Straight Talk Complaint - Avoid Straight Talk at all costs

Complaint

Review by shawn1010 on 2010-03-04

On 2/24/10, between 2:45PM and 5:05 PM, my phone was deactivated and my number given to someone else. This was confirmed by my wife and mother as well as by Straight Talk representatives when we called them. Our account was set up to have the money taken directly out of our checking account on the 26th of each month. They repeatedly messed this up requiring several calls to reset the auto-pay. My wife's phone was turned off several times for, "having a zero balance" even though we were on an unlimited plan. Because we used auto-pay, we were not behind on account payments...they were current. When I left work on 2/24, I tried to call my wife and received a message that the mobile number I was using was inactive. My wife tried calling me and some man answered and said he bought the phone that afternoon and was given my number. The same thing happened when my mother tried calling me. We called Straight Talk at 5:45PM and they confirmed that my phone had been deactivated and the number given to someone else. We then talked to a couple of different customer service agents and a supervisor and told them that we wanted to cancel the accounts and deactivate the phones. They told us again that my phone was deactivated and then proceeded to deactivate her phone in the middle of the call. On 3/3/2010, my wife was checking our bank account and found that Straight Talk had charged our account $49.34 on 2/27/2010. We canceled our account on 2/24/10, two days before the start of the next billing cycle. When we called Straight Talk, they told us that the deactivation of my phone had been an oversight and that they were giving me back the number. After we told them that we did not want the account and that it had been deactivated on 2/24/10, they stated that they could not do anything about it and that we were essentially stuck with the charge whether the phone was active or not. We informed our bank and are in the process of recovering the money. As of 3/4/2010, the phone is again deactivated.