Consumer cellular

[Rogar]

I've used a Tracfone forever and it's. been a good bargain. I've bought the cards at the suypermarket and basically get 90 days, unlimited messaging and text, with a few GB data carried over for earlier cards for 19.95. Most of my data use is at home with various laptops, iPads, etc., so it's been satisfactory. My old Samsung phone was no longer holding a charge and the last operating system update was 2000. A friend complained about tracfone customer service with phone upgrades, which the internet also says, so I updated to Consumer Cellular.

I have to say the ads are right. Everyone I talked with was very pleasant and patient, like customer service should or used to be. The cost I thought fair, but the Tracfone prices are hard to beat for some purposes. I imagine overseas customer service for a lot of things will eventually be AI rather than someone hard to understand and poorly motivated.

[rosarugosa]

Rogar: Were you able to keep the same phone number? I am leaning towards switching providers the next time we have to upgrade our phones, but at this point I am using my cell # more than my home #, so changing phone numbers would be painful. It's sort of the same reason I still use my Yahoo email.

When I had my nightmare service experience with Tracfone, everyone I dealt with was very pleasant, although totally ineffectual. Imagine a customer service dept staffed by golden retrievers.

[Rogar]

Rogar: Were you able to keep the same phone number? I am leaning towards switching providers the next time we have to upgrade our phones, but at this point I am using my cell # more than my home #, so changing phone numbers would be painful. It's sort of the same reason I still use my Yahoo email.

Yes. I read up with a search on how to keep the same number and had a few basics, but they were very helpful in transferring the number anyway. I'm a basic cell phone luddite and got the impression they are used to people even more digitally lame and senior than even myself. They were patient and explained everything clearly. Plus the wait time to talk to someone was small. They mentioned something about being able to also transfer a landline number to a cell, but not something I was interested in and didn't ask details.

It was something I was concerned with also and called their customer service before pulling the trigger to ask how that would go.