Straight Talk Wireless
reviews and complaints

I just bought another 6 month unlimited card, second time. reactivated 2/22/11, which made the phone good until Aug. 25th, 2011. My new service pin # is [protected]. I had great service for the first 6 months, but today 2/24/2011, my phone has frozen up! This is my only communication. I have no landline. I bought the the phone at Walmart in June of 2010. I paid by credit card 270.00 for this 6 month plan. I would like to have it put back on my credit card or I will have it disputed with my credit card company. My email address is [protected]@gmail.com. My home address is 5481 S. Sycamore Ave. Springfield, Mo. 65810
My husband passed away 6/9/10, and this is why I got the phone, to save money. Please contact me as soon as possible by email, as my phone is frozen up.
Thank you;
Janna Currier

I bought the LG290CM at Wal-mart, took it home called and had it activated. Media messaging didn't work and text took way to long to get me. My son stood in the rain for an hour because of it. I pre-paid a month when I bought the phone. The turned it off on the third day and I called to get them to reset or reactivate it. Another three days later it went off again. They told me my phone had not been purchased! They told me to mail them the original receipt. I did. They in return said they didn't get it. Since I mailed them the original they would not take the copy I made before I mailed it. They would not accept the bank statement either...I got stuck with the most expensive phone and lost a whole month of service almost.They phone service ***, their reps are not very English orientated or intelligent and they even tried to bill me the next month after my phone had been off all month. I eventually gave up and took it as a loss. You would think a multi-billion dollar corporation like Wal-mart would have done thier research on these guys. Straight Talk is a good name for them because they are going straight down the drain.

I purchased the LG620G Dec. 24, 2010 along with a 45.00 card. Charged phone according to directions, called customer service to port over my number from Virgin mobile & activate phone.I was told it would take up to 2hrs to be activated. Next day stll not activated.Called back (Christmas Day) suprisingly someone is working.
We start all over again (service rep. had no knowledge of previous information) I was then told that my simcard would not work for my zipcode they will send out another one. Once I recieve my new simcard all I had to do was insert it into the phone and the phone would start to work.(LIE).Recieved simcard Dec 30, called service talked to 4 different people 2 that were supposed to be supervisors only to be told it would take appr. 3-7 days to port my number over again.(now I'm furious) Nevertheless I accept this(I'm stuck now).I'ts now Jan. 05, 2011 still no phone service. Call service center again on the phone for 31/2 hours only to be told my new simcard doesn't work.(I'm really Pissed off now).Wait on new simcard, arrived Jan.12, 2011 by fedex who leaves it stuck in the fence with it raining at the time, (another story).Call the call center Jan. 13, finally get it on only to find out I can't recieve any incoming calls. Call back on the next day to get that taken.Called back the very next day to reset my service end date which was scheduled to end Feb. 1, 2011 to Feb.13, 2011 which is the first day I had any type of service.Still no Internet, just happy to have phone service, up until today Jan.25, 2011.I'ts off again only to be told I have an error on my account and it could not be activated until that clears.I depend on my cellphone for my business, Straightalk has really ruin my business in these last thirty days.We're all trying to cutback in any way we can including me.Once this last episode is straighten out I will be hitailling it back to reputble carrier no more trying to save money.This company need's to be put out of business they are a disgrace to every business out here trying to give quality service.

