Consumer Cellular

I've been with Consumer Cellular for years and have rarely called. I've ordered new phones from them, and had questions on invoices and everything has been handled well enough. Now, their Customer Service has declined to where they must be putting reps o the phones with zero training. I ordered a new phone from CC on August 17. The order has been totally screwed up and the reps I've spoken with each give a conflicting story on what the policy is and have offered zero help to resolve the problem . When the new phone I ordered from CC was shipped from the CC warehouse in Portland, OR I began tracking the shipment for its arrival. On the promised delivery date, I could see the phone had been delivered to a wrong address. I called CC immediately to see if they could intercept the shipment and have it redirected (CC ships with USPS.) I said I needed my phone - the CC rep could see that the phone had gone to the wrong city - could they redirect that phone or recall that phone and send me a new phone. "No" I was told: "You have to wait for PO to attempt delivery several times, and then the PO would return the phone to the Portland warehouse." I said this could take weeks - or even months. The CC rep said there is nothing else they can do except wait for the undeliverable phone to come back. The CC rep said I could buy another phone and they would try to ship it to me again - this time they would try to get the shipping address right. And then when the mis-shipped phone finally came back to them, they would credit my account. This was over $800 I would be out - waiting for a phone and waiting for CC to try to get my address right. This was not a reasonable solution. The next day, I went to Target to buy a CC phone . This way I'd have a working phone right away, wouldn't have to wait weeks for the first phone to be returned to Portland and then reshipped to me, and wouldn't have to pay for a second phone that CC might ship to the wrong address again. The Target tech guy was great and got the same phone I had ordered. He went to activate the new phone The Target rep had a problem completing the activation and had to call CC. The CC rep said I cannot buy another phone or activate another phone - I have to wait for the phone that was shipped to the wrong address to be returned and then CC will ship it to me again. The Target rep could not believe what he was hearing and neither could I. We kept on putting the CC rep on hold so the Target guy could talk to me and ask "what is this guy talking about?????? I've never heard of anything like this." Both myself and the Target rep tried to speak with the CC rep because the CC policy of me not being able to buy or activate any phone until the misshipped phone turned up - it didn't make any sense. Finally, after about 40 minutes Target and I gave up, and I left the store without a new phone. The next day - Sunday - I received some emails from friends asking what's wrong - they have been trying to call me and my phone's not working. I tested my phone - "No cellular network". I called CC again. After trying to figure out what was wrong with my old phone (an ASUS) the CC rep said "did you try to buy a phone at Target yesterday?" I told her "Yes - but we could not activate it because the CC rep said I could not buy a new phone, I had to wait for that phone that went to the wrong address to go back to Portland and then be shipped out again" This CC rep said "That's crazy. I don't know why he told you that. You can get a new phone whenever you want and as often as you want. and we will activate if for you." This new rep said that the CC rep from yesterday had de-activated my old phone (my ASUS) - so now I had no phone at all. She said they were showing the Target phone as partially activated. I told her I did not buy that phone because the CC rep would not allow Target to complete the activation. I said I have to have a working phone and that I needed my old phone. She said re-activation would take up to 48 hours. So they can instantly deactivate a SIM card without telling the customer, but it takes 48 hours to reactivate a paying customer? She said there is nothing she could do. This must be the phrase that CC customer service reps practice again and again - because all 4 CC reps I spoke to kept telling me "there is nothing I can do." This all sounds unbelievable, I know. It's unbelievable to me that any company would ship goods to a wrong address, where they can see the "Ship To" address is not as on the original order, and then tell a customer of many years "there's nothing we can do". I can't switch my service today - I need phone service like most of us do. But I'm leaving Consumer Cellular after many years : I had to hold in excess of 30 minutes to speak with a rep each time, then when you get a rep - they don't know ANYTHING so they make stuff up, their "policies" are unbelievable - I can't buy a new phone??? I have to wait for the PO to send back a misshipped phone???? they deactivate my SIM card??? I must have spoken with the anti-customer service department.

Consumer Cellular has absolutely NO CUSTOMER SERVICE for its consumers. Nearly 4 months into the pandemic, they still tell you to expect a 15 minute wait for a customer service representative because of "high call volume. I've twice waited over an hour before giving up. I tried to get a temporary password sent by email in order to access my account, but the web page refused to accept my cell number when I entered it. I tried getting help from the chat service, but was placed #88 in a slow moving queue. I simply am unable to obtain help in real time in downgrading my plan from the automatic upgrade for exceeding 250 minutes of usage on a busy month. High call and high chat volume? Consumer Cellular has had 4 months to work this out! There's a HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE with people who NEED JOBS! Instead of HIRING people to staff your costumer service department to meet the demand, Consumer Cellular continues to spend aggressively on TV ads showing satisfied older customers. if every one of those old folks in the commercials answered a customer call as often as I see them on TV , I bet there would be no wait for service. I'm one of those older customers and I can't afford to spend a hapless hour waiting for help each time I get up the energy to try again! I will find another provider with a real customer service department.

