My father was confused by the options for purchasing Trac Fone services. He asked for help from the sales staff at the Food Lion store selling the service cards. He wanted to extend his service term rather than buy a lot of additional minutes. He was sold a $49.99 card that was suposed to double minutes, but did not extend his term and a $60 card for extending minutes and adding extra days to his contract term. He sought a refund for the $49.99 card but was told the service had already been activated. He was unable to get the second card loaded at all.
He tried to call Trac Fone support but the staff spoke through gargly headsets that made them sound as if the were under water. My father simply couldn't understand what they were saying. How odd a communictaions company has such poor quality equipment in their own support facility. Perhaps the game is to frustrate people until they just give up.
We contacted Trac Fone support (more gargly-sounding voices). TracFone offered to exchange the $49.99 service for what amounted to two of their $19.99 option cards plus a few extra days on the term to make up the difference. We were offered 180 minutes and 180 days of additional term. This was an acceptable compromise and we indicated we wanted to do it, but our call mysteriously disconnected as the details were being worked out.
Calling back, we could not speak to the original service technician even though we repeatedly asked to. We were told our only option was to exchange the card for 250 minutes and 90 days. Each time we tried to revive the 180/180 offer we were told only the 250/90 option was available.
We escalated to Alamo Martin who we were told was a manager. She could not or would not tell us who we originally spoke with. When Ms Martin couldn't help us we asked for her manager and were given to Sherry Davis. Up to this point everyone had been pleasant although much help in resolvong the problem. They seemed bound to a script and could only read the same useless policy statement over and over.
Ms Davis had no intention of helping us from the very beginning. She read her script in a condescending sing/song voice and would not budge from the "policy" of only offering what we didn't want. Refunds were also "against policy". She seemed happy to stonewall us with Policy.
We refused to accept the 250/90 offer. Ms Davis also refused to let us escalate, stating she was as high up as we could go. If this is true (I suspect it was not), it's certainly bad news for Trac Fone. She was unable to explain why they could only offer this one alternative when other combinations of services they offered would resolve the issue.
So the consumer can't figure out the service, the people selling it can't figure it out, and the people supporting it seem equally clueless, and the one person we dealt with who knew how to combine the services they already offer to make the consumer happy remains annonymous. No wonder they have a policy of never refunding anything to anyone. If they gave people fooled by their confusing services a reasonable way out, I'm sure they'd be out of business in a week.
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