Nokia 918 & Tracfone...Good phone, but horrible service!
Written: Dec 21 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: $7.99/month to keep it activated!
Cons: Up to $3.16/minute when roaming!
|
|
|
| Kaleb's Full Review: Nokia 918 Cell Phone |
Let me clarify that this review is for both the Nokia 918 and Tracfone (my cellular provider). I've got a few nice things to say about the Nokia 918 phone, but since there isn't a separate category just for Tracfone, I have to combine the two.
I purchased my Nokia 918 back in August. I realized that I wasn't going to use it everyday, just emergencies. My wonderful car works great, but we've had a few unfortunate mishaps where it just took a nice peaceful break on the side of the road. I'll admit, this scared me a little bit, so I decided some peace of mind is what I needed, and went out to get this phone. Obviously, I wasn't interested in anything pricey, just something that'll work when I need it. So, I chose the Nokia 918 that Tracfone was offering. This nice phone shows how much airtime is left (since it's prepaid), as well as some other nice features such as five ring tones, emergency dialing, and a 40 name & number phone book for you to store phone numbers in. I said to myself..."Hey, $40 for a cell phone, not a bad price!". On top of that, it was only $7.99/month to keep it activated. I decided to go for it since I didn't have to sign any contracts, and I'd only have to pay for the units (minutes) I needed each month, instead of "use 'em or lose 'em" plans. The units also carry over to the next month if I don't use all of them.
All of this sounded nice and dandy until I started using the service. I'll admit, not having a monthly bill to pay was nice, and I could just pick up my Tracfone card whenever I go into Wal-mart. When I took a trip one day, my phone switched to roam (as it should have), and I needed to call a good friend of mine so I could fine my way to his house. Since I had 24 units left, I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I knew that roam counted each minute you talked as two units, so I only had 12 minutes to talk to my friend. Well, that plan flew out the window! I called my friend, and everything was fine and dandy until I reached 6 minutes in the conversation and without warning, it disconnected us! I called up the tech support phone number (was on hold for a good 20 minutes), and told them what happened. The guy told me that roam used to be 4 units instead of 2 units, and he told me that I needed to buy 10 more units ($7.99 @ Walmart) for them to switch my phone from the 4 unit roaming fee to the 2 unit roaming fee. I said..."Alright, thanks" and hung the phone up. I thought about it a little bit more, and the more I thought about it, the more upset I became with the whole situation. I decided it isn't my fault they neglected to tell me all of this!
So I called back the next day and stayed on hold for nearly an hour. I figured this was a good time to get some house cleaning done, maybe read a book or two, so I switched to speakerphone so I could hear when they picked up to answer my phone. As I was saying, an hour later, somebody finally answered. I told them what had happened, the the young lady told me the same thing the guy told me. I asked if I could have the 18 minutes back that I lost because nobody had told me that it charged 4 units when on roam. She told me that she couldn't do that, but she can call the supervisor and ask him about it. I told her ok, and I was put on hold (only 5 minutes this time). She came back and told me that the supervisor can't do that. So, I politely asked to speak with him. She put me on hold...again...and she came back to tell me that they can give me 10 units back (not as good as the 18 I lost, but better than nothing). I told her I'd be satisfied with that and she told me to punch in a bunch of numbers to program my phone for 10 more units. I asked if it's going to charge me the 4 units, and she said that she switched it to the two unit per minute roaming charge. *Hopefully* it's all cleared up!
The lesson here is: If you use Tracfone, use it for extreme emergencies that will be in your area. seventy-nine cents a minute (local) just isn't smart to use unless you've got the money to blow. Go with Sprint or AT&T if you're going to use it for anything other than emergencies!
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Kaleb
|
|
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Reviews written: 31
Trusted by: 57 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.