very bad outcome from chat session

[robbyrobby]

went into a chat session to combine the balances of 2 lines(same account) intending to leave one active with combined balance and cancel the other. not wanting any confusion i was very clear and detailed in what i wanted.

entire process was going very slow(20 minutes of total non response from the agent between each interaction)

close to an hour in to the process i noticed the line i wanted to keep was no longer active, i than looked at the account online and sure enough it was showing as de-activated.

next thing i did was inquire to the chat agent about it and clarify what i was wanting to do. no response. about a half hour later my service was restored but with the entire minute, text and data balance missing and a new phone number. the number i was wanting to keep was gone.

i was getting no response to an inquiries i made to the chat agent until i got a message i would need to call the support number for further assistance and the chat was promptly disconnected.

i tried to contact a second chat agent and even shared a copy of my entire conversation with the first agent. this second agent agreed the first agent had no idea what the were doing but also said they could not help me and i would need to call support.

called support after a very long explanation from me and then being placed on hold for a very long time i was told to get my phone number back they would need to transfer me to number portability and later i could call again about the balance. number portability could not help and asked me for account number, pin and carrier and i tried to explain it was in fact a tracfone number

anyways i have given up for today and will try to call the corporate office directly tomorrow morning and if they can't help i suppose i will file an FCC complaint.

[Senkoboy]

went into a chat session to combine the balances of 2 lines(same account) intending to leave one active with combined balance and cancel the other. not wanting any confusion i was very clear and detailed in what i wanted.

entire process was going very slow(20 minutes of total non response from the agent between each interaction)

close to an hour in to the process i noticed the line i wanted to keep was no longer active, i than looked at the account online and sure enough it was showing as de-activated.

next thing i did was inquire to the chat agent about it and clarify what i was wanting to do. no response. about a half hour later my service was restored but with the entire minute, text and data balance missing and a new phone number. the number i was wanting to keep was gone.

i was getting no response to an inquiries i made to the chat agent until i got a message i would need to call the support number for further assistance and the chat was promptly disconnected.

i tried to contact a second chat agent and even shared a copy of my entire conversation with the first agent. this second agent agreed the first agent had no idea what the were doing but also said they could not help me and i would need to call support.

called support after a very long explanation from me and then being placed on hold for a very long time i was told to get my phone number back they would need to transfer me to number portability and later i could call again about the balance. number portability could not help and asked me for account number, pin and carrier and i tried to explain it was in fact a tracfone number

anyways i have given up for today and will try to call the corporate office directly tomorrow morning and if they can't help i suppose i will file an FCC complaint.

Call corporate today, enter the extension, they are open. Tracfone Corporate office Miami Eastern Three Zero Five 640-2000 x 1029 8am-11pm.

[robbyrobby]

Call corporate today, enter the extension, they are open. Tracfone Corporate office Miami Eastern Three Zero Five 640-2000 x 1029 8am-11pm.

i'll call right now, i thought they were Monday - Friday

[robbyrobby]

WOW. Corporate office was no help at all. They are saying they can see no balance on the account, my thousands of minutes and texts and many Gigs of data are gone plus several months of service days. No opportunity is being given for me to provide screenshot proof on my balances.

They did offer to open a ticket to help me get my phone number back but apparently they have no interest whatever in helping me get back the lost balances. To be honest it almost seems as thought they think i am lying about having the balances in the first place. Luckily this is not my primary phone line and if any lesson is learned it is that I would not ever consider tracfone for a primary service.

About to file a complaint with the FCC right now.

[AnciusD]

Aaack, I've been bracing myself to contact TF to combine two line this week. I did one successfully back in Feb, but that was then...
I wonder if it's possible to request a specific agent?

[robbyrobby]

Aaack, I've been bracing myself to contact TF to combine two line this week. I did one successfully back in Feb, but that was then...
I wonder if it's possible to request a specific agent?

if you get an agent named 'Dandy' i would immediately disconnect and try again

i don't think combining lines is an issue but i think got a completely unknowledgeable agent and also one that no matter how clear and concise i was trying to be did not understand what i was requesting.

[sillyette]

A lot of times I wonder if I worry needlessly about transacting with Tracfone.

Then I read threads like this one, and I know that I am right to worry about transacting with Tracfone.

Combining two lines shouldn't be difficult, right? I wish TF provided its CSRs with clear, standardized flowcharts for such things. Then the CSR would just have to follow the instructions in the flowchart and everything would work correctly. They should make the flowcharts so clear that the reps shouldn't be able to mess things up even if they tried to.

Why doesn't Tracfone implement something as simple as this? Instead, they have reps doing all kinds of weird things. No standardization at all. It's like each rep tries to come up with their own messed-up way of doing simple things (like the rep who gave me totally wrong info about combine-lines yesterday. Her name was Emily, by the way. But at least she told me she was incompetent right at the start, so I was able to thank her and quit the chat!)

