PayTel - Page 2

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS -- I have had my first experience with this since the last time I knew anyone in jail was when they just used the phone in the jail free and could call collect. But this long-winded recording that took my payment info was ridiculous and then it hung up on me when it was done, so I didn't get to talk to my family member. It also charged me 23.00 and when he called back it shut off after 15 minutes. Is that what they are charging for 15 minutes of conversation. People you need to call your governor's offices, when they get tired of your calls they will do something, also thinking I am going to work on a Change.org petition about this nationwide.

DUBLIN, GA -- I read many of the reviews before making the account. Unfortunately if you want to talk to a loved one you have no other choice but to make an account with them. I did not have a problem with the service. I heard my loved one clearly. Only problem I had was after reviewing my account I saw that they charge a whopping $5 per call (rounded up). This is ridiculous! I can imagine how rich these people are while they are exploiting the needy. What a shame. It's amazing because even if the call was $2 they would still be ridiculously rich. But money is the root of all evil.

CUMMING GA, GEORGIA -- You would THINK by now Pay Tel would see how BAD their reviews are and CHANGE something about themselves. The company can EAT POOP and stick it where the sun don't shine! This is a CRIMINAL COMPANY STEALING PEOPLE'S MONEY. An attorney has been contacted and after seeing all the complaints. Has told me he will make it his mission to GET THESE PEOPLE THEIR MONEY BACK.

Listen Pay Tel no one uses landline phones anymore. Cellphones are 10 times more advanced now than the old landline. Should not be having so many dropped calls. If the call is dropped you should refund every one of them no questions asked. What if we dropped your calls and said, "The monies all mine." Here's an automated message to tide you over till we get you again? Not good business. STEP UP CAUSE YOU GUYS SUCKS. Have a nice ** day Pay Smell.

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA -- Apparently this is a known issue with Paytel the inmate says there name I press 3 and it just disconnects it did it all day today and I spend a lot of money with this company and as other said its not my phone because I have to push prompts to get to your reps and it works fine it's your phones I do my part and my loved one only gets to come out certain hours through out the day I'm in tears typing this because I'm so frustrated these are still human beings and they have families that miss and love them and these phone calls mean the world to us so you guys need to do something about this like really I spend a lot of money with you.

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA -- Apparently this is a known issue with Paytel. The inmate says their name, I press 3 and it just disconnects it. Did it all day today and I spend a lot of money with this company and as other said it's not my phone because I have to push prompts to get to your reps and it works fine. It's your phones. I do my part and my loved one only gets to come out certain hours throughout the day. I'm in tears typing this because I'm so frustrated these are still human beings and they have families that miss and love them and these phone calls mean the world to us. So you guys need to do something about this like really. I spend a lot of money with you.

WILSON, NORTH CAROLINA -- When my friend call from jail at times I can't hear him or he can't hear me. We have to hang up and try the call again, each time Paytel will charge for the call. I have spoken with them about this and never get a refund. Each time he calls we talk the full time if there was not a problem with Paytel service. Why would there be calls for less than a minute just to turn around and have another call back to back until we can hear each other. I feel this is a scam. There is no other carriers so you have to pay or not be able to talk to your love one.

CORDELE, GEORGIA -- I just want to say it is very sad that a company that makes as much money as Paytel does won't even provide fair service to their customers. Service that we pay for in full and sometime we don't even get half of what we pay for. Almost every time I have had dropped calls, Paytel always says it's my cell phone that is dropping the calls yet I never have any problems with my calls being dropped unless I'm using Paytel. Also Paytel only considers giving you credit if it was due to their equipment being faulty which is ridiculous. Any company should at least review whatever your problem may be and resolve it if you have paid for that service and didn't get what you paid for.

For example, I paid for a 15 minute call and while I was talking I put the phone on speakerphone so I could comfort my newborn baby. Well I went to pick my phone back up and accidentally hit the end button after only 2 minutes of talking and Paytel won't even attempt to give me credit for that call just because it was my fault and because I accidentally hit end.

It's things like this that makes this company so awful. A company so rich yet so evil. If Paytel would change the way they handle their customers problems it would be a great company, but as I've seen all they want is every penny they can squeeze out of a person! Pure disgrace.

FORT DEFIANCE, ARIZONA -- This evening (December 8, 2014) I tried to answer two calls coming from the McKinley Adult Detention Center in Gallup, NM. The first call I received was at 8:00 PM - after hearing the name, the automated system disconnected the call even though I was saying hello multiple times. The seconded time tonight was at 10:00 PM. I answered the call, this time I heard the caller's name and the system asked me to press "1" to accept the call. Which I did... but the system just repeated itself and I again pressed "1", instead of connecting me to the caller, it again disconnected the call.

I am extremely disappointed and distress to be missing calls from a loved one. I request an immediate inquiry into this "glitch" in the system so it can be fixed. The phone number that was used was my home number which is a land line. I have dealt with other inmate phone companies in the past and they were never this difficult.