My husband uses a flip phone and does talk only, no data or texting. Consumer Cellular was recommended by AARP and the price was right. Their highly recommended Link flip phone is a piece of crap with little or no adjustments. My husband can't hear the default ringtone and there are no options to change it. After 6 days on the plan, there was no service. He could not make or receive calls. Upon calling the 2 customer service numbers, and the corporate headquarter's number, we got a recorded message on all 3 numbers that said "the number you have called is no longer in service". Online chat showed there were 480+ people ahead of me and after a couple minutes it would time out. By all appearances the company simply shut down. I will be contacting my credit card company tomorrow to try to recoup the money wasted on the phone. I would NOT recommend this company to anyone. The price looks good but you don't get any service for it.

I realized how dishonest their customer service agents are early on and cancelled my service within 2 days and returned the phone in its original package. Rude responses from undereducated personnel that place your call on hold for long periods of time hoping you will give up and hang up. I received a notice 6 days ago that they received my returned phone and a credit was issued for $10 less than I was charged originally. When I called to ask why they told me it was the shipping charge and could not be refunded. They charged me extra for speedy shipping service that took longer to get to me than promised. I asked to speak to a supervisor and got a rude supervisor that also refused to give me my $10 back. I told them that I would file a formal dispute with the credit card company and did exactly that. Chase gave me the credit and charged back the merchant. BUT!!! It is 6 days after getting the email promise for the refund and I am still waiting for the credit I was promised in the first place. They are IMPOSSIBLE TO DO BUSINESS WITH!!! Don't buy anything they offer. You will regret it. I know have to submit another formal dispute to get the original credit I was promised on their email 6 days ago!

I am a 77 year old man that purchased my first smart phone from Consumer Cellular last October. About a two weeks ago I had to start wearing hearing aids. The hearing aids that I purchased have Bluetooth capability. After several days of use, I began to lose Bluetooth capability with the Samsung Galaxy S 10+ phone which I had purchased from Consumer Cellular. I know that I had a 30 day "no questions asked" return period, however, I have a warranty and the phone is not yet paid for. There is a compatibility issue between the phone and the hearing aids. Consumer Cellular has no way to help me and I don't believe that is right. When I bought the phone I was let to believe that an android was as good as an Iphone...which it apparently is not. There should be someway for Consumer Cellular to help me. Consumer Cellular has been outstanding in every other respect!

Their customer service is terrible. Their phones only work for 6 months and they do not honor their one year warranty. The Moto 7 phone that I purchase from them stated to act up after a few months People could not hear me clearly so I called customer service. After being on hold for 20 minutes and spending an hour and a half on the phone with them they said that the phone was under warranty and they would send me another phone. They did, then two weeks later they told me that there was a small scratch on the top right corner and because of this my warranty was voided. How a small scratch can damage the sound quality is behind me. Called them back and they did not have an answer of how a small scratch in the right hand corner would void the warranty. She did say that this happens a lot with people and that the phone must be in “Box new” condition and was going to charge me for another phone. I would send it back but how can you trust them again I did use the phone for two weeks. DO NOT USE THEM. Buyer beware of Consumer Cellular, it is a company that does not honor its phone warranty, Does a bait and switch. Not to mention that their coverage is not real good!

After 2 days I cancelled. Immediately after signing up and getting off the phone with them I noticed I had a $10 charge on my credit card. When I turned right around and try to call them back I was put on 30 minute holds. When I tried from another phone that was not known to Consumer Cellular I was put through immediately. My husband also tried this out with his work phone. It is clear that Consumer Cellular put current customers in the back of the queue and takes calls from new customers immediately. They denied doing this when I mentioned it to them but it is clear that they do it. Terrible customer service!

Purchased this product in Target. We told the Target representative what we were looking for, data plan that would cutoff after the specific amount of time purchased. As a BBBS (Big Brother Big Sister) I was trying to help out my little sister and purchasing a phone for monthly service that had a cap and would not let her go over. Representative said Consumer Cellular can do that. I did this because I did not want to have to monitor the service and she could pay for it out of her monthly stipend. Well that's not the case and when I found out and called Consumer Cellular they told me I had to write a letter to the Company as there was no one to talk to about this. Net, Net this company did not honor Target's representatives mistake and my little sister has to pay the consequences. I have Verizon and now I definitely would never recommend anything else but Verzion. They have always worked with me on any and all issues that have come up.......and have always been very happy with the outcome. CONSUMER CELLULAR is not customer oriented and is only out for them selves. Disappointed Customer

Buyer beware!!! I had service with this company for over 6 months. On 02/24/2020 I phoned their customer service for a simple question. After 20 minutes waiting to speak with a person, I left my name and number for a call back that I have never received. I also tried to do an online Chat, and that is not working either. On 02/28/2020 I ended my service with them and went with Verizon. They are still taking money out of my banking account even after the emailed me on 03/04/2020 to tell me they did this. I am contacting the Attorney General and AARP because they are taking money from me for services never received.