I purchased from a charity resale store what I thought was just a huge bag of gift wrap, ribbon, bows, and assorted gift bags. Upon returning home I started sorting the items and discovered the bag contained other things. There were gloves, costume jewelry, magazines and a cell phone with a charger in the bag also. I charged the phone and gave it to my child to play with. Later while on ebay I saw the same phone and discovered it was a Straight Talk phone. I removed the back from the phone and recorded the serial number. Later I looked up the number for Straight Talk and called. I informed the customer of how I obtained the phone and wanted to see if it would be possible for me to use the phone. After giving the serial number to the lady handling my call I was informed that there would be no problem activating the phone. She told me that all I had to do was purchase an activation phone card for $30.00 or $45.00 if I wanted UNLIMITED usage for thirty days and that the card would have the pin number needed to activate the phone. I decided that I would purchase the card and use the phone as a backup phone since I have a hard time finding my cell phone at times. Once I purchased the card I called Straight Talk again and gave the rep the phone's serial number. She then asked for the pin number from the activation card. I gave it to her after scratching off the gray strip covering the pin. That's when I was informed that the serial number was invalid. I was asked where the phone had been purchased and I again told how I obtained the phone. The rep informed me that she would route me to support services and they would handle the activation. Again, after giving some guy the serial number and pin number I was told that the phone had not been activated at time of purchase. He informed me I would have to return it to the place of purchase and I for the third time had to explain how I obtained the phone. Afterwards, he said there was nothing they could do even though the phone had no owner according to their records. Well, I sure as h#@& would have liked to known this BEFORE I spent $33.80 for the activation card! The cards are nonrefundable so now I have a phone card that is of no use to me. Will I ever use Straight Talk? NEVER! I have used recycled/resale phones for years and never had a problem activating any of THEM. Thus, I would advise people not to buy a ST phone anyplace but Wallyworld. If you find one-TOSS IT- it is not reusable after original owner/purchaser stops using it! So to all those out there thinking of buying or bidding via internet DO NOT waste your money and please warn others to heed my lesson.

First of all let me say I recommended straight talk to all my friends and family until now. My husband bought a high end straight talk phone (Nokia e71) it was so complicated he decided to get a different phone. We were going to let my granddaughter have the nokia. We have been trying to activate with her old straight talk # for a week now to no avail. I have been on the phone with the customer service every day 2 to 3 hours at a time. They have sent us 3 different sim cards. They turned off her old phone and she has been without a phone for 5 days now. Every time you call you have to go thru the same explanations again. Seemingly they do not have access to any prior actions on the account. I finally gave up and told them to just turn her old phone back on and they kept me on the phone another hour and then told me they would have to send another sim card to do that. I told them her old phone does not have a sim card. They said I would have to put a new sim card in the new phone to turn the old phone back on. What? There is no one who can help you. I asked if c. S. Is in the us and she said no. I said no wonder you cant get anything done. What is wrong with hiring people here in the us? So now we have 2 phones we can't use and she had just bought a new service card and we have lost that too.

Since becoming a customer of straighttalk wireless I have "settled for less" sinply because the service was so much more affordable than the rest. Once again, I am reminded that you get what you pay for! Well..., I am convinced that I have become a victim of the fraudulent business practices.in reviewing their website, I stumple on some pakage deals of theirs, a bundle, if you will, the offer was a resonditioned (Used) cell phone and a refill card all for the "to good to e true price of... Whatever amount you wanted to chose to reload on your cell phone. Yeah, if it appears to good to be true... Then it is! So straightalk debited by bank acount for 4 times the amount I confirmed online, and after hours of dealing with their averseas call centers, one supervisor after the next, I came across this message board and have been made aware that I am not alone. This seems to be common practice with them, resulting in no refunds of the overcharge, and no product being received by that farse of a company! Luckily, the bank has begun the process of helping me get my money back and you better believe I am going to tell everyone I know about what they're doing! Straightalk, and their sisters companies net10 and tracphone are all owned by verizon wireless... So, needless to say... I am going to be contacting some of verizon's top brass and I plan to expose this nonsense for the joke it really is! Anyone interested in following my story or even in participating in finding justice for themselves, please stay tuned... I am mad as hell!

We recommend Straight Talk to friends and family. This is not a complaint, but it may help to insert some balance into the discussion. Four members of our family have been using Straight Talk phones for over 6 months. Our experience overall with the company has been positive. We have had a few minor problems, such as text messaging being mistakenly disabled temporarily, but all problems were easily resolved with a call to customer service. Straight Talk customer service reps may not always seem to be as competent as one might expect, but they have always been polite and helpful to us, and have not failed to fix issues. Bottom line for us is we needed phones for less than a year, so did not want to get into a contract. Straight Talk was the cheapest answer. $30/month. Who can beat that for 1000 minutes and 1000 messages and 30mb of web surfing? No company we know of. Works for us.

