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I have owned many Tracfones purchased through HSN and never seen any of them say they offer unlimited data. Unlimited data for a year + a new cellphone for that low of a price would be one heck of a deal! The 1-year service (365 days) just means that you get that long to use your 1500 Min/Text/Data that comes on the phone. For some that’s plenty of minutes for an entire year. But once the 1500 minutes run out more data has to be added to the phone.
Moderator- 01.05.25 7:56 PM
Yes, @lucy822, each order should contain a red activation card. The instructions are as follows:
To Activate follow the steps below:
Open your phone package.
Find the Red Activation Card that says START HERE, you will need your phone’s Serial Number which is written inside the white box as it is required for activation.
You do not need to provide a Service Plan PIN during Activation. Your initial Service Plan PIN comes bundled with your phone and will be automatically added during the activation process.
Go to Activate.Tracfone.com or call this exclusive number, 1-800-816-0663.
If you are a current Tracfone customer upgrading to a new phone, you will be able to transfer your service and airtime balance to your new phone. (Safelink customers cannot upgrade or transfer service to this phone)
I have had Tracfone for years. No problems with adding minutes. The 1500 number is for minutes. You should have received an additional 1500 minutes for text and so on. Again, take a look at the plans and choose what is best for you. Remember, when you use Wifi, the minutes do not work against you. So add your wifi to your new phone and when out and about, ask if they have a guest server for wifi.. Just before your year is up you will be notified to add the minutes. Anything not used will automatically be added to the following year. If you remember to use your phone with wifi, you will not be using the minutes given to you.
Posted in Forum: ElectronicsI purchased Blu Tracfone unlimited “ talk/text/data on May 1, 2024, received May 7, 2024, supposedly good for one year. Hyped by host and rep. from Tracfone. Turns out data was not unlimited. Fine. Added at extra cost to me. Yesterday, July 7, phone cut off in middle of conversation. Tracfone says my plan is 1500/ talk/text. NOT what they said when I activated.
Have contacted HSN “sorry for your disappointment with your order, cannot issue replacement/refund because beyond 30 days”, contacted Tracfone: “Your plan is 1500 talk/text.
DO NOT EVER BELIEVE HSN WHEN DEALING WITH OUTSIDE VENDOR. I’ve ordered thousands of dollars worth of products from HSN/QVC. Have never been so deceived with no recourse. Never ever ordering anything from HSN again.
Dec. 3 2024 New Galaxy Phone & bundle arrives. I spent 6 hours one Sunday with my Daughter trying to get it activated. Then an additional hour three more times, THAT IS 9 HOURS.
Still will not accept the bundle part of the phone activation.
This is outrageous. Tracfone says no plan associated with the phone. Activation website will not work. HSN was no help. Tracfone is no help. THIS IS A TRUE NIGHTMARE !!!
I have absolutely no choice but to SEND IT BACK
Posted in Forum: ElectronicsLast October, I purchased a Tracfone Samsung Galaxy A13 5G 6.5″ HD+ w/1500 Min./Text/Data/365 Days from your company. It was Item 802-380, and I paid $139.99.
My Order# was XXXXXXXXX
I purchased this item because the biggest feature was that I didn’t have to activate the item for a year or more.
Unfortunately, I tried to activate the item, and it didn’t work. The problem is that the phone doesn’t work, and I need the phone because my wife and I are in our 80s and I need to have a phone with us when we’re away from home, in case we need help. I spent about 4 hours on my home phone with Tracfone this week, and they weren’t able to help me, and I did some research and found out that what happened to me is happening to hundreds of people, and many of those people are complaining to higher authorities.
Obviously, there’s a valid reason why I didn’t return this item in 60 days. By copy of this letter, I’m requesting that you refund my money. If you want me to return the defective cellphone to you, your technicians can prove that the item is defective.
If you need any additional information, please call me or email me. My contact information is provided below.
Regards,
Fideauxdon
I have been using Tracfone for several years now. I always activate the phone by logging into tracfone website on my laptop. I click activate, click that I want to keep my same number, then a box will pop up if you want to enter a physical imei number. That is where you enter that number from the red card in the box. In less than 10 minutes the new phone is working. I always take a screenshot of my buckets of text, talk and data to see if the total adds up correctly. If the numbers do not add up correctly, I do a live chat with tracfone and they have always been very responsive.
We have 3 Tracfones in the household and have never had an issue with either.Have been using their service a few years now.I always sign into my online account to do any customer service such as activating, transferring,adding,etc..Always keep mobile data turned off until you need it when away from home.Try to turn off all the programs that run automatically in the background also..Most of all go through all the apps and disable the ones you don’t use and set all the others to update manually otherwise your data will be gone quick with all those apps updating automatically.You can add extra data to your account online with no issue.I add a $10 once in awhile otherwise I use my home wifi.