Terrible customer service. Everything is great unless you have a problem with your phone. My Dad’s phone, which apparently is known for having issues, repeatedly stopped working. We went through the troubleshooting steps multiple times being told several times that if this step didn’t work, they would activate the warranty. Had to make trips to one of the FEW customer service stores, make many frustrating, multi-step troubleshooting attempts over the phone and when there was finally nothing left to do they refused to replace the phone due to a small scratch on it saying that could have been the cause of the malfunction. This company markets toward seniors. They put my 77 year old Dad and me through exhaustive, complicated troubleshooting efforts then found a loophole to keep from replacing a phone that they admitted has problems.

My iPhone 11 did not show when I had voicemails. After numerous calls to Apple and Consumer Cellular, Apple told me to get a ticket number. When I called and asked for this, I was told that they would send a new phone and I was to return my phone. I returned the phone in the package that arrived with the new phone. A week later, I received the old phone back, saying there was a scratch on the screen and they would not take it back. There was no mention of the phone having to be in Like new condition when returning. When I called and spoke with a supervisor on 2/27, I was told they would review the recording and determine if I had been told the phone needed to be like new. They would call me back within 2 DAYS! No call back. After waiting on hold, being cut off, and finally talking to another supervisor, I was told even if I wasn't told about the old phone needing to be in like new condition, I may STILL BE RESONSIBLE FOR BOTH PHONES; but I would have to wait up to another 24 hours for a call back. They are unethical, misleading, and obviously don't care about resolving any issues. The new phone has issues as well. I can't hear when talking on the phone without using a speaker or blue tooth. T

Do not believe a word of what any of these people tell you. First, the service is not reliable at all. The customer service is terrible despite being in the USA, which by the way is the ONLY factual thing these people have said to me. Case in point.. I asked directly if they had an affiliation with ATT. The answer is no....but of course this is NOT true as they partnet with them on the towers. My service went out today and 5 hours later, after being told I would get a refund of some sort, turns out, you guessed it to be a LIE. Spent 1. 5 hours this morning trying to get it fixed, then another 4 in the Target store making the same attempt. Dont waste your time or money with these folks, you will regret it. If I could give less than 1 star I would.

Really terrible service! I purchased what proved to be a clearly defective, non functioning phone. That could happen to anyone. After two months of repeated calls to their "support team" , I was finally told they would not honor any warranty on the phone because it was a "service issue". The bottom line was I had no recourse besides throwing the phone away and buying a new one. When I finally spoke to a "supervisor" there was no solutions offered, with the attitude that it was my problem not theirs. At least he admitted that he couldn't explain the problem, and didn't have any technical knowledge about the problem, which was pretty obvious. Essentially, dealing with this company reminds me that you get what you pay for. I would never recommend this company or its products to anyone.

Consumer cellular is inexpensive. In the past I received good customer service. Not anymore; it's always a long wait. Today I asked for a 'call-back-in-line' and it's clear that I'm not going to get a return call today. The other day I waited 35 minutes and gave up. Nobody is around if something goes wrong during the week-end. I'm not going to switch, but wish they would improve wait times for help.

Purchased a used flip phone from them and it arrived with problems. They would not take it back and offer a refund promptly. Wanted me to try this troubleshoot thing and then another for almost a month of having a non usable phone while paying for service! Waited on hold to troubleshoot with them and beg to return it for 20-50 min. each time. Manager offered to call me at an agreed upon time to check if the latest hoop they wanted me to jump through with this defective phone did any good, she never called me and again I was waiting on hold for anyone to answer for almost an hour. This company doesn’t care about your time or inconvenience. They will not reimburse service charges while you cannot use the defective phone. Horrible customer service! Horrible products! Horrible hold times! Not at all worth the frustration of dealing with this business.

I only gave it one star because there is a no star rating! Their customer service is a bag of rocks. They signed up my phone wrong, so I had to go back to Target to get another sim. Consumer Cellular said they would have to take time but I'd be up in 4 hours. NO Not up at in 4 hours, called and the woman that answered said she didn't know what was wrong. Then she said she needed the sim taken out and read to her. I knew this was on my account from when I was in Target. Both the electronics guy and CC Customer service said they had the new sim. The woman on the phone not only didn't know, she could not get her boss/supervisor to the phone, said I'd get a call back in two days. TWO DAYS???? WTF?? Needless to say I'm back at ATT. I might have to pay twice the money and for the SIM card but I know I have 24/7 customer service with no run around!! AND A WORKING PHONE!