Straight Talk internet and picture msging not working?
I have an LG290CM straight talk phone with the unlimited plan and have been with them for over a year now and I haven't had any issues until now except occasionally unable to access the internet but that rarely ever happened until now.

My Man just got the Samsung R451C Recon. + Unlimited Plan, and after setting up his phone and paring the bluetooth to my phone and his old us cellular phone, I had successfully sent him all the contacts from my phone to his new one and from his old us cellular phone to his new samsung then had text him some photos from my LG to his new Samsung.
Then we paired his bluetooth headset to his new samsung and it worked great. We then decided to try out the internet on his new phone but keep getting a "Error: server not responding" or "Error: cannot resolve hostename" and we also cannot send picture messages but we can send regular text messages...
What is up with this? Why isn't it working?

And of coarse Straight Talk Customer Service is closed! Besides even if I called them to resolve the problem it's like talking to a robot and they are so annoying! Also when have they ever really solved an issue?!
For instance we originally went to Wal-mart and bought a Samsung R355 it's kind of like a blackberry phone it's listed online for $129.99 but on sale in the store for $80.00. He got the $45 plan and we went home to activate it and port over his us-cellular phone number. We got it all done then tried to use it but it didn't work so I called the World's Greatest customer service ST and was online looking at the st website and notice they had the other phone he wanted for Free with a $45 service plan! So we of coarse wanted that deal! The Representative over the phone said he could cancel the port and cancel the current phone and told us to buy the one online and return the other one to the store. LOL the next day his Us cellular phone didn't work and when you called his number it was calling the phone that we had returned to the store! Oh that was just wonderful! We called ST and tried to troubleshoot the problem as much to our dismay we were told to go to wal-mart and tell them not to scan the phone and for us to call us cellular and tell them we needed to port back over his number to them. Well walmart scans their returns at the time you bring them back. He was afraid he's lose his number so we went to all the trouble trying to take care of stupid petty things that the ST Customer Service reps were telling us to do. Us cellular told us that we needed the account number with ST in order to port the number back but ST refused to give us that info saying it was private info of ST.. I had to speak to the supervisor and deal with that. And long story short once a phone is ported out of a service provider your contract is canceled.
So what does one do to deal with your Straight Talk phone problems?
I wish there was an actual store where you can talk to a real live person standing in front of you rather than these robotic Arabic sounding people. I think they have a language changing machine on their computer when you call because they always sound the same when you talk to them.
40 minutes ago - 4 days left to answer.
Additional Details
My man even said while we were on the phone with them "Why do you all sound like a Robot" LOL... but they really do!

This is the worst carrier imaginable..I would recommend that if you haven't purchased the phone or service then DO NOT! This is the only company that I know that when u refill the card before the expiration date that they still turn your service off. After speaking to several customer serv reps and a supervisor I got nowhere so I contacted headquarters. By the way their address is 9700 NW 112 Ave Miami, Fl 33178 and direct #[protected] in case you have a hard time getting this information which I did. When I spoke to headquarters they were fully aware of the service being cut off even before the current plan expires and claim they are working on it?! Yeah right.. Its funny because while your on hold for customer service the recording says that you can refill your card anytime during the month and it will automatically roll your new plan over after the old one expires-what a joke! This is an issue that happens to everyone according to headquarters so I guess I shouldn't be complaining LOL.. All I have to say is that if you want a peace of mind and good service and customer service reps that you can actually understand what they are saying then this isnt the place for you. However if you enjoy a monthly battle and constantly have to voice complaints that are heard on deaf ears then you will be in paradise with this company! I couldn't take it anymore and have switched services. Good luck to all of those who still are current customers and hopefully things will get better but I am HIGHLY doubtful.

