Tracfone for no reason whatsoever, deactivated my phone that had over a year service on it & over 500 minutes on it, claiming falsely that the phone wasn’t deducting time when used.

The phone was sitting on a table when it spontaneously deactivated. I saw it actually go to the “UNREGISTERED SIM” message. I called Tracfone Customer Service the first time, telling them the bizarre thing that had just happened. The rep said they would immediately reactivate the phone within 24 hours. The phone was never reactivated.

I called Tracfone again. This time a rep went through a bunch of troubleshooting codes and finally said he would have to send me a new SIM card and then they would reactivate my phone.

Nothing happened so I called yet a THIRD TIME. Again a rep said they would send me a new SIM card & reactivate the phone. ALL 3 TIMES I WAS ASSURED THAT MY PHONE WOULD BE REACTIVATED, I WOULDNT LOSE MY SVC TIME OR MY MINUTES ON THE PHONE, & THEY APOLOGIZED FOR THE INCONVENIENCE THE PROBLEM WAS CAUSING ME.

THE FOURTH TIME I CALLED, a customer service rep told me the phone couldn’t be reactivated unless I called another office. I pointed out that customer service had told me several times already that my phone would be reactivated & a new SIM card would be sent to me but I hadn’t ever received it. She ignored that comopletely. Then she gave me the phone number for the “other office, which was the same phone number for customer service I had always called!!!! the only number TF gives out for their customer service number!)
I told her that the number she gave me, was just the same tracfone customer service number I’d been using, so she offered to switch me to the other office. I got promptly disconnected.

I called back, only to get another rep who went claimed I had to call another office to reactivate the phone, but this one told me the people in the other office had gone home for the day and to call back the next day.

The next day when I called back, I got a customer service representative who claimed I had to talk to the other office & she promptly put me on hold, and left me on hold 45 minutes then disconnected me.

Again I called back, and this time I got a customer service rep who claimed I needed to buy a new phone because my phone had been deactivated because it wasn’t deducting minutes. I protested that the phone was deducting just fine when used. She insisted it wasn’t even though I pointed out that a month and a half before the spontaneous deactivation, I had just purchased a year card with 400 minutes on it doubled to 800 plus 250 bonus minutes.

She said she didn’t care what I said, the phone wasn’t deducting minutes so they had deactivated it.

I tested the phone by sending a text message, which of course didn’t get sent anywhere because of the phone being deactivated, BUT THE PHONE DEDUCTED .30 minute CORRECTLY JUST LIKE IT HAD BEEN DOING FOR THE 3 YEARS I’VE HAD IT NOW!!!! Tracfone always has deducted minutes even for text messages that fail to get sent at all, another little way they steal from their customers all the time.

I offered to send photographic proof that the phone was indeed correctly deducting time when used, either by email or snail mail, to prove it was fine. I had photographed the screen before and after the text message, to show that the phone had deducted time properly.

I asked to talk to the girl’s supervisor who put someone else on the phone who gave me the same false claim that the phone had been deactivated because it wasn’t deducting time when used. I offered to send the photographic proof to whomever in the tracfone office could do something to resolve my problem and get my phone reactivated. She said THEY DIDNT NEED TO SEE ANY PROOF BECAUSE THEIR OFFICE WAS WHO MADE THE DECISIONS WHOSE PHONE THEY WANT TO DEACTIVATE (those were her exact words too… WANT TO DEACTIVATE!!!!)

To make a long story short, I talked to two more Tracfone customer representatives and got nothing except the same false claim that the phone was deactivated for not deducting, as well as repeat refusals when I offered to email or snail mail photographic proof the phone was properly deducting.

The last time I called to try to get my phone reactivated, I went through everything again, telling the rep that customer service had promised me several times to send me a new SIM card & reactivate my phone, but I never received it, and then when I called back, customer service representatives were claiming my phone wasn’t deducting minutes but I had even taken photographs to prove it was deducting properly and could send the photographic proof to whomever needed to see it. This rep said she would transfer me to another office, and she transferred me to another representative who of course needed me to tell the whole story from the beginning again, who transferred me to another one who again needed everything repeated from the beginning. This went on for almost FOUR HOURS as
Tracfone customer service representatives REFUSED to let me speak to anyone in management, and transferred me back and forth between different customer service reps, until finally the last rep who I tried to get help from, took Tracfone’s horrific lack of decency or ethics to a whole new dimension.

