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Rant

Beware of Tracfone!

Mar 1, 2015 1:42PM PST

I had a Tracfone that when I needed to dial 911 on two seperate occasions a couple months apart, it wouldn't dial!

The 411 to try to get a non-emergency # first was completely useless.

When attempting to deal with this issue via customer service, was on hold for over an hour and 1/2 waiting for a supervisor. Finally hung up and never using them again.

Thank God it wasn't needed in a real emergency. One was for a man down in a busy area where luckily FD rolled up while I was calling a friend to contact FD. The other was for a minor accident that I couldn't get 411 to give me a freaking non-emergency number and of course 911 didn't work either.

They suck!

Discussion is locked

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I am sorry to hear about your experience.....
Mar 1, 2015 11:08PM PST

....but I hardly feel that Tracfone is to blame. If you were in an area with poor coverage, there is nothing that could be done. If there was a physical issue with the phone, even the best network coverage could not have been of any help. Too many unknown issues to throw Tracfone under the bus.

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Coverage sounds like an issue.
Mar 1, 2015 11:18PM PST

As more and more folk have moved to cell phones, expectations have climbed. It's not reliable enough to count on everywhere.

My story is opposite. We traveled across California to Idaho, Wyoming and my Virgin Mobile dropped dead but our Tracfone kept going. These are on two different networks so that's why one kept working.

It seems a shame that it is that way but I don't see carriers talking honestly about this issue. My bet is they are scared to do so because the carrier that is talking could be taken as unreliable compared to the carrier that didn't talk about this.
Bob

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add non emergency numbers to contact list
Mar 8, 2015 6:44AM PDT

depending on your phone settings, you may want to check to see if the phone is automatically adding the 1 in front of the 911 like it would do with other numbers.

I learned a long time ago to keep non emergency numbers in my contact list for the different counties and towns I regularly drive through.