Stay far, far away from this company. It is cheap, but you get what you pay for. I had this phone service for 2 months on 1000 minutes plan, then decided to switch to unlimited which is 45$. I did via onlline but I noticed that there was no area to upgrade plans on the website. I was running out of time so I upgraded anyway and sent them an email telling them that I was charged for the 1000 minute plan (1 had 2 phones on the account) and I wanted the unlimited for auto renewal. Easy enough I thought. NOT FOR THEM. The next day I checked my credit card, and they had taken money out to pay for the 1000 minute plan and NEVER answered my email. I then called their 800 number. Don't every try doing this from a phone that is not unlimited. On a Sunday, I had to listen to elevator music for 30 minutes before getting a customer service rep who barely spoke english. Very difficult to understand . I am a patient person, but I lost it after being on the phone for 1hour and 15 minutes. I was told one moment 30 times (I counted). First she could not find my account, then she could not understand what I was saying, then she repeatedly asked me the same questions over and over and over. Then she told me maybe my phone would begin working again 24-48 hours! I asked her why she could not find my account online when I had no problem pulling it up?! You guessed it, she said one moment again and put me on hold. WHen she got back on, I said I wanted to talk to her supervisor, she said ONE MOMENT...after holding for 15 minutes (I assume she was filling her manager in on this whole nightmare), they disconnected me. Well, I am not wasting my time anymore on this piece of crap company. I am calling my bank and disputing the charges. My suggestion to you is don't go near this company! Look how many complaints they have already on google. I have checked it out and my other 2 kids have boost mobile unlimited for 50% a month. THey have a new deal where every 6 months if you pay ontime they reduce the charge by 5$ so by 18 months unlimited talk/text/web is 35$. NO ONE CAN BEAT THAT PLAN! And NO, I do NOT work for them!

I Purchased a straight talk phone LG Slide phone 2 weeks ago. When I called to activate phone I was given a SC Number and spent 1 hour talking to three different people speaking broken english. I kept telling them I live in NC. My phone now has no service or bars. Just spent 1hour15 minutes on the phone with NINA! She doesn't even know what she is doing. She kept repeating the same questions and stalling whenever I asked her a question and kept putting me on hold. After several codes entered into my phone she tells me a tower is down in my area. If I don't have service in 24 to 48 hours to call back. UGGGGGG! My daughter has straight talk phone also and her signal is fine and we live in the same house. When I asked if changing my number to NC number would help she kept talking over my question. Please if you don't want to receive this kind of service DON"T BUY STRAIGHT TALK PHONES :(((((

i purchased the straight talk phone combo, phone plus minutes, at wal-mart, called several times, and the third time i called i was given two sets of numbers to put in, before it would activate, , why didnt they do that when i first called? i have been calling them to speak to tech support and was told they were busy call back, i waited two hours called back, same thing, too busy call back.so i tried to go online to their site, i could not log in with my email, or phone number, the error came up, string out of length 0.i can call, get calls txt, etc.but the phone number i have with my phone will not work when i submit it, why?they dont have 24/7 support, u cant get in touch with support, except when u make an error, then they transfer u and u still have to wait 10 minutes.we were going to switch our number from att, to keep it on this phone, and cant even do that, why? this should be handled by a company that has people 24/7 for support, not just during the day.why is this company in buisness, if they cannot help with peoples problems, this is sad...i hope u will get these people off their butts and get it right, it gives cell phone companies a bad name...

after trying to refill by phone as i always have for a year now my phone was inoperative. with incoming and out going calls not working at all. when i called customer service i was greeted by a verizon recording stating they could not authenticate my phone. with no other phones to call cc im am now stuck with no service and with the river levels rising i just might throw my phone in and watch it drowned just like straight talks non american speaking customer care reps...straight talks sux

I placed order for phone with credit card online, summary showed as declined. When I look at my account balance, showed they debited account 2 times. I spoke with Bank of America rep they stated the transaction DID go thru, funds to Tracfone (which owns Straightalk) I talked to Straightalk Rep she said w/o order # my order did not go thru, which is not true! I am going to file a complaint with the Florida BBB

