustrated when calling CS that they give up on Tracfones, (even though they'd only have to call, maybe a couple of times, during the life of having a Tracfone.)

Kilee, don't worry about people flaming you for wanting DS to have a cheap cellphone, it is precisely the reasons you mentioned that people do have one for their kids - and having a cheap one that they will lose or break is one less budget worry.

Here are a couple of threads to read up on Tracfone & other low cost carriers:
Cell phone for 11 y/o question

"Pay As You Go" Cell Phones?

Anyone here who has an activated Tracfone can PM anyone a referral.