On the website it says: “You can set up Auto-Refill and guarantee service continuity”  which is a falsehood. I had setup and provided a credit card, which was charged before my 30 day contract expired. Though I have paid $60, been under contract less than 60 days and have remaining minutes; I have no service. They took my money and turned off my phone.

If it were guaranteed continuity with access to my credit card, why is my phone off?

Today, I will contact StraightTalk, the Better Business Bureau and my Attorney!

Dastardly Bastards!

UPDATE: 3:30PM

After visiting Verizon and buying a new phone I called StraightTalk.

Here is the actual progression of my Straight Talk experience:

I bought the phone and card on July 28th, activating my service with Straight Talk, giving me 1000 minutes until August 27th.

The website offers the ability to enter a credit card for Auto-Refill. When you enter your credit card, they will immediately bill you the monthly fee. This will change your activation date, something I did not and still do not understand. [I entered my credit card in advance of my expiration date of August 27th in order to "be prepared" when my minutes expired.]

I lost the remaining 17 days because they billed me on the 10th of August, resetting my activation date, regardless of the fact I had approx. 17 days left. [I got 43 days for the price of 60 days]

This morning my phone was dead. While I was at Verizon, StraightTalk billed my credit card and reactivated my service because today is the 10th. With their website access to “my account” shut down for the past few weeks I have been unable to turn off recurring billing or change my account status.

After calling Straight Talk directly, I deactivated recurring billing, deactivated the annoying message at the beginning of each call that says: “Time remaining for this call is 6 hours and 12 minutes” and after 26 minutes on the phone, got a refund for today’s additional $32 charge for the next month.

Outsourced customer service always takes longer to deal with, doesn’t it? Thank goodness I bailed on this company, though it will cost me much more, there’s a reason it’s worth paying the difference.

Purchased as an interim provider while Verizon got some decent hardware in stock, I regret the waste of time and money, though I still recommend StraightTalk to those few people who don’t use their phone much.

1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30MB of data – can’t be beat for $30. Just make sure to sign up online and not use the prepaid cards because the two forms of payment conflict. They ripped me off for 17 days of service.

After a week of traveling, installing dozens of iPhone Apps and learning the ins and outs of sending email, writing notes and browsing the web on the iPhone, I returned it to The Apple Store for a full refund.

Before I head down for the return, I bought a Straight Talk Razor via Walmart.com and paid for Next Day shipping. I clicked to activate and Port Existing Number and after about an hour my iPhone lost the number. The automatic activation failed and I spend a very long time with a Straight Talk CSR who eventually clicked the right buttons.

I’ve gone back 12 years in technology to a polyphonic clamshell but it’s durable, practical and working on Verizon’s network for only $30/mo.

That’s right, calls to 411 are free. 1000 texts and 1000 minutes for $30 plus 30MB of data transfer. When I turned on Bluetooth my Mac synced all my contacts for me. Thanks.

The iPhone, though used to “keep in touch” limits my life experience. I’ll never have to ask for directions again. Keeping a journal in a moleskin is a lot more real than struggling to type on a touch keyboard when the return key, the M and the space bar are so close. I’m going back twelve years until Verizon stops offering phones that are missing functionality.

straight talk moto box

Costs:

My Verizon plan; 400 minutes + text + tax = $55-60/month

My iPhone AT&T plan; 900 min + iphone + text + tax = $125/month

My Verizon network Straight-Talk plan 1000 min, 1000 texts +sales tax – $32/mo.

What’s missing is the ability to post on facebook, look up info on a website and reply to emails while at work… but I think I’ll survive. Especially since I own an iPod Touch and enough folks leave their network open that it doesn’t take long in just about any urban/suburban setting to pick up a signal. Each month I am saving $100 which means before one year, I’ll save up for a new Macbook. Since I’m being an old fart, they should still call them Powerbooks. ‘Cause ‘macbook’ sounds that other word for “happy” if you know what I mean.