 |
 |
Hi Lynda, Thank you so much for that kind help. You hit the nail on the head! She bought 500 minutes from Tracfone via their toll free phone # 3 months ago and they're all gone. Same thing when she bought the service plan with 1,500 minutes in Jan via HSN and they were all gone by April. Tracfone will not reveal the time for each call archived monthly or quarterly so you can't research where all your minutes were used. You must text 611611 Usage after each call which she did originally and then stopped after a few weeks when the minutes usage each time was short. It would seem there's something going on and no one but top security people know about it? Same thing with unauthorized withdrawals on debit cards. I've heard from those in the banking industry that it's a quiet epidemic. I just don't know what the next steps should be to avoid minutes drainage. Thank you again, Charles. Charlotte County Public Library Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 23:08:26 +0000 From: Lynda Howell <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cell phone conundrum At https://www.tracfone.com/phone-add-ons (Shop -> Plans Add-Ons from their homepage), there's an option for 500 minutes for $10. That's the only option I see for buying minutes through their website -- there may be other options in stores or as special offers. If that's what she bought, that's not related to days of service, and can only be used for calls, so if it ran out faster than expected, that could mean there's something wrong. I didn't think minutes could be shared between devices, but it can't hurt to check that she doesn't have another device showing on her account. You can check your usage at any time on their website or by text -- or if you're on a TracFone phone, you can probably do it in their app. I recommend checking that periodically and making sure it's not changing faster than you expect. The phone app on your phone probably also shows a history of calls. On mine, if I tap a number in the list and tap History, I can see the length of the most recent call. Again, check that periodically and make sure it looks right. But also notice that many places on their website, and especially on the cards you'll see in grocery stores, they'll say "30 minutes" in big letters, but "For talk, text and web" in smaller letters. Those aren't minutes, they're units that can be used for texts and data as well -- and every data-aware app I've ever seen has come with background data use enabled. That's not a problem for the add-on I mentioned above, but my experience trying to buy the 1000 Texts add-on is that the sales rep will push very strongly towards their regular plans. It's very easy to end up with something other than what you asked for. Lynda.