It has been several months now since I have tried to resolved the issue with Straight talk. I purchased a new cellphone and within the first few days the back fell off. (It was a Samsung 451) Finally lost the back called and first told they "can do nothing", after going back to Walmart, told to return it for a new one. Instead of the same phone, received a well-used cheap model, and when called, informed they could do it. Went back to Walmart and the Manager called after seeing the cheap one I had received, and Sept. 23 told if I would return it, the monies would be returned. It is now Nov. 11, and still no refund. They initially stated they didn't receive it until I proved with name and number, then the "found it". I"V ALSO CALLED WALMART Headquarters who say they can do nothing. Each time I call, they say they are "working on it"; each time I call back, they are working on it. Today when I called told they received the phone, but they have no idea what to send me in refund; next they said they had sent the check Oct. 14, SOMETHING THEY NEVER SAID BEFORE. In my opinion Straight Take is a scam; Walmart is just as bad in not trying to resolve this case!

Among all the service providers for cell phones this has to be the worst. Purchased the straight talk phone for our daughter last year. By January they disconnected it. After a lengthy conversation, they admitted the problem was on their end. Since then it's happened three more times. Tonight we have spoken with the credit card company and they've taken the payment out and then disconnected the phone. It's very frustrating especially when you talk with representatives that act as if they are reading off a menu. We expect her to get the service owed to her for this month then we will switch to Boost or Cricket. At least if there is a problem, we can drive to the location, and correct the problem in real time with people who speak our native language. The problem with "Straight Talk" is they don't know how to do it. Walmart should be ashamed of the service (?) it's providing with their cell phones. If not I'm ashamed for you. As soon as the month is up, our disconnect with straight talk will be permanent. Stay away from this offer and keep your sanity.

I have been using a straight talk phone since January and up until now have had no problems but now, they are pissing me off! A few weeks ago I was told that I would get a free halloween ringtone but when I went online to get it, it kept popping up that my phone hadn't been put into the system and I needed to call customer service. I called 4 different times over a 2 day period because NOBODY knows what they are doing with this company and all of them are idiots who kept saying problem solved when it wasn't. The only reason I kept calling again was because 1, I was assured my minutes were not getting used up and it was free to call them since they were customer service after all and 2, they kept telling me there was a problem with my phone that needed to be fixed. The 4th time I called I DEMANDED to talk to a supervisor and up till this point I had requested to but was always told that I was not allowed to. This time after over 45 minutes of waiting I got to finally talk to a supervisor and turns out all I had to do to fix all of these problems was to set up my online account, something the very first person should have been able to tell me! So all in all I spent OVER 4 hours on the phone with straight talk being put on hold time after time, talking to idiots that had no idea what they were doing (some of which I could barely understand so that made it all the more frustrating), while not getting the help I needed! But that is just issue #1.

About a week after I had called them I realized that they had not only taken the time I spent on the phone with them out of my minute usage, but they had also deducted more minutes that I hadn't even used. I was assured that my time on the phone with them was free and would not be taken out of my minute usage. They put me on hold time after time after time for over 4 hours so if I had known that they were taking my minutes for this I wouldn't have called in the first damn place! Now as I said I have used this phone provider since January and I have always bought the 1000 minute plan because I have NEVER even gotten close to using that. A few months ago we started using my cell phone as our home phone as well but we're not phone talkers and have still never gone over 500 minutes used. We do not use our phone much at all! Since they are liars who say one thing and do another, I decided to write them an email instead of calling about the situation, since they would no doubt take the rest of my minutes away. I have sent 3 emails to this company explaining my problem and demanding they fix it and give me back my minutes. They have responded to two of my 3 emails and said "We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for any
inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue on accessing our
mobile web." I AM NOT HAVING PROBLEMS ACCESSING MOBILE WEB YOU STOLE MY MINUTES! So a few minutes ago I get a phone call from one of these idiots and when I told her I did not want to talk to her on the phone because they were using these minutes and that they needed to converse with me in emails only, she told me once again to call the 1800 number. When I said a big hell no to that because they haven't left me with many minutes left as is and I know they'll use the rest all up when I call she told me to go to a payphone to call and then hung up on me. I am FURIOUS!