I purchased an android phone for my wife and specifically told the rep we needed and ATT sim card. After three calls, we found a rep capable of assisting who diagnosed that we in fact had a Tmobile card. Purchased a new card a special mailed to Abilene (cost, another $10 for mailing). Earlier this week, I purchased a flip phone for my mother-in-law. It arrived today in Abilene, but also did not work. Wife spent from 1:30 until 4:30 working with CC and then Target to get the phone functional. By 7:30 pm, I called to see if we could exchange at Target. Told, "no". I asked if I could return it and purchase an working phone at Target. "Yes, but you will need to get the approved mailing packet and that will take three days". Word of warning - don't ever buy a phone directly from CC. Get one at Target and make sure you can make and receive calls before leaving.

signed up online and they sent me a sim card to use in my phone. I was extremely busy so I didn't insert the sim card and in about 1 month I received a bill for multiple calls to no number I ever called. The worse part was that when I called Consumer Cellular they only were concerned with how I was going to pay my bill even after I repeatedly told them I never installed the sim. After several months and more bills for calls I never made, I got through to corporate and they appologized after an investigation, and refunded my upfront payment. This is a scam and it's perpetuated on the elderly. Better check every month's bill for unauthorized calls.

Horrible. Beware, you get what you pay for. I am tech savvy, but thought what the heck, "Let's save $60 from my monthly cell bill". I read some professional reviews and thought it would be ok. I wish I had seen this site with real user reviews. Oh well. Anyways, a huge mistake switching to CC. You are not getting real AT&T or TMobile Sim cards. Tried both with them (I wanted the AT&T sim, but they first sent me TMobile ones.) I know these a cut rate sim cards, because we had AT&T for a zillion years and my phone said "5Ge" (yeah, I know that's not real 5g) , but with CC AT&T sim card it only said 4Lte. We had 3 lines - 2 in Chicago area, 1 in Cincy area. In Chicago area we had dropped calls and sounded like we were under water. In Cincy area the phone barely functioned. This experiment only lasted 30 days. We are back to AT&T on my old account. One last thing, I don't think CC is good for senior citizens either. If phone doesn't work for us, it's not going to work for them.

I've owned this phone for a little over a month. I bought it in a Target store where the Techs set up ready for use. I found that they know very little about the phone. In fact one tech told her supervisor that she didn't know to fix the problem I was having. Neither did the supervisor. I've returned to the store countless times to have them fix problems only to leave with the same issue. My phone never rings but the calls go to my voice mail. I phoned the headquarters in Oregon to set things straight - they set up a date and time but I had to wait even though I was on time. This phone is a piece of junk and I will be changing it for something better.

Buyer beware because the phone number they give you may not have cleared. I can't make a call to a landline phone number that has caller ID because it shows the previous persons name. I have called Consumer Cellular 4 times about the problem and the answer is always the same we can fix that. ( Call #1) We will fix it within the hour. (Call #2) We will have it corrected in 24 hours. (Call #3) It will be corrected within 30 days. (Call #4) It will take another 90 days) They did offer to give us a new phone number, but they would not guarantee that it would be a good (clear number) number either. I'm really tired of hearing that I understand your frustration. All I want is this corrected and all I get the run around. This is their mistake and they don't seem to care.

My mother cancelled her service with this scam company in Sept of 2019 and paid the remaining balance. They have since sent her more bills threatening her to pay them or they will report her to the credit companies for failure to pay. She didn't know better and paid it AGAIN and now she's out $90 because they threatened a little 80 year old woman. I'll be on the phone with them AGAIN to cancel this scam again. My lawyer said if they bother her again to save all the bills and will take them to court for the suffering they have put her through. Threaten an 80 year old woman? This company needs to be fined and investigated.

