National Anthems: Home | Africa | Americas | Asia | Australia&Oceania | Europe | Olympic Anthem |

 
Passports: Home [ Africa ] [ Americas, Australia & Oceania] [ Asia] [ Europe] [ Other documents
Travel:
[Europe] [ Asia ] [ USA-Canada ] [ Latin-America ] [ Africa ] [ Australia ] [ Carabben ] [ Air ] [Cruises ]
Forum
Live chat




Subject: Travelfone - DON'T Posted on: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:12:54 +0000 (UTC)

Hi

Travelfone is being sold as a cell / mobile phone service usable in
many countries. If this sound good to you, please read this:

Here is my experience:

In Nov 2004, I ordered a Travelfone on the link from Pocketmails site
Travelfone did not provide any kind of receipt nor any shipping
information.
The phone eventually arrived in 5 weeks, the end of Dec., several weeks
later than promised on their site.
I was traveling south for the winter so tested the phone in WA, OR,
and CA
I was not able to make ANY calls.
I was able to connect to a network, usually AT&T, then I would get a
"network busy" , "call barred" message.
Travelfone decided the SIM was bad and FedEx'd a new one to Victorville
CA.
After installing it was able to contact Travelfone and make ONE
successful call to Canada.
As a result of contacting Travelfone my credit card was incorrectly
billed Euros 100 (later refunded)
I continued to try making calls with no success. During this time Linda
at Travelfone appeared to be trying to solve the problem.
Then the phone, a Siemens A65 failed.
I contacted Siemens, the A65 is not sold for use in the USA and they
can't repair it, plus of course, I had no receipt anyway.
Travelfone arranged to send a replacement A65 to Siemens CA.
I couriered them my A65 which they confirmed was defective.
The very helpful rep. @ Siemens, said the A65 was not suitable for use
in the USA and would have big areas with no coverage.
As a replacement he sent me 2 phones, one appropriate for the USA and
another older one for use in Europe.
Neither worked with either SIM card, in AZ, NV, CA, OR, WA or BC,
although I could connect to a network (again usually AT&T)
The Siemens rep was not surprised, he said that "prepaid SIM's" often
don't work.
During this whole time I was being patient and sending Travelfone all
the info. I had to help them solve the problem.
After I received the new phones and they still didn't work, I have had
NO response from Travelfone

SO, I HAVE HAD A TRAVELFONE FOR OVER 3 MONTHS AND HAVE BEEN ABLE TO
MAKE ONE CALL !