Tracfone

Donna and I have an occasional need for a cell phone, so last year we started looking about for the cheapest way to get a cell phone that met our needs. We really didn’t need to sign up with one of the big guys for $30 a month and a hundreds of anytime minutes. Nor did we want a two year commitment with substantial penalties to bail out earlier. After doing a bit of internet research on the pay as you go type phones we settled on a company called Tracfone.

The smallest minutes card you can buy is 40 for $19.99 and it is good for 60 days. If you don’t use the minutes they just roll over, but you have to buy another card in 60 days or your service will be discontinued. Because we use so few minutes our bank of airtime is up over 100 minutes. So no matter how you shake it, it’ll cost us about $10 a month for a cell phone.

Recently Donna’s mom decided she wanted a cell phone too. Her use will probably be less than ours so we bought another Tracfone. For $30 you get 20 minutes and a Nokia 1100 phone. It arrived last Thursday. I went online and activated the phone. Unlike the last time for us, this phone didn’t get up and running with in an hour. The support section on the web site said give it 24 hours and if it doesn’t come up call. I left it on overnight and hooked to the charger. By morning the battery was full up, but the signal strength meter was flatlined. Being a good boy I decided to wait out the 24 hours, even though there was surely something wrong with the phone. (Our phone is the same model and when they were side by side, our signal strength meter was full to the top while the new one showed nothing.)

Friday evening I called the support phone number and explained that my phone was not working. She could see on her computer that I had activated it, but told me it hadn’t been 24 hours. When I said sure it has, her response was not 24 business hours. Huh? “What’s a business hour?” I ask. There are 8 business hours in a day she replied, so according to them I had only been waiting for my phone to start working for 8 hours. WTF? Knowing what the answer would be before I asked, I said, “I suppose Saturday and Sunday don’t count?” “Right,” she said. I tried to explain about the lack of signal strength so there was zero possibility that my phone would be receiving any kind of power up codes, she would have none of it. When I put on my most exasperated voice and said, “I’d like to say thank you..” Before I could finish with, “But I can’t.” She promptly replied, “You’re welcome. Have a nice day and thank you for calling Tracfone.”

Sixteen business hours later – now it is this past Tuesday evening. I call the support phone and get a recording saying that I should try back in 48 to 72 hours due to problems associated with Hurricane Wilma. Sheesh. I’m calling them tomorrow.