We have reached out on multiple occasions to Consumer Cellular Service Supervisors, have sent 2 letters to John M, the CEO of Consumer Cellular, and Greg P, the COO of Consumer Cellular to resolve a very serious matter amicably regarding two defective phones that presented my 72 year old husband to be without a working cell phone. On February 2019, my husband and I purchased a Doro phone at Best Buy through the Consumer Cellular offer. A week after we purchased the phone, we noticed the keys were sticking and adding additional numbers. This was frustrating and annoying, but we dealt with it. In September 2019, the keys were still sticking adding additional numbers, and we began to experience additional problems with the Doro phone - we were not able to access voicemail, and the outside display screen became a tie die of black and white and no longer displaying the caller’s phone number. We telephoned the Consumer Cellular customer service in August 2019 and described the issues we were having. They walked us through a series of trouble shooting with no luck. We were told that Consumer Cellular no longer dealt with Best Buy and we would need to wait two weeks for a Consumer Cellular rep to call us back regarding our one-year warranty. We waited two weeks and with no follow up from a Consumer Cellular rep, we telephoned back and for the second time a supervisor walked us through a series of trouble shooting with no luck. Phil, a Consumer Cellular supervisor stated he would submit a warranty replacement and we would receive our phone in one week. A few days later we received a voicemail from a Consumer Cellular rep that stated they needed to trouble shoot again for the third time before submitting the warranty. Brian, a Consumer Cellular supervisor finally agreed to ship us out a new phone. When we asked why the phone had not been shipped as promised by Phil, we were told Phil didn’t process the claim correctly. When we received the new phone on September 30, 2019 within hours none of the keys would work and my husband was not able to call out or receive calls. We telephoned customer service who walked us through trouble shooting steps and the phone started to work again by taking the battery out. When we asked for a replacement due to the phone being defective within hours after receiving it, the phone rep informed us that we would not have any additional problems and they could not replace the defective phone. The very next day, the keys on the phone were not working again and my husband was without a phone as he couldn’t receive calls or call out. When I returned home from work, we were both so upset, we immediately telephoned Consumer Cellular and they walked us through a series of trouble shooting steps again and stated we’d have to call back in two weeks. We started the process all over again of trouble shooting on multiple calls, being promised a phone was being shipped out, only to call back and be told a second time the Supervisor had not processed the claim correctly and they would need to trouble shoot again. Since receiving the 2nd defective Doro phone on September 30, 2019, my husband has to take the battery out multiple times a day for the phone to work. We had hope writing to the CEO and COO would have reviewed this matter and resolved the issue quickly, but we have not heard from the corporate headquarters. It’s pretty obvious that the phone warranty and Consumer Cellular’s Customer Service guarantee are not being honored by their company’s actions and procedures which put senior citizens in danger without a phone. We also found alarming that multiple Consumer Cellular Supervisor’s were very aware of issues with the Doro phone and stated that on the phone call. Consumer Cellular’s process that requires repeated trouble shooting multiple times over multiple days leaving a senior citizen without a working phone is very unsafe, unprincipled, and dishonorable. The only way Consumer Cellular would honor the phone warranty was for Consumer Cellular to ship us out a new (defective) phone, make us wait weeks through a trouble shooting processes, and then fraudulently claim the original phone had internal damage and charge us $50.00 for a 2nd defective phone that they will not allow us to ship back to them for a refund. We took pictures of our original Doro phone that had no signs of damage externally and even the white tab to detect water damage was in perfect shape. Consumer Cellular’s monthly charge is the most economical within our limited budget. However, we are so very upset with the way we have been treated by Consumer Cellular. We wanted to resolve this matter with them amicable if possible. Obviously, every senior citizen needs a reliable working phone for emergency reasons. We are between a rock and a hard place, we’re stuck with a 2nd defective phone, and Consumer Cellular will not work with us.

Consumer Cellular offers a program advertised that if you cancel within the first 30 days there is no charge (It’s their try it before you buy program). I switched from Verizon to consumer cellular and the voice mail and text did not work. After numerous calls and hours on the phone with them to correct the problem and even switching to another carrier they offer, problems were not fixed. Text problem remained after their internal carrier switch. I cancelled within the 30 days and went back to Verizon where everything functions normally. Consumer Cellular has sent me a bill for $28.43 even though I had a $20 Credit with them from buying my original sim cards at Target. There should be no bill at all, in fact I should have gotten a $20 check (which I did not really expect they would do) sent to me.

I initiated international service and it was not in place after I arrived overseas. I was unable to send E-mail throughout my trip. The person who installed the new SIM card at Target was blamed for this, I had been told that international service was in place. After receiving a text, international service was in place, but I remained unable to send E-mails. Upon my return I replace the original SIM card and was told that I would have service on the phone within 24 hours. 48 hours later I called and was told that it would take 72 hours and I had to respond to a phone call to re-instate service, this after 2 phone calls about this had taken place. Wi-Fi calling was sketchy, on a T-mobile SIM and I've used them in the past without problems. Consumer Cellular "cannot guarantee" international service" after you complain. And, they refuse to make adjustments in my bill. As it stands, I'll be +5 days without service, and the phone did not work in New York city for E-mails or calls. I regret switching and would encourage anyone who needs more than a flip phone to avoid them.

Been without Voicemail for 10 days +. Called Customer Service and they said that AT&T and T-Mobile were both upgrading their towers in the area and they had no ETA for when upgrades would be finished. Called a week later and they said the same thing except that they thought the upgrades would be completed the next day and to call back. Now, four days later, I still have no Voicemail. The system asks for me to set up Voicemail and Customer Service warned that if I did, I would lose all previous messages on the system! A good company would have sent out a notice to its customers and kept them updated on such incidents. THIS IS A COMPANY TO STAY AWAY FROM!

