Minutes suddenly disappeared, put back by Tracfone support

by sb on 05/01/2013
(Virginia)

A ton of minutes suddenly disappeared within a day from our T404g. Don't know if it was because the browser was left on or if it was some kind of technical glitch. (Usually I expect the browser to automatically turn off after a period of inactivity.)

After turning it on and back off to see if that would somehow magically fix itself, I called up Tracfone support. I expected the worst, but they actually added the minutes back on as a one-time service. The support rep did say that if it happened again, we would have to replace the unit. Pretty reasonable.

In the meantime, we had been using the new LG 840g I've acquired for reviewing as a replacement phone. So far it seems pretty good except for a couple of things.

Comments for Minutes suddenly disappeared, put back by Tracfone support

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Nov 27, 2022
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Rip-off
by: Sherry

At 2 pm I had 10,034 minutes, 17,707 texts and 4.25 GB of data. At 7 pm tried making a call it wouldn’t go through so I texted and it didn’t go through. I called tracfone to see what what’s wrong and they said I had no minutes left on my phone. I argued with them for 3 hours on the phone over this and they said there was nothing they could do since I used all my minutes. In 5 hours they said I used over 10,000 minutes, 17,000 texts and 4.25 GB of data. All my minutes and texts accumulated over the years and I paid for all that and now if I want to use the phone I have to purchase more minutes!!! It’s impossible for me to use that many minutes and all those texts in 5 hours! I’ll throw the phone in the river before I give them one more dime. TERRIBLE customer service with no satisfaction. Stay away from tracfone. Everything’s fine until you have a problem then all they do is blame the customer. By the way where’s all the people that speak English in this country? Couldn’t understand any representative that I talked to.

Oct 12, 2022
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Did I really use 180 minutes?
by: sb

I recently received this message via the feedback form. She didn't say that the minutes suddenly disappeared, but that there seemed to be a discrepancy:

"I am told that I used 180 minutes last month and I do NOT believe that is correct. No one at Tracfone knows how I can access the list of calls to verify how many minutes I used."

Nov 22, 2021
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A Ghost Keeps Turning "Data Saver" OFF
by: Anonymous

Not to mention that the back of the Tracfone A502DL won't come off for "Battery Removal when not in use"; in addition, A "Ghost" Keeps Turning "OFF" my "Data Saver feature." I have watched it turn itself off right in front of me. I turn Data Saver "On" and in less than 2 to 10 seconds it turns itself "OFF" again. I say lets move on from these da-- "PEOPLE". I say lets move on because I have tried everything since it slowly started happening back in 2019 when purchased. They keep trying to force me to "BUY MORE DATA" the "SALES PITCH". I keep asking them to fix the da-- problem. They accused me of "Streaming Movies" with my "Tracfone A502DL", I said, "No way!" I finally took my service out of "AutoPay" and cancelled the bank card. I am looking for a better service because as long as I keep the same sim card knowing that I can't take the back off to remove the battery then I am , yet again, screwed. "Service with a Smile" is not their motto. In my opinion, based on how I have been treated by the Tracfone Customer Service over the phone, and the complaints I've read here. I believe their motto is "Let's Get Paid!!!!" and of course at not cost to them. Dear Tracfone, F-----YOU.

Sep 24, 2021
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Stolen minutes
by: Anonymous

I bought a new Alcatel flip phone because the 60 minute cards would no longer work on my iPhone. I had 3 - 60 minute cards that I loaded and little by little the minutes were stolen in less that 15 days with only ten minutes of actual use for calling. I called tracfone and was told that I used the minutes or they were used in texts .. I don't do texting. They never offered to replace any minutes so I loaded another 120 minutes and thought that this would carry me into next year but overnight y minutes disappeared without having used any! Take my advice, break it off with tracfone and check out consumer cellular .. Although it costs more there is unlimited texts and minutes and you can use wifi for browsing the internet essentially free not using any data .. Adios Traccrooks

Feb 17, 2021
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Lost all Text/Data/Minutes Tracfone
by: Anonymous

A couple years ago one of our phones lost thousands of texts, minutes and gigs of data. All of it to zero over night. They accused me of using all that time. I spent 6 hours on the phone with tech support to get it straightened out. They restored it to what I remembered the balances to be.