I always keep the mobile data off since I use my home wifi most the time.I only turn it on when I am in a store that I want to use their app or if I need the internet to check email,etc while I am away from home..Most likely what is happening is all the apps are updating automatically in the background.Go to your apps and set each one to update manually so you can choose to do those updates when you are using your home wifi.
It doesn’t take long to use up 1GB of data when it comes to updates.I always stop as many things as I can from running in the background and I never have the mobile data on until I need to use it.Otherwise any background program running can connect and use up the data.
I have much better luck getting service using my online account.Calling never gets anything resolved.I add just a data card data card one in awhile for $10.Maybe you can sign into your online TracFone account and add data that way.
Bought a phone and picked tracfone because they sell cheaper cards for unlimited talk and text and just 1 GB which was fine cuz at the time I always stayed home and had internet..now that I have a job and need the data well it would never work…even 30 min after putting the card on the phone I could not access the web or Facebook or anything online…I call this morning asking why this is..I was told I already used all my data…I mean like HOW I never could get it to come up when there was no internet service…representative lady says go to your settings then internet then mobile usage so I did and she says this statement, “the only way you can use your data is if this is on” ok that’s great but you see the button was already off and I never knew to go change it so how was the data used? They couldn’t tell me then replied with this one…since you have zero data we cant help you by giving you another gig of it…the only way we could help you and add you some data is if you already have some????? If I had some already Tracfone would I need some then,? I talked to 3 different representatives asking for a survey at the end of the call…none of them knew what I was saying….that’s all I have to say about them..other than writing this for ppl to read and oh yeah I’m going to buy a card from a different company now…one that understands what a survey is and how to help their customers
Posted in Forum: Customer ServiceBought a phone and picked tracfone because they sell cheaper cards for unlimited talk and text and just 1 GB which was fine cuz at the time I always stayed home and had internet..now that I have a job and need the data well it would never work…even 30 min after putting the card on the phone I could not access the web or Facebook or anything online…I call this morning asking why this is..I was told I already used all my data…I mean like HOW I never could get it to come up when there was no internet service…representative lady says go to your settings then internet then mobile usage so I did and she says this statement, “the only way you can use your data is if this is on” ok that’s great but you see the button was already off and I never knew to go change it so how was the data used? They couldn’t tell me then replied with this one…since you have zero data we cant help you by giving you another gig of it…the only way we could help you and add you some data is if you already have some????? If I had some already Tracfone would I need some then,? I talked to 3 different representatives asking for a survey at the end of the call…none of them knew what I was saying….that’s all I have to say about them..other than writing this for ppl to read and oh yeah I’m going to buy a card from a different company now…one that understands what a survey is and how to help their customers
Posted in Forum: Customer ServiceThe phone I ordered is sold out so I couldn’t write a review. All their customer service is in the Philipines and they are CLUELESS. It’s still taking me over 3 weeks to get my phone ported over. The Filipino’s can’t understand English, i.e. they put the word ‘north’ in my address.. there is no ‘north’.. very frustrating. I would never use Tracfone again after this headache of inefficiency.. guess you get what you pay for.
Thanks for the info on being able to add airtime only on tracfone. I always feel it’s cheaper to buy a new phone but did not know about this option.
Under Features, it says “Promotional minutes are not transferable and are only guaranteed on the handset included in the order” so you would have to activate the galaxy with the promotional minutes. However if you have two active tracfones, they say can add the balances from one phone to the other (I don’t know about airtime). I decided to keep both phones so didn’t go through with that idea. I always use the Chat on tracfone.com and always go to Tech Support. I think you get the most knowledgeable people that way, … and if you’re not happy with what they’re saying, say that you have to go, end the chat, and try again later. It seems some people will make things unnecessarily difficult.
By the way, if you have plenty of minutes/text/data and just need to add airtime, you can add 365 days for only $49.99 on the tracfone website.
I’m not sure what you mean by activating it “before the date of purchase which is 2021.” You said the date of purchase was 1/24/2020. Do you mean you want to wait until 2021 to activate it?
it used to be that you had a limited amount of time (like 60 days?) to activate the phone. I don’t think they say that any more, but that’s the question you want to ask HSN Customer Service – does the promotional airtime/mins/data/text expire if I don’t activate the phone within a certain time. In any case, in my experience, the promotional 365 days of airtime begin when the phone is activated, or if you already have a tracfone with a balance of airtime, the 365 days will be added on to the end. I usually activate it as soon as I get it.
The Warranty on the phone begins with your date of purchase however. So I wouldn’t let it sit in the box; I’d use it on WiFi just to make sure it’s operating correctly. I had a Motorola tracfone that started having errors a couple of months after I started using it. Since it was still under warranty, tracfone replaced it.
Also if the phone came with vouchers for apps, check the vouchers for expiration dates.