I had heard good things about Consumer Cellular so I thought I would pare down my cell phone cost and give them a call. The agent was very nice and said she would send me a new sim card. She then took my information. The next day, I slipped, fell & broke my back. I was laid up for 6 weeks and could not fiddle with my cell phone or anything else. As soon as I was able, I phoned Consumer Cellular and requested that the agent activate my cell phone. I gave her the information she needed from AT&T and she put me on hold. She came back to the phone and said that the Portal was too old and I needed to speak to a service manager who would call the next day. ONE WEEK later I called again to inquire what had happened with my account. I had already received a bill and no service had been rendered. She said she might be able to refund $9.00 and put me on hold to see what she could do about the service issue. She came back to the phone and said that AT&T has the phone "locked" - They do not. She said that she could either have a mgr call or send out another sim card. She did neither. It has been 2 more weeks now and nothing but emails regarding a past due 2nd bill. NEVER AGAIN

Spent 5 hours on the phone trying to activate my phone on their network - brought my phone from another carrier . Firstly, Consumer Cellular took over my number earlier than they were supposed to, leaving me without service for 2 days. After the 5 hours, i went through two "supervisors" . Their best customer service was that i either needed to wait 5 more days without service for them to mail me a new SIM or drive to my nearest Target store to get a new SIM. Cameron, the last "supervisor" was pretty rude, and refused to escalate the call to expedite a SIM to me. Considering Consumer Cellular touts their value to senior citizens, this 68 year old, physically challenged senior considers they have no value to me and zero customer service...... a 15 minute hold time to get assistance in the first place is not acceptable, add to that over a week with no cell.service and reps who refuse to escalate your request for fair treatment, i now feel i made a huge mistake switching to Consumer Cellular, and thats before i even HAVE a cell phone signal with them! SENIORS, BEWARE !!

This has to be the worse service I have ever encountered. We switched our business phone over Sept 4. WE STILL HAVE NO SERVICE> We are out of business for almost a month. They play the blame game. Noel (a "Supervisor") of Porting Dept. had to be the rudest customer service person I have ever encountered. I hope they taped that call and listen to it. I am sure she will loose her job by the way she spoke to me and my Husband. She was on speaker and he heard it all. Every time I call about phone service still not working they say, Oh it will be 7-10 days. 4 weeks and still no resolution. Shame on Consumer cellular. We will be not only filing for reimbursement , we will be cancelling our service. I will tell everyone I have recommended CC how we were treated and the lack of follow thru on their part.

We have been customers for a number of years. The customer service Department is horrible. We have attempted to purchase devices from consumer cellular and always had a problem, so we don't even bother anymore. This is a no frills service and you get what you pay for it's inexpensive, but you get terrible customer service. Lots of attitudes too from young representatives. You're fine until you have a problem after that, I don't know what to say.

I have NEVER had any billing issues, they are tops in keeping you notified if you're getting close to exceeding your plan & they genuinely care about there customers

My 87 year old aunt came to visit from WVa and ought a consumer cell phone an service. The closest target to her is like 4 hours away. Anyways, the lady that sold hervthe phone and service plus sold my 88 year old dad a phone an service. The lady is a liar. She told us they has a 30 day back guarantee plus told my aunt for 30 she would get unlimited talk, text and data. Not one time did she mention 2gm or mbs. My aunt tried to cancel the service on the 6th of sept, bought it 8/20. Then told her all had to be returned and canceled incperson. She sent me all the info and i was lied to by customer service office of consumer cell and also lied to by target customer service. Will nerver shop at that store and will bad mouth both businesses every time i'm asked about them. You both rip old people off and hope you all have many sleepless nights. May karma get y'all back one way or another. Useless businesses.