Fast forward to this week. Bought another airtime card to keep service going. After 2 days, my account balance hadn't changed even though end of service date was updated. Tried going through their online chat, "Dorothy" effective said I was lying because their system said I received them. I had taken a screen shot of my balance before I purchased the card so I knew the exact balance. She then transferred me to a manager "Roy". "Roy" isn't a manager, he's a sales person that can't help me, nor can he transfer me to anywhere else.

Called tech support, got "Bob" with a really bad connection to Mumbai. Told me to reboot the phone and see if it is fixed. Nope. Got a call back, from "Mary" with an even worse connection to Mumbai. She told me the plan that I purchased didn't come with data or text, only minutes. I then told her the exact plan that I purchased included all three. She was able to update my account with the correct amounts.

Seems their default excuse for their failure of an account management system is to blame the customer and hopefully you'll go away. Stay the course, and demand that they make it right.

Apr 02, 2020
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Unethical Tracfone
by: Anonymous

I lost between 4000-5000 minutes during a new phone activation on April 2nd 2020. Spent most of April 2nd 2020 wasting my time talking to mindless customer service reps. The only thing they do well is shield their supervisors.
Over 15 year customer that liked the Tracfone plan since I use very few minutes.
No more, I may have to buy a 60 day plan until the corona virus mess is resolved after that it is GOODBYE Tracfone.

Mar 08, 2020
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Missing minutes
by: Jim Griffith

On 2/27/20, I transferred my Tracfone number and remaining 1200 minutes to a new LG Premier LTE phone, then on 2/29/20, all of my minutes, data, and texts time had disappeared. I went out and purchased a new Tracfone air time card and had it activated and two days later, again everything was gone. I can not find a real person to talk to at Tracfone and have been unable to get my new phone to work. HELP

Jul 02, 2019
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Tracfone theft of service
by: Bruce Winland

I have had Tracfone service a number of years...last week I went to text someone and found that I had no minutes left. I bought another plan to add minutes and thought that was that...about 2 days later it went to 0 again...I chatted with them on comp. and the rep gave me 1000 more min. I figured that I would buy 500 more 2 days later 0 again I am 70yrs old and texting is not my thing 1 phone call 2 more chats and long story short today about 6 hrs ago I got 500 more...I have not used phone at all today and six ours later I have less than 350 left...after seeing more people having similar issues I feel that they should be SUED for theft of services ...I took my battery out of phone and well see what I have left in the morning

May 09, 2019
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Liars at TracFone
by: Arthur

Tried to make a call 5/5/19. Would not go thru. Found I had 0 minutes! I hardly ever use a cellphone and I had well over 1000 minutes accumulated over a number of years. Four calls to technical support left me with nothing. First T claimed I had "consumed" my time. Then I would get 1000 minutes back in an hour. After an hour, no minutes. Called again. Would get my minutes back in an hour. Hour later no minutes. Asked why it would take an hour when minutes are received immediately when purchased. No answer. Called again - minutes would be credited in 24 hours! after 24 hr no minutes. I am switching carriers.

Apr 12, 2019
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Tracfone
by: Anonymous

I'm tired of loosing my talk minutes while on important talk health care now they don't know what's happened no money to let them know what just happened to the phone call I have more text and data minutes than now no call minutes I have to find a better connection on phone this Samsung phone is a piece of shit also thank youb

Mar 12, 2019
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tracfone minutes disappeared
by: ann buswell

I put minutes on my TracFone and after a few days they have all disappeared. I called TracFone and as told that I did use those minutes but I did not. On one occasion I had left my phone in another purse that was stored in closet so I could not have made phone calls with it. I want to be reimbursed.

