\n\nThere are three cost components to using TracFone: you must buy a phone,<\/span> buy\nservice time, and buy minutes. The latter<\/span> two are combined into minutes\nthat expire some months or years after you buy them.\n\n<\/p>\n \n \n\nLast weekend, while still in Ohio, I stopped<\/span> by a Radio<\/span> Shack and bought\ntwo \n\nI charged the batteries and activated the phones via TracFone's web site,\nwhich involved entering some long ID numbers into the web form, then\nentering long strings of digits (encrypted commands) into the phones.\nEverything went smoothly, and my phone showed that I had<\/span> 80 minutes of\nairtime (the 10 that comes with the phone, 10 extra for activating online,\nand the 60 extra that I'd bought). According to the web site, they should\nbe ready to use any time between immediately and one business day.\n\n<\/p> \n\nOn Sunday it wasn't working yet. The “one business day” hadn't passed, but\nI was<\/span> in a fairly<\/span> tech friendly area, so I thought<\/span> it should probably be\nworking, and called up tech support. After going through 5 levels of phone\nmenu, I was immediately<\/span> connected to a person.<\/span> She was very<\/span> polite, and\nafter working with her and entering what seemed like endless numbers into\nthe “code entry” screen of the phone, the phones knew their phone number.\n\n<\/p> \n\nShe confirmed something that the guy at Radio Shack had told me (but the\nTracFone website neglected to mention), that the first area in which you\nuse them becomes your “home area”. Since I'm going to be spending most of\nthe summer in California, I wanted<\/span> that to be my home area, so I had<\/span> to\nwait until later that day, when I \n\nUnfortunately, when I got to the airport in San Jose and needed them, they\nstill didn't work.\n\n<\/p> \n\nTo make this way too long story shorter, I called<\/span> TracFone customer support\nat least twice a day<\/span> since then, each time being told (in very polite but\noddly scripted English) that “they should work within 3 to 4 business\nhours, and if not, call us back.” And each time, they didn't work,\nand each time I'd call them back, half the time finding that they've closed\nfor the day.\n\n<\/p> \n\nThis seems to be a great business model: sell a service<\/span> people need, take\ntheir money, then don't provide the service.\n\n<\/p> \n\nI bought the phones and service because I need<\/span> them, and it's been very\ninconvenient not having them. It's been all<\/span> the more frustrating because\nthe customer care people can't or won't deviate from their well scripted\ninteraction. When I say<\/span> “well scripted”, I mean exactly<\/span> that –\nscripted. At times, they clearly don't even understand what they're saying.\nFor example, one of the (very polite) ladies I talked<\/span> to yesterday kept saying “I'm\nupdating the following information on my computer” but didn't continue to\nsay what that information was – after about the 9th time, I realized<\/span> that\nshe was meaning to say “please hold on while I update<\/span> information on the\ncomputer.” Anyway, it only added to the frustration, and it happened over\nand over.\n\n<\/p>
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