Straight Talk has struck a new low point for customer service. Not just when compared with other cell phone companies, but when compared with anything. Anywhere.
Their ad listed a monthly price that was about $20 less than I pay for Verizon. They’re on the Verizon network (at least in this area). It’s a pre-paid phone. I figured “As long as it works, how bad could it be?”
Apparently plenty bad.
First, to WalMart. I picked a nice flip-phone off the hook, took it to the register and tried to buy it. Not a chance. The cashier couldn’t scan the bar-code and the register complained about “invalid item”. I walked back to the complete opposite corner of the store, picked up a different phone and took it to a different register. This didn’t scan either.
Finally the cashier typed in some numbers manually, I paid and I was out the door.
Once in the car, I opened the package and read the directions. First, you need to pay for service, so I pulled out my credit card, turned on the phone and called the phone number on the box.
Well, it turns out, you apparently can’t activate the new phone from the new phone, you need to do it from a different phone. OK. No problem. I pulled out my Verizon phone, called the number on the box and it said “Due to unusually high call volume we are unable to take your call at this time. Please try the website.” So I sat in the parking lot redialing Straight Talk on my Verizon phone. Eventually I was bored and frustrated and gave up.
So I drove back to the office, opened up Firefox and went to the Straight Talk website, which happily took my credit card information. I signed up for auto-renew, clicked OK and thought “Cool, I’m all set”
Now the phone needs to be programmed. I dialed the number shown for programming, and got a message that my phone “couldn’t be programmed at this time.” Awesome. Tried again. and again. And again. And again. After about a half an hour, it finally programmed.
So I’m thinking “Cool, it’s all set!” Yeah, right. I tried to make a call and it told me “I didn’t have enough minutes” which was really odd, since I just bought 1000 minutes and hadn’t made a call yet. Giving them the benefit of even more doubt, I thought “Maybe they’re just really busy and it will take a while.” So I put the phone away and tried again a few hours later. Sill no luck. It’s still out of minutes.
Now I’m pissed . I went to the Straight Talk website, which, as it turns out, has a very easy way to sign up and absolutely no way to contact a human or cancel service or get a refund. They do, however have a “customer service” phone number which is always unavailable “Due to exceptionally high call volume.”
Awesome.
Today, the phone went back to WalMart for a refund. If ST ever bills my credit card, I’ll protest the charges.
Here’s the kicker. This morning, they had the balls to send me a survey asking how happy I was with their “service.” I completed the survey honestly, hit the send button and their website died. Hit the “back” button, did it again, it hung for a while and then wanted me to login to some sort of secure website that I didn’t have a login for.
So much for feedback.
Just to bring this bizarre tale to an end, I went to Best Buy in Dewitt last night, walked in, picked out a new Verizon phone and within 10 minutes had a brand new, working phone, configured by a very nice employee (Ed).
Straight Talk should be embarrassed to be dealing with the public like this and WalMart should be even more embarrassed for having Straight Talk on the shelf.
Straight Talk has billed my credit card. I contacted the bank, protested the charges and had them stop any future charges from Straight Talk. And here’s the best part so far: I received an email from Straight Talk responding to my email from a week ago. It says I need to call them to resolve the issue.
I wrote back and told them they’re not getting paid and if they want to “resolve the issue” they can call me between 10am and 4pm.
This is like something from Kafka.
From my perspective there’s nothing to resolve. Walmart has the phone back, I have my money back and ST can’t bill me anymore. However this morning I got another email from ST again telling me I needed to call them to “resolve the issue.”
I replied that it was “difficult to call them because nobody ever answered the phone, but if they wished to ‘resolve’ anything, they’re welcome to call me between 10am and 4PM EST.”
This afternoon, they actually called my cell phone, told me everything was resolved and apologized for the trouble.
I’m not sure what to make of it. Although it’s nice they finally canceled the transaction, it took them two weeks to do it. I’ve wasted a ton of time screwing around with them and at my current hourly rate their “service” has cost me close to $1000. If they really wanted to “make it right” they would have sent me a phone and two year’s worth of prepaid service.