Jun 24, 2018
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a way around
by: Chuck

try contacting BBB ask for return of min lost or record on min used

Jun 23, 2018
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Tracfone Fraud
by: Anonymous

Went to make a important call when I was about to do some banking and was surprised to have zero voice minutes. Previously I had 1500 minutes that took two years of maintain servoice payments to aquire and they should have still been there. Customer service no help. No way of seeing where the minutes went. So very disappointed with tracfone and they should be criminally prosecuted for fraud with massive fines and long jail sentences for CEO or anyone in charge there.

May 15, 2018
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Lost minutes
by: Anonymous

I have had Tracphone service for years with no problem until now. I hcurrently have 2 phones and the one phone had over 3000 min over 9000 texts and a lot of data which disappeared over night. Talked to support and had no luck. I asked for a detailed activity log which they could not give me. 30 minutes of a nightmare. I will be cancelling this service

Mar 24, 2018
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You need to contact Tracfone support directly
by: Sb

Hi, this is an independent site. You need to contact Tracfone support directly either by phone, on their website or on their Facebook page.

Mar 23, 2018
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missing minutes
by: Anonymous

I lost over 200 minutes and also I bought twice 450 minutes without receiving the extra 450 minutes. I feel Tracfone does me over 900 minutes. Please replace them as soon as possible.

Dec 16, 2017
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New phone lost all mintues/texts/data
by: Anonymous

On Dec12 2017 430pm EST I had
5161 minutes/1881texts/3.6GBdata on my Tracfone account

Activated LG Rebel with 1000minutes/2000texts/2GBdata programmed in phone ($40 airtime bundle)

Every went though very easily then had new phone 6161minutes/3881texts/5.6GBdata

I didnot like the phone so I reactivated the previous Tracfone

I then had zerominutes/zerotexts/zerodata

I chatted with Tracfone After 5 chat sessions over 2 days and only reissued 1809minutes/684texts/97.64MBdata

I was told Tracfone had no record of missing minutes/texts/data

Tracfone must not train their associates correctly or they have flawed system or both

Sep 19, 2017
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Over 2700 minutes simply gone.
by: Anonymous

I've had service with Net10 for well over 5 years. Had 1 problem with lost minutes within the last year and was able to get my minutes back. Today, it's a different story. I loaded a new 300 minute card to my phone 10 days ago and noticed that approximately 2,700 minutes had disappeared from my previous balance. I called customer service twice in the past week and was disconnected both times, after spending a significant period of time on the phone. I called again, today, and spent over 45 minutes on the phone speaking with someone named Javier who provided absolutely no help.

Just like most of the other stories listed on this site, I was told there was no record of my previous calls, no record available of previous available minutes. He claimed that he was the manager but had no authority to give me any minutes without proof that I actually lost them. The conversation went round and round so much that it just made me ill. I don't know what good it will do me to contact corporate in Miami, but there really should be a class action suit filed, if it hasn't already been initiated.

Jun 29, 2017
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4000 minutes 3.7gigs data 3200 text messages disappeared
by: Anonymous

I bought my husband a new smartphone for his birthday last month. We have used tracfone for a number of years now and never had a problem with missing minutes before. However, today my husband went to make a call and found his minutes had gone to zero. Mind you we also have a landline with unlimited long distance calls which we use for most of our phone calls. There is no way he used 4000+ minutes overnight. My husband spent wasted hours trying to get his minutes back. They all but called him a liar. He got the same spill about writing an affidavit. I guess I'm just out the money on the new Samsung phone I bought him which he just activated on May 24 and rolled his minutes over. Disgusted.

May 28, 2017
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Minutes disappeared; got them back
by: B I

Updated to 1.3GB of data & 1505 minutes of talk on 5/17/2017. On 5/27/2017 noticed that data & minutes had gone to zero. (Text count was OK.) Got on Chat with Tracfone, but all I got was, "your data and minutes are both zero; you need to buy more."