We ordered a new IPhone 7 from Consumer Cellular and of course it took 5 days to arrive. We had to pay $67 up front to order the phone, we are going to make monthly payments. Well to our surprise we open the package on Saturday and there is no phone in the box!!!! My husband called their customer service immediately to report it and of course they did not know what could be done. So first thing Monday morning he called again. Well another surprise there is no documentation of his call on Saturday! This women says she took the information and has to refer it to another department. She said it will take 2-3 days to decide what to do! What do you mean “what to do”? We did not receive the phone what’s to decide? My husband is 75 and I am 66 why would we lie about this!!!! We are both so upset. If this doesn’t get resolved in 2-3 days we will be contacting the Better Business Bureau and contacting an attorney for a consultation on how to proceed. We have been with AT&T for 20 plus years. My husband switched to CC to save some money. What a mistake. I am still with AT&T because I use too much data. I had to replace my phone about a month ago because my screen cracked. I had a new phone sent by way of Fedex and I had the new phone the next afternoon. Now that is great service. Plus they gave us 10 days to return the old phone and gave us all the necessary materials and instructions on how to return the old phone at no charge to us. They even included the tape for the box! Now that is great customer service. We are now late Wednesday afternoon and it gets worse! We cannot get a response from Consumer Cellular and my husband calls everyday. The customer service reps he speaks to basically saying he is lying in so many words. This is unbelievable and not sure where we need to go from here. I sent them an email yesterday and they have as yet to respond. I am going to report them to the Better Business Bureau. This is very disturbing that an AARP recommended company is aloud to treat seniors this way. We have very little to live on as we are both on Social Security. We actually find it very disturbing. Oh my gosh you are not going to believe this! Today is Monday 9/16/2019 After I posted my second review late Wednesday afternoon we get another email from Consumer Cellular stating they shipped another package out and we should receive it within 3-5 days. Ok now we are excited. Then on Friday the 13th we received an email from Consumer Cellular with the tracking number that was shown on the Wednesday email stating the post office returned the package because it was not picked up within 15 days!!! The package was just sent out 2 days prior how can it be 15 days? So I went into the USPS website under the new tracking number and it shows the package was returned because the Addressee shown on the package did not match the address shown on the package! I don’t know about you readers but Consumer Cellular deserves a minus 10!!!! I am so disgusted and WILL NOT refer anyone to them. This is out of control and absolutely unacceptable. If we ever do get this phone it should be free! My husband decided to go to the post office with all our documentation. Unbelievable, the package was there! It had not been returned after all. However, whoever at Consumer Cellular did put my Husbands name on the mailing label but they showed the mailing address as the post offices address!!!! Who the heck does this. Everyone needs to be fired or at least written up that handled these transactions right down to the Customer Service Reps that took the phone calls. I will definitely be staying with AT&T my husband can have Consumer Cellular. What a joke. I plan to post this everywhere I can!

I have NEVER been treated so badly by ANY company in my life until now. If you call and cancel your service with them because you have no service where you live, the operator you speak with does NOT cancel your service-they keep on billing you each month. No matter how many times you call and explain the date you called to cancel-they argue with you. Now we have been turned over for collections and collections states that it is CONSUMER CELLULAR's policy that you cancel your service in writing! No where in the box that the phone came in from Target does it state this. Stay away from them !!!!!

I wanted new phone expedited in 2 business days so paid extra $10. Ordered on a Tues. CSR for CC said would receive by Thursday. I called CC spoke to a supervisor to reimburse $10 because CSR was misinformed and didn't pass on the information to the consumer about $10 guaranteed two day arrival from date shipped. They are in Arizona I'm on East Coast. After 1pm their time they don't ship and guarantee 2 day shipping. They would not reimburse the $10. This is the second time in six months from February 2019 to August 2019 I've had bad customer service from CC rep who took my order told me they treat their employees and their customers like family. Well, family will screw you every time. I should have read between the lines. I suggest not purchasing a CC phone. Target has the same phones CC sell.

I am being billed for attempting to convert to Consumer Cellular. I ordered a sim card kit to convert my wife’s cell phone. The card did not arrive, so I requested another card. We attempted to activate her Samsung S4 on your service on or around August 14th. I spent over 3 hours on the phone between your company and Verizon to activate the service. Your customer service setup an appointment for my at the Target store in Conyers for August 17th. The service person at Target was on the phone with one of your technical people and after jumping through hoops was told “That the phone was incompatible with your network”. I was told I needed to by a new phone. I purchased on new phone the afternoon of August 17th. I ported my number away from Consumer Cellular. My question is how or why am I being billed for service to a phone that your company says is incompatible with your network.

The low prices offered at the website are very misleading and incorrect. I am still arguing with Consumer Cellular over billing. I tried the $25 Plan, which is the 250 min and 2GB, with additional AARP benefits: a 5% AARP discount, and "Our extended 100% risk-free guarantee: If you’re not completely satisfied for any reason, simply cancel within the first 45 days and pay nothing. It’s absolutely hassle-free". So I expected an initial bill for $23.75 plus state taxes (8.875% in NY) which I calculated at $2.11. I tried to cancel after 40 days, only to be told that the special AARP deal only applied to use of 500MB (I used 548MB), with charges after that, and am now being billed an additional fee of about $20, on top of the first month fee of $34.74 because of all the extra surcharges tacked on (with "Government Taxes & Fees" listed at $5.08) for a total of $43.06. None of these additional charges and fees are explained, nor any warning given about 500MB maximum usage. I calculated that the real price for my 40-day trial, based on what was advertised, should be $25.86, which is what I paid them. I will not pay more. Not only that, but the first SIM card permitted only limited phone use, and so I had almost no useful phone service for the first week (and many visits to TARGET) until the SIM was replaced. They have no email communication, only phone service, which requires waiting in line. Consumer Cellular is Consumer Scam. Stay away.

I have had Consumer Cellular for two years because I had a 3 year contract with them. I bought my phone through them. The phone was new and no problem there. The service is terrible though. I've been a lot of places I couldn't text or make calls. I would not recommend this to anyone. Texting is the worst. I never can send a text at home only on rare occasions. The data is an issue for me also. That can get expensive. When my contract is up I will go back to Cricket. I got much better service with them.