This company is so unprofessional. It makes me so angry how they said one thing and did another and now won't even fix the problem at hand without taking up more of my money and time. They need to get their stuff together and they need to do it quick. If they are going to use your minutes when you call they should tell you that up front so you can email. Not that email helps anything obviously! They don't know the first thing about customer service and helping a customer, they don't know how to fix problems, and they take all of your minutes when they have said you will not get charged those minutes so they're also liars. My service runs up on the 22nd and my remaining minutes they have not stolen yet will hopefully last me until then but I will definitely not be renewing my service. I have heard many stories from people who have gotten horrible customer service from them and I just thought it was weird cause I had never had a problem with them. I will definitely never recommend this company to anyone else ever again (I have gotten at least 10 people to switch to straight talk and that makes me angry that I told them they should switch to what I now know is a horrible company!) and I will only be telling the negatives of the straight talk wireless customer service reps and managers! Because of this ridiculousness they are losing a few very good customers. Not that me and a few of my friends leaving them is a big deal to them, but the numbers will add up if they don't fix their horrible customer service! I strongly urge anyone considering to go to straight talk to reconsider unless they are ok with ### customer service!

I have a straight talk phone. The phone works fine but the company charged my account twice in the same month Sept 16, and then the 23 for $49.64. They have no one who can speak clear English and they transfer you from representative to representative to help you with your valid complaint. I have spent a total of 14 hours over the last 34 days trying to get my money back. I even cancelled the service but guess what ? They charged me again on October 25. I was placed on hold for 42 minutes just today. If you hang up you never get the same person again. You have to start all over again with the story and then they transfer you and then you end up on hold all over again.

I purchased a prepaid phone and $30.00 time card for 1000 minutes. I got the prepaid
card to work quickly with no problems. Despite the few annoying "wrong" numbers and
awful texts from people I don't know, the phone works fine. I bought the Samsung R355.

I have now, about three weeks later, need to buy more minutes and thought to register
online so I could enroll in the automatic monthly refill.

I could never get the website to accept my cell phone serial number with the error
message:

"We are sorry, the Serial Number you entered is associated with another
account.
Please try again with a different serial number or log into "My
Account."

I called their customer number [protected]-CELL (2355) and explained my problem.

The first customer service rep struggled with speaking English so badly I felt sorry for him
and he had no understanding of what I needed. He painfully kept reciting some gibberish
and I just told him forget it and I hung up.

The second customer service rep I spoke with was in the Phillipines by her own admission and
the connection sounded as though she was under water, and bless her heart, no amount of trying
to adjust her phone helped it get any better or clearer. She was nice though. Still, no help.

I then emailed the company and told them of my problems with the customer service
reps and knowing I couldn't get help through their hotline, I received the following reply:

Thank you for your interest in Straight Talk Wireless. We are responding
to your recent inquiry.

We understand that you would like to refill your phone using the
website. In order for you to refill your account online, you will need
first to log in into your "My Account". Please be informed that in order
for you to create your "My Account", you need to provide us with a valid
e-mail address so we can update your file. Once we have your e-mail
address, the system will generate a password and it will be sent to your
e-mail.

To update your e-mail address, please contact one of our customer care
representatives at [protected]. Upon verifying the account
information, we will process your request to update the information. For
your convenience, our representatives are available Monday-Sunday from
8:00 AM to 11:45 PM EST.

Thank you for being a Straight Talk Wireless customer. We appreciate
your business.

Sincerely,

Straight Talk Wireless

I feel like throwing the phone in the trash and going back to the theives holding us all hostage
at the big contract companies, but I will just ignore all these problems and go buy a card and
hopefully I will be able to refill it on my own. These phones can save you money and we all need
to tighten the belt anyway we can.

I would really look into a phone system with complete reviews, coverage, etc. before I bought another one.
I was in a rush and now paying the price, albeit a smaller one that a contract would have me pay.

Good luck!

Well, yesterday I bought a straight talk phone. One with a full keyboard. My phone was working fine yesterday and this morning it stopped. I turned my phone off and then turned it back on it said "unregistered sim". I took the sim card out and placed it back in. I don't know what is wrong with my phone, all I know is I need it fixed, now!