Straight Talk Wireless - SOMETHING CROOKED HERE?
I received a hand-me-down phone recently, an ANDROID, from a friend who decided to switch product & services (from STRAIGHT TALK to a different service using an iPhone).
First of all, I went to Wal-Mart to activate with STRAIGHT TALK. Wal-mart said that I needed to call-in to STRAIGHT TALK. Finding a number online to just simply 'talk' to someone about what I needed to do to get going was not very easy to find right away, though I saw there was a chat optionโฆI decided to just go with that. I spent enough time attempting to activate this phone with a rep on the chat feature, which at the end of it at all they said they couldn't do it and that I needed to call in. I asked what what was the reason why the rep couldn't activate over chat (as she had told me from the beginning that she would be able to help me). She did not give me an answer.
So I called the number. Annoyingly I had to wait through voice messages and finally got to a person who could not help me and had to wait for another person to help me, again that person could not help me but then he finally connected me to the final person who could NOT help me!
This rather stern sounding person informed me that the prior owner of the phone owned their company $45. I pointed out that had nothing at all to do with me and that should not prevent ME from starting up my service with them. She said that I needed to go back to Wal-mart and purchase two plastic $45 unlimited refill cards to pay off the outstanding balance and to begin the new service.
First off, why should I be responsible for this other person's debt? Straight Talk should bill that person themselves! They do not own this Android phone, it is paid off. Let us say someone uses a television to enjoy their cable service but then does not pay their cable bill with 'company A'. Let's imagine that this person then decides to give away their television and start up a new service with a different they like better, 'company B'. Should the new owner of the television be forced to pay off the previous owner's debt before starting a service with company A? Well, this was the logic that the woman over the phone gave me. Because the previous owner of the phone used data on this particular phone and owned money for that data, now I am unable to use the phone until the debt is paid. Something seems crooked about this to me!!!
I didn't want to be bothered with making yet another trip to Wal-mart, so I offered to just pay the debt over the phone and then commence with activating over the phone as I was told I would be able to do from the start. Well, I was denied this option. ONE MUST GO TO WAL-MART and purchase the idiotic little plastic cards. This seems pretty inefficient to me, and poor customer service, especially since this woman was speaking to me as if I was the one who incurred the debt in the first place, though I am not.
Currently I use a little flip-phone with AT&T GOPHONE. It only costs me $30 per month compared to $45 for Straight Talk. I like this service because it is simple to use. If I want, I can purchase the re-fill cards at the store and keep my service going that way (which involves a phone-call), or I can bypass that extra step and just call in and pay. Why doesn't straight0talk allow this to be handled over the phone directly, if they MUST force new potential customers to pay for other's debts?
I have owned several iPhones in the past and although I prefer a smartphone, these phones are costly and have not been worth it to me to have them repeatedly lost or stolen. So I've settled on a old-fashioned flip-phone and has never been lost or stolen! But since I did inherit this nice Android, I thought why not use it? I was willing to pay an extra $15 per month to use it, too. But dealing with straight talk today has maybe discouraged me altogether. Maybe I will just keep things as they are since that is what works.
Reason of review: Poor customer service.
Straight Talk Wireless Cons: Billing practice, New potential customer experience.
Location: Joshua Tree, California
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