I asked the girl if they could send me a new SIM card like I’d been promised by customer service representatives they would do in the first place. She said no, because the people in the other office said it’s deactivated and that’s just the way it is. You have to buy a new phone.

I asked the rep if the phone wasn’t deducting, why didn’t I still have 1052 minutes on it (I had bought the card with 2 min left on the phone, making 1052 minutes and extending service until year 2012) instead of only 500 plus minutes left on it.

The service rep said she didn’t care, that the people in the “other office” whatever that is, says the phone was deactivated and cannot be reactivated and then said “They said you can’t tell them what to do, if they want to deactivate your phone, you can’t do anything about it, you’re not in charge of them!”

I told the rep that I had photographic proof that the phone WAS deducting properly and she said, “I DONT CARE WHAT PROOF YOU HAVE, THE OTHER OFFICE SAID YOURE NOT THEIR BOSS AND IF THEY SAY THE PHONE IS DEACTIAVED, ITS DEACTIVATED AND YOU CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I asked if I could speak to management, and she said, MANAGEMENT NEVER TALKS TO THE CUSTOMERS, THEY DONT HAVE TO!

I asked her how they could say my phone wasn’t deducting when I can PROVE ABSOLUTELY THAT IT IS DEDUCTING. She said, BECAUSE THE OTHER OFFICE IS IN CHARGE AND YOU AREN’T AND THEY DECIDE WHEN THEY WANT TO DEACTIVATE SOMEONE’S PHONE, NOT YOU.

I asked her about the phone’s remaining 500 plus minutes & almost 2 years svc time on it (I had just purchased a year card with 400 minutes on it doubled to 800 plus 250 bonus minutes, a month & a half before Tracfone wrongly spontaneously deactivated it!!!! I asked her how could they just deactivate my phone and claim it wasn’t deducting when it WAS DEDUCTING AND I COULD PROVE THAT IT WAS DEDUCTING?

Then THE CUSTOMER REPRESENTATIVE START LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY AT ME & I COULD HEAR OTHER REPRESENTATIVES IN THE BACKGROUND LAUGHING TOO AS SHE SAID THE PHONE WAS DEACTIVATED AND THEY DIDNT CARE WHAT I COULD PROVE BECAUSE THE OTHER OFFICE SAID TO TELL ME I WASNT THEIR BOSS & COULDNT CONTROL THEM. I asked again to speak to management, SHE TOLD ME, MANAGEMENT NEVER TALKS TO CUSTOMERS EVER, YOU CANNOT TALK TO ANYONE HIGHER UP BECAUSE THEY DONT EVER TALK TO THE CUSTOMERS AT ALL.
THEN SHE SAID “TOUGH SHIT, YOUR PHONE IS DEACTIVATED BECAUSE it isn’t deducting, WE DONT GIVE A DAMN WHAT KIND OF PROOF YOU HAVE, YOU DONT RUN THIS COMPANY, YOU NEED TO BUY A NEW PHONE.

Then she hung up on me.

So after 3 plus years of being a good customer of Tracfone, buying 3 phones from them, buying airtime regularly from them, I had my phone wrongly deactivated a month and a half after buying a 90 dollar card for it, I had empty promises and empty assurances from the first few customer service representatives that they would reactivate my phone, then I was told they would send me a new SIM & reactivate my phone, then came the false claim that the phone wasn’t deducting & the worst treatment I’ve ever gotten from any business EVER, ending with the laughter of the customer service representatives as that last girl delivered her hateful remarks in an extremely nasty tone of voice, ending in the cruel cussing grand finale when she hung up on me.

I was patient throughout the whole ordeal from first call to that last rep’s cussing hangup, never got rude or angry in my tone of voice, never cussed or insulted anybody, even offering photographic proof that the phone was deducting, WHAT MORE COuLD I HAVE DONE TO TRY TO GET TRACFONE TO DO WHATS RIGHT AND REACTIVATE MY PHONE LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD?

I wonder if those who own the company approve of this way of doing business with their customers. (I find it exceptionally vile too, that “management never talks to the customers, EVER”)

I think that someone who has some kind of authority and power within Tracfone, should do the right thing, reactivate my phone & give me a large number of minutes of airtime to make up for the wrongful deactivation and all the time & effort I spent trying to resolve it, & all the shock, pain (especially at being laughed at by multiple reps as that girl talked so nastily to me), frustration, and horror at the brutal way I was treated.