The iPhone 6 S that was sent by Consumer Cellular stopped charging after six days. Then, before returning it, I needed to wipe the cell phone clean of my settings and personal information. Unfortunately, that was not possible because the phone would not charge and, therefore, would not turn on. Then, after over four hours on the telephone with Consumer Cellular, I was told by a supervisor to send the telephone back, including my Apple ID, Apple password and pin for my cell phone. I did that immediately, including a detailed letter explaining the problems associated with the cell phone. Then, twelve days later, the same cell phone was sent back to me, asking me to wipe the settings clean. I then spent three hours on the telephone, explaining to two customer service representatives and a very uncaring, borderline disrespectful, irritated and impatient supervisor, named Garrett, from Phoenix. I patiently, over the three hours explained that I could not wipe settings clean on a cell phone that would not turn on. I also explained that this was my very first cell phone and that I was not computer or technologically savvy. Garrett told me that I had to find a way anyway, stating, "It doesn't matter. It is YOUR responsibility, Kimberly (although I don't know when we made it to a first name basis). You will have to figure it out." Then he said I could go to an Apple store, but the nearest Apple store is in Annapolis or Washington, D. C., over an hour and a half from my home. He said it doesn't matter. I had "to figure it out" and, then when I asked if he had any links for more information or could email me instructions on where to go for help, he said, "that's not my realm." Wow, I was flabbergasted! Amazing. I am 54 years old and have been a middle school and high school teacher for 31 years. Never have I met someone - seriously, anywhere - with such a bad attitude. By the way, there also wasn't an "I'm sorry" for the original phone failing or the multiple hours on the phone with Consumer Cellular or the bad original instructions given to me by the supervisor, who said just to include the Apple password, etc. or that there wasn't even a label to send the original phone back for the second time. Garrett told me that I would have to pay the $14.20 to send it back the second time and that the settings better be cleared or Consumer Cellular would charge me $200 for the phone that does not work and also take us to court for not returning it in a timely manner, even though we returned it well before the deadline and they even sent it back to me well before the deadline. Now I am trying to get a postage paid label with another supervisor, but their link for a postage paid label does not work. The representative said that she would call me back before 3 p.m. today (and mind you I have already been on the telephone with Garrett and three other representatives for over three hours today) and now it is 3:20 and there is no call. This is by far the WORST, MOST ABHORRENT customer service situation that I have ever encountered.

worst phones ever if you get the flip phone and drive more than 10 miles away you will only be able to make emergency calls sims card is from t mobile have to go to target and get at and t sims card for the phone to work if you call customer service they will reset the phone which doesn't work and tell you phone cant be used in a park!!!!! with smart phone any call longer than 5 minutes will drop waited thru tapes at dte twice and got a person on the line both calls dropped talked to a friend in a nearby city call dropped called to cancel an order call dropped when I got a person had to listen to tapes again to get thru everything voice mail etc then has to be reset same problem sims card from t mobile to at and t

Predatory billing and bill creep. Sluggish tech support. Remember, they are a reseller, not a true cellular company. I was a customer for a year and a half. I do not recommend. Watch your billing carefully, folks! When switching to Consumer cellular, be careful as well. I was billed for several Gb of data that I did not and could not use. The phones we had were not properly configured when service was set up; we had no data and could access no websites, but the phones used 5 GB somehow, even though we are mostly on Wifi. Consumer Cellular said "too bad" and billed us for extra data, even after tech support confirmed that multiple phone settings were incorrect. They blamed AT&T. I blame the yahoo that set up my account. Either way, I paid. With Consumer Cellular, if you go over your data (even if you cannot use apps or access websites because they didn't set you up right from the beginning) they bump you up to the next tier, and you have to take time to drop it back down by phone or online to get your low price again. Often, because of how the billing cycles work, they won't let you drop your data down; you get locked into paying for far more than you want to. When you get fed up and cancel service to join a cheaper unlimited plan from a real cellular company, they will bill your card -even if you specifically request that they remove it from your account and not bill it again, Ever- because they send an email after the call that says they're billing you anyway (no matter what you say).

I just signed on with this outfit on (7-26-19) in order to save money over ATT. So far I'm not very happy with what I'm seeing/not seeing with their service. I had Google Map for about an hour but no traffic overlay,(traffic overlay is very important in the area where I reside), now the map app wont even function. I do not have the ability to access the phones browser either, aside from the fact that I received a txt from CC claiming to have all of this browser and internet capabilities installed. Nothing like that is working so far. This has all become apparent within less than 24 hrs of having my device activated with them. Based on what I've read on this web page so far I'm not looking forward to their tech support. Yes, I'm saving some money over ATT but the trade offs may not be worth it. As of today(7-27-19) I'm going to start shopping for another alternative. I THINK I MADE A BIG MISTAKE HERE. I'm not even gonna wait 30 days before I decide to dump CC. So far I would tell