Called customer service (on a landline) and got the same answer. Asked them to send an accounting of exactly the 1500 minutes had disappeared (in only 10 days) and got a recording about the procedure to follow: write a sworn letter with several specific set of legalese, after which one of their reps would call my cell phone to verify. Of course, that wouldn't work, since my phone has zero minutes of talk. (See how slick that was?)

Called customer service again & got a different person who could recognize that my call log had a total of 3 calls (totaling 2 minutes 14 seconds) over the 10 days during which the minutes dropped to zero. He nicely reinstated 1500 minutes and 1GB of data, so all was not lost. Outcome OK in the end, but painful in the meantime. Lesson learned: check Tracfone's MyAccount app on a regular basis! (Or maybe pick another vendor.)

May 13, 2017
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Try calling their Support
by: sb

Hi Sad Panda,

Sorry to hear you've experienced this issue as well. If you're willing to spend about an hour using a landline or another phone that does not charge for minutes, I would try calling Tracfone support. When this happened to me, I did get my minutes back.

TF Support number is 1-800-867-7183

May 11, 2017
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Why Tracfone? Why?
by: Sad Panda

Ugh... Sorry to say same thing just happened to me. It was my first time trying Tracfone. Bought 600 talk, 600 text, 600MB data. 3 days after activation they all disappeared! I made one call to my bro for seriously 10 sec just to see if it worked and it did. I used only my home WiFi and did not text once.

Feel like it would be a waste of time to call them after reading all these other posts. My bro uses trac phone and this has never happened to him :(

I'm a tad wary of buying another call card.....

Mar 16, 2017
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Tracfone stinks. Worst phone service ever.
by: Missouri

Had new phone for 3 months that started with 3717 min. I made a call at 1 pm. At 6 pm all minutes gone on the Tracfone in 3.5 hrs. History on phone says used 121 minutes. Had phone 3 months just got the internet to work on iPhone 5. Now I have to call back in 24 hrs to see where my minutes went. I told them do the math. My phone is due in May. I will go with a new provider. Tracfone is a big disappointment.

Jan 24, 2017
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need the address to get report
by: chuck Linzey

It would be great if someone had and posted the mailing address for the report. I had gone to the recording on how to get the report but it was so fast I cold not get all the information they require and their mailing address.
I certainly would like to get the report. I actually worked through my credit card company to get my last payment back. They were on the line with me and saw the runaround I was getting and gave me credit from my last purchase.
Lost my time two times.

Jan 24, 2017
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Disappearing Minutes
by: Anonymous

Wow. Just lost all my minutes overnight. Tracfone is giving me the royal runaround. Told me I used all of them which is more than incorrect. Now this idiot wants to talk smack about using all minutes. I hate this company !!!!

Jan 24, 2017
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TRACFONE
by: Anonymous

Lost over 7 gigs of data over 5000 text and over 5,000 minutes and no one can tell me what happened and TracFone feels like I got the runaround. And also was treated as if I would lying.

I am not saying that any of that was retrieved. I only have out of all of those buckets 1.2 gigs data a hundred or so minutes and over 400 text. That is a big loss.

Jan 24, 2017
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Lost Minutes
by: Anonymous

I've used Tracfone for about 10 years and have been happy with their service until about a 2 years ago. I had over 300 talk minutes on my smart phone along with data and text.One day I got an email that someone couldn't reach me. I checked my phone and had no talk minutes. I called Tracfone 3 times and got no satisfaction. I reloaded minutes to my phone and continued using it. A couple of days ago my phone dropped a call. When I tried to call back, I found I a no talk minutes available. I know prior to the disconnected call I had just under 3000 talk minutes. The data and text appear to be ok. I didn't even try to get them back thru Tracfone because it's a waste of time and minutes.

I looked into other plans and they cost $30 - $40 a month or more. Since I don't frequently use the phone (hence Tracfone), I decided to just keep a low number of talk minutes on the phone and refill more frequently. Then if the minutes disappear, it won't cost that much.