[hpham]

No opportunity is being given for me to provide screenshot proof on my balances.

I don't rely on screenshots as proof of balances because TF can claim that you photoshopped them and there's no way to submit them to TF. I ask the rep for my balances before doing any transfer/combine. That info is in the chat transcript and the next rep(s) can see it.

[gmannix]

I have had csr refuse to give me balances....they give you instructions for 611611/balance. Hang up, get another csr.

[robbyrobby]

Good news: My number is restored and also my previous balance, what is interesting is the last 2 agents a talked too told me my balance would not be restored right away and a case would have to be opened after my number was restored. seems the system had the phone number and balance tied together because as soon as the phone number was changed back to the previous one the balance immiediatly appeared in the online account.

[Lisme]

Good news: My number is restored and also my previous balance, what is interesting is the last 2 agents a talked too told me my balance would not be restored right away and a case would have to be opened after my number was restored. seems the system had the phone number and balance tied together because as soon as the phone number was changed back to the previous one the balance immiediatly appeared in the online account.

No telling how things work over there. Glad it got fixed.

[robbyrobby]

added twist to the story. with my number and service back it was time to try again with the original goal of moving the minutes, days, etc. to the now restored line. this time around i got a great knowledgable agent who knew exactly what to do.

but here is the interesting part. the phone the service was transferred off of still works. it is marked as 'inactive' in my online account and i cannot see balance, etc. unlike other inactive lines it does not have a button to activate. but calls still complete, data works, etc. and texting 'balance' to 611611 shows it still has the balance that was added to the other line minus the little but used testing things and interestingly shows yesterday(day i chatted) as the last day of service. it is a BYOD ATT SIM that had been getting pop notifications to order a new VoLTE SIM and those still appear when selecting the line, wonder if that may have triggered a glitch in the cancellation somehow. the service was moved to and added to the balance of a t-mobile BYOD SIM that is better suited for my usage in testing various phones. i will check if service is cut in the next day or so but some sort of glitch here.

[hpham]

I think another member (tomseys?) had a "zombie" phone like that, refusing to die after service was already combined to another phone. He might have resurrected it with a time card (new phone number) and the old balances were restored.

[tomseys]

I think another member (tomseys?) had a "zombie" phone like that, refusing to die after service was already combined to another phone. He might have resurrected it with a time card (new phone number) and the old balances were restored.

Yeah IIRC it actually happened twice with this particular line/phone. This was a line that got deactivated after I merged its bucket balances and service end date to another line. In both cases the old deactivated phone number was able to be reactivated.

The first time was a month after the successful merge, when I intentionally reactivated the line via chat because I needed brief access to the phone number that deactivated. So I was able to reactivate the line and got access to the number and I did what I had to do, but also noticed I had all my buckets and service end date before the merge available. Plus the $15 plan I used to reactivate it. The other line/phone that was recipient of merge was fine and had the proper bucket balances and time and worked perfectly independent of the first line/phone.

So once done with the phone number IIRC I called in to the corporate office to ask them to deactivate the line and they did and the bucket balances disappeared from my view in the account and that was that.

The second time it happened was a month later when I was wondering if the account would offer the option to reactivate with points on the new site (which I suspected it wouldn't) so I clicked the activate link for this deactivated line with no intention of actually reactivating it I just wanted to see what was offered but instead it just instantly activated. And again it had all its pre-merge buckets and time.

So, as I did not want to keep this line/number or cause some kind of problem with my other recipient line down the road, I called in again to ask them to deactivate it after first reducing its service end date to the end of the month (instead of 4 years later) which was a few days later. I was thinking that this might kill the account off in their system. So the rep did that and assured me there would never be a problem with the other line since they are separate. He then deactivated the line and then I just removed it from the account and that was that.

My recipient line has been fine and I think I've done 2 or 3 other relatively minor merges into it since.

[tracfoner69]

I think another member (tomseys?) had a "zombie" phone like that, refusing to die after service was already combined to another phone. He might have resurrected it with a time card (new phone number) and the old balances were restored.

Same thing happened to me last year. I purchased one of those preloaded AT&T SIM cards on eBay for like $30 or whatever they were at the time, activated it, waited a few weeks, then harvested the balance by combining it with my primary VZW #. All of the buckets and days made their way to the VZW phone, but the AT&T SIM was never actually killed off. I don't recall the exact details now, but I believe it was showing up as INACTIVE, and just for poops and giggles I re-activated it and all of the previous balances came back. WTF?

Well in any event, I still have and use that SIM in my g6 (yes, same phone that is tied to the VZW SIM, no issues so far), which I use once in a while to call a friend who has AT&T so I enjoy the HD calling between us. That AT&T SIM runs out of days in August, so I suppose I'll take a chance adding to it with my rewards points and see what happens.