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA -- My brother is an inmate at a local jail, and we are required to use PayTel to keep in contact with him. Earlier today he attempted to call me several times, a couple of times the PayTel service would not accept when I hit "3" to accept the call, and a couple of times it did, but he was unable to hear me. I could hear him fine, but he could not hear me. I ended up having a 3 minute call and two 1 minute calls trying to get it straightened out, and never did get to talk to him. PayTel charged me for all three calls (a normal call-length is 15 minutes).

I called the customer service number, and after a 28 minute wait, I spoke with a lady I believe her name was **. At first she tried to tell me there were no calls for the day (even though the website already showed me being charged three times) and then she acknowledged there were some calls. She told me that she would forward my information to the technician to review the call and see if they could refund me, and to call back in a few hours.

I called back a few hours later, and after another long wait, the phone was answered by **. She checked her records, and it showed that the technician determined that the calls will billable due to being able to hear the inmate (even though he could not hear me!). I asked to speak to a supervisor and was transferred to another lady whom I did not catch a name for. She said they were unable to refund me for the calls because the technician deemed them to be billable. Three calls for a total of 5-6 minutes, when one call is supposed to give you 15 minutes, and he admitted that I could not be heard in the calls.

I was told that the problem was with my cell phone. Which is ridiculous, because after having the issues with PayTel, I called my mom (who has dealt with PayTel before and knew what to expect from customer service) and she told me to call PayTel and go through certain options to speak with them, which I did. So my cell phone was working for those two calls (to my mom, and to PayTel customer service) but the call from the inmate was not working. That seems strangely like there could be a problem with the PayTel system.

After the supervisor was "unable" to help me, I asked to speak with their manager, whom I was informed had gone for the day (it being a few minutes after 5:00 pm due to the extremely long wait times). So I was transferred to the manager's (**) voicemail, and am currently await a return phone call to resolve this issue. What I don't understand is how they can determine a call is billable (let alone three of them!) if only one side can be heard. Any honest, decent company would refund the charges and not risk alienating their clients over something so wrong.

I wrote an email to PayTel hoping they would have a real person contact me. I am starting to believe that there are no real live people at PayTel and that may be it is only a program running on a computer. Here is the email I sent: I will be filing complaints with any place that I can including the Federal Telephone Commission and the Better Business Bureau and numerous online websites. I will be contacting the jail facilities that use your services and let them know of your services that you are not providing. I may also let them know of the other providers that are available for them to use and much easier to contact and that provide better customer service.

If PayTel provided any customer service at all it would at least be better than none! I want to set up an account! I need to have an account set up today. I have previously got online and tried to set up the account online numerous times and your website is not working to set up new accounts. Every time I attempt to set up a new account I get a error message from your website. Yesterday was not the first time I have tried this.

But I reached my breaking point yesterday when I got extremely frustrated with your website giving me error messages and I tried to contact customer service (two words that paytel does not seem to know the definition of). And I could not speak to a real person no matter which prompts I followed, and I tried them all! I found this email address on a website where someone else has posted a complaint and I hope it works to reach someone. I've tried to contact you via telephone prior to yesterday also and numerous times.

However, yesterday I went through all prompts in an effort to speak to a real person and I have exhausted every method of communication you have listed on your website. Your company seems to be a hoax. I need to set up an account today so that I can receive calls from the Coweta County Jail facility. My phone number is **. Contact me asap, or I will be contacting the federal telephone commission to make sure another company takes over the services that PayTel is failing to provide.

Their response via email: Their e-mail states it is only intended for the party that it is addressed to and that I'm not allowed to copy or show it to anyone!!! Wow! So, I will simply tell you what it said, they respond simply to tell me that their website is currently down (apparently it is always down) and to contact them at the phone number (the same number that I've already tried numerous times and cannot reach a person no matter which prompts you select!)

I then received another email telling me to use my pin # to make a payment on my account!!! They apparently didn't understand the problem, I never had set up an account, I needed to set up a new account! I provided them with various numbers that I pressed when their automated phone system asked for my pin # (the system asked for my pin# when I never had an account with them and never was given one so I just entered a pin thinking maybe they want me to choose a pin #, but that's not what the system said). So, in my email to them I provided them with various #s that could have been my pin # including "000000" as I was trying to "0" out for an operator.

So, apparently when their system tells you to enter your pin #, it actually is meaning for you to choose a pin #. However, after you do enter a # it doesn't help you to get any further in setting up your new account. Until you eventually search for other complaints online and find the email address they have listed on here. Because their contact form on their website doesn't work either. And also, this was not a two day problem as paytell stated. The problems I've been having with trying to set up an account with them have been going on for weeks now.

I hope this post assists anyone else that have encountered the same problems as I have with this hoax company named PayTel.