It's easy to use, but try to avoid even buying the phone.
Written: Sep 15 '04
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Teen equals Cells. Cell phones that is. My daughter hit the teen age years and was bugging for a cell phone. For some time I had said that she was not going to get a cell phone unless she was able to pay for it. Her response was, get it and I will. Imagine that, would you? If mom were only that gullible.
My lack of being even slightly gullible in believing she would pay for it, lead us to buying her a Tracfone. She was certain that she could afford to pay for a phone, then she could prove it by paying for her own Tracfone.
Through this phone, we learned about the website, www.tracfone.com. Within this site, you are offered the opportunity to purchase more airtime online, redeem airtime online, seek tech support for your Tracfone, and buy more products online.
To buy more airtime online, you are required to use your credit card. This is a mistake on our part. If you buy with your card, you are now paying interest on the same amount of time you would get if you just bought it straight out at Wal-Mart.
Redeeming airtime can prove to be rewarding when you do so online though. One reason I say this is because when you redeem your time on the internet, you are not using the minutes up on your phone. (You can use your landline to also redeem time, but that is an annoying process). Another reason why I say that it can be rewarding is because of when you first purchase your Tracfone from Wal-Mart, you are given a coupon book inside. In this book you can enter one code per airtime redemption to get anywhere from 10 extra minutes up to 50 extra minutes. Also, when you first redeem your airtime and activate your phone, you will receive an extra twenty minutes for doing this online instead of by landline.
How the website works is that you (for instance) click to redeem airtime. You are then taken to another web page that instructs you that you will need your phone fully charged and turned on in order to enter a numerical code. The first initial activation of your phone takes quite a few minutes and quite a few numerical codes to enter.
The redemption times after this require less time and only one numerical code to plug in. It's even simple enough for my 13 year old daughter to use.
There are several links within the site, such as;
• en espaņol
• why go prepaid
• how it works
• rates
• autopay
• phone info
• retailers
• coverage maps
• questions
• promotions
• voice mail set up
• text messaging
• area code update
• stay active club
• contact us
• technical support
• update email
The site is very simple to maneuver and quite simple to understand. Tech support is extremely slow and slightly uninformed about certain things. An example to this is the fact that my daughter wanted to download new ring tones and games for her phone. The site responded first with an automatic reply, and then three days later they responded with the answer on where we could go online since www.tracfone.com does not offer these things. We then wrote back and explained that we needed the uplink to even do this and where could we buy it at. The response to that was something to the effect, “I’m sorry; we do not carry these products at this time. We suggest you try Radio Shack. They might carry what you need.”
This was a great disappointment to my daughter, especially since we couldn’t put this on my card, online, and her just pay me back for it.
Yes, I know, I am a bit gullible after all, aren’t I?
www.tracfone.com still turns out to be an efficient enough site. It's the products (actually tracphones) that you tend to have a problem with. The site is designed to meet your needs for a variety of things and does indeed follow through with it. If you are using the Tracfone, I do suggest redeeming your airtime and activating your phone through the site. However, don't actually buy your airtime online. If you have the cash, buy it at the store. That way, you are not paying interest on a phone that is already charging you an excelled rate.
Thanks for reading
Recommended:
Yes
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