Sep 18, 2016
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No Rip Off Comp glitch
by: Ron

Minutes, data, and texts added back after 3 days told comp. glitch.
Nice young man in India tech dept.
Ron

Sep 16, 2016
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Rip Off
by: Ron

Went to bed with over 1800 min, 2400 text, and 2.9 gig of data. The next day when I tried to use my phone it wouldn't connect. I checked my balance and everything was zeroed. I called Trac Fone support and they said they couldn't help at that level. They sent me to another operator who told me that I would have to wait 72 hours for them to look into it. At that point they gave me another phone # and told me to call back in 72 hours and could they be of further assistance.
Any assistance would have been appreciated.
Ron

Sep 05, 2016
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First time it's happened on a smartphone?
by: sb

Hi Bert,

Your case is the first I've heard of this happening to someone using a smartphone (I assume that's the case because you said you had separate buckets of airtime, texts and data, and that they all went to zero. In the past this happened only to those using their older flip phones and QWERTY phones which don't have separate buckets for voice, text and data. Thanks for posting.

As for suggestions, just keep trying with TF customers support.


Sep 02, 2016
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ask for records
by: Anonymous

I did not wast my time, but the only way to get it cleared up is to ask for detailed call records. Have a recorder ready, they will put you through to a recording (they will tell you it will be a live person,no chance) record the message so you get all the mailing instructions. They talked too fast. Then they will respond but it takes days. The service would be a good idea, but I cannot trust not suddently losing airtime overnight. It seems to happen to a lot of people. Public service commission? Or maybe Walmart.

Sep 02, 2016
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Missing Phone/Data/Text ...all went to 0
by: Bert

Just spent hours on the phone with Tracfone customer service. I got an alert today that all my balances went to "0". I had just checked my balances 3 days ago and I had a lot of time left in each category.

I have had pretty great luck with Tracfone in the last 2 years and so has my wife, but this is a big glitch and I'm very disappointed. They transferred me several times and ultimately to a senior supervisor who said it would be 72 hours and be reviewed and until then basically I have no access thru my phone (being at 0). Then I called again, and the rep told me 48 hours and they would look into it -- their system was down. Then I webchatted, and the rep told us they would do a ticket, and it would be 24 hours. Very frustrating!

I asked them to look at my usage over 2 years and this would tell the story. No way did I use that much in 3 days and all at once. Any suggestions?

Aug 16, 2016
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rip off
by: Anonymous

tracphone is ripping off min. by the min. stay away from tracphone

Jul 21, 2016
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Tracfone is terrible !
by: Anonymous

After 2 hours and 3 "supervisors" I was told their was nothing they could do, but "they understood how I felt".

My wife's phone went from 1.9 GB of data down to 900 MB.
3100 text down to 193
The kicker is 3155 minutes to zero in 2 days.
2 days is 48 hours, 3155 minutes is 53 hours.

So, not only does tracfone lose my business, they also defy the laws of time.

And just to be clear, those 2 hours talking with "supervisors" were not free, like in the old days. My other phone was deducted 123 minutes.

Jul 14, 2016
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Monkeys
by: Anonymous

I've had several hundred if not over 1000 mins disappear from mine & my children's phones that we rarely use. The so called "manager" RYAN P. at Tracfone looked at my acct for less than 5 mins and straight out told me that it never happens, he's never heard of it before; that in fact it's impossible and he doesn't believe me! Then as expected with their less than poor customer service out there in Honduras he hung up on me. Next step i guess is going to their corporate office in Miami, since their incompetent employees are trained to tell you it's impossible. SCAM++++++

Jun 28, 2016
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Minutes disappeared and bad customer service
by: Chuck Linzey

I just wasted over an hour. I purchased the 180 card for the purpose of selling my house only. I have other cell phones. about 20 days into this I noticed that my phone only showed about 31 min of talk left. I had use maybe 10 min. I called and they gave me back 85 min. That day I added an app to track my phone usage. it shows total time for each application, dialing, talking, text, search. On 6/23 balance was 112 min showing about 1 min a day usage. Then on 6/28 my balance droped to 85 min. ( same as they gave me on 6/20. My usage shows only 10 min in the past week. Called and they told me I must be wrong, Asked to speak with supervisor afte 1/2 hr wait was told same thing. Asked for copy of a report, was told i woould talk to a person but got a recording. indicating it would tak a month or more. Wast of my time. Easier to start a class action case then getting a report of eledged usage. Bad suport and stealing my time , They will not have me as a customer Serial number 014389005206678

Jun 23, 2016
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Tracfone stop do not buy . very shady
by: Anonymous

I had a 1335 air time when I got my phone. I left my phone and did not use it for over a months. when I came back I checked my phone and air time was reduce to 100 Mins without ever being use over a month. I call Tracfone and they told me that there is nothing that they can do about it. I add another 380 air time before I make any phone call within a 24 hours 50 mins vanished in thin air.

any way I called the again they told me again that I have use more than 1600 mins.

for any one who read this do not buy Tracfone to me it is shady and they are thief .

P.S I am going back to my old company never again

May 17, 2016
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I also suddenly lost minutes
by: Anonymous

I had around 150 minutes remaining on my Tracfone last night

Went to make a call this morning, and I had zero minutes!

I was just online with someone from Tracfone and they did add 100 minutes, but I didn't get them all back, and more importantly I don't understand what happened.

Have had this phone for 5+ years and been very pleased with it.

Not happy to see this has happened to others.

I reviewed my call records, wondering if I'd somehow left it on an unended call, but none of my last few calls were more than a couple of minutes.

Apr 24, 2016
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Minute drain
by: Anonymous

The last couple of weeks I have had dramatic losses of calling time (went from 104 to 69 in two days without making a call, last call made was 10 seconds). Have been making sure phone hangs up after each call and checking call log.

Mar 12, 2016
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disappearing minutes
by: nonie

Than u so much for getting back to ma and explaining what happened. U are right they should have been up front with me. If I had known I would have deactivated my husbands phone, took his number and lost his 300 minutes not the ones from the smart phone. Thanks again.

Mar 12, 2016
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Correct but ...
by: sb

Hi Nonie,

In this case, I believe the transfer was technically done correctly. You can only transfer minutes to a newly activated or re-activated phone. You don't get to transfer minutes to a phone and keep the minutes that were already on the phone that you re-activate.

However, the customer support rep should have told you that and advised you NOT to do the transfer. After all, why would you want to exchange 900 minutes for 300 in return?

Mar 12, 2016
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tracfone disappearing minutes
by: nonie

I called customer service on a Sunday to deactivate my husband's phone and have the number and his minutes transferred to my android smart phone. On my smart phone was 1400 minutes 900 text minutes and 1.5MB data. She had a lot of problems doing it but finely she deactivated my smart phone and said it would happen in 3 days. On the 4th day I called back and was told to wait 1 hr more and it worked we can use the smart phone and his minutes of 300 is transverse. But all the minutes that was on the smart phone was gone. I called back and talked for 2 hours which they said I did of have any minutes on it before the transfer so I am looking for another service carrier. I wrote a letter to the Tracfone office in Florida. Do not expect an answer. Your site has a lot of good information

Feb 24, 2016
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Did you contact them
by: sb

This is just a comment thread on an independent website. Did you contact Tracfone with your info?


Feb 24, 2016
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What happened to minutes?
by: Palmer

Tracfone support: I average just a few minutes use per month, but just got a report that 868 minutes have disappeared? Need to have them put back!

Feb 17, 2016
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Resolved
by: sb

I got a note from Sharel that her minutes were put back by Tracfone after she posted here. (Probably a coincidence, but she still thanked me.)


Feb 16, 2016
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have android, minutes disappeared
by: sharel

tracfone took all my minutes and told me to wait 72 hours and they'd find them. I had 1270 calling minutes, and 1970 text minutes, and 2327.02 data minutes on the 9th of feb. they're all gone, as of feb 12th. listed as 0 now on all three. told me to wait 72 hours. I did. now they tell me to wait another 72 hours. they are so not helpful. I asked to speak to manager. he was no help. it is one big rip off. in 72 hours they won't know anymore than they know right now, which is nothing. tracfone, which I've never had any troube with before for over 10 years., is not the company it use to be. no help whatsoever. no one minding tht store...

Jan 12, 2016
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Minutes disappeared
by: MacK

Yep, woke up one day and minutes went from the hundreds left to under 15. Have no ideas who to contact. Definately looking for a new company.

Oct 25, 2015
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Tracfone will rob you blind
by: amberbandicoot

Again Tracfone has screwed me over on minutes. I'm using the phone and I hear the "toot-toot... toot-toot" that I think it is an in-coming call. No, it's the "under 10min remaining" alert. UNDER 10MIN.? I had well over 30! And I only get 1-min incoming calls calling me to work, or the rare text message exchange. Where did they go? This is the 2nd time my crapfone has done this. The previous time, I finally got 20min out of them, but they used this against me this time, as if I didn't deserve it originally and should've been grateful. For life. I googled this and it's not uncommon. This is outright stealing, on top of their deceptive advertising, "No contract". Well, if you don't use your phone by the "service date" it shuts down. I call that condition/date combination a "contract". For God's sake, is there anyone out there not endlessly trying to trick you and screw you?

Sep 04, 2015
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Minutes Disappeared
by: Anonymous

Rarely use flip cellphone. Today noticed down to 67 minutes, whereas usually have 200+. Call minutes duration section on phone shows I used 39 minutes. Called tech support and after brief conversation, was transferred to a rapidly speaking tape recording w/lengthy instructions on how to request my phone records. Said would take 30 days after receipt of request for someone to call me, and that my phone must be on when they call because they don't have access to my voicemail. I see this as a scam that they do not want to address!!! The FCC needs to handle this type of fraud.

Jun 26, 2015
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Disappearing tracfone minutes & data
by: Anonymous

I have had tracfones for nearly 10 years. I have been using a Samsung Galaxy Centura for the last year or so. Yesterday I tried to make a call & I had no minutes or data. I had 2300 minutes the day before. Tracfone was not sympathetic. I am going with another company. Seems someone has found a way to steal minutes even when the phone is off. I only turn mine on when I intend to use it & then turn it off. Beware!

Feb 15, 2015
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Update: Another incident
by: sb

I received the following via email:

My son has a tracfone-Samsung and we just buy the cards for the minutes. First let me tell you that he only uses this phone for text messaging. He said he is supposed to get double minutes when he adds minutes from a card. He added a 120 (240) minutes then said he had hit the browser button and when he looked at his minutes and he only had 76 minutes left. What happened for him to lose of his card or really was 184 minutes? I am describing what he told me that happened. I was trying to see if you knew why it happened, and the browser was on for 30 minutes. Would it eat up that many minutes?

Also is there a way that he can get more minutes cheaper. If I can do it for less money would you let me know.

Thank you for your time

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My reply:

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, this can happen, and it, actually has happened to me though not that drastically. Basically, even basic phones are now so-called 3G phones and therefore use data faster. This can use up minutes faster than the number of minutes you have the browser on. In one test I ran, I used the browser for just a few minutes and used up about 19 minutes!

What I would recommend nowadays is to get one of their cheaper smartphones. These smartphones have separate buckets for voice, text and data, and they are triple minutes phones. So for example, if you get a 60 minute card, then 180 minutes, 180 texts, and 180MB of data are added to the phone. The good thing about this is even if the data get used up from browsing the web, the voice minutes and texts still remain, so the phone can still be used to make calls and send texts without having to add another card until the service date is due.

You can read more about their smartphones on this page:

https://www.prepfone.com/android-tracfone.html

The only drawback is that kids tend to get addicted to their smartphones. I can't really blame them since the games etc. are designed that way, but it does make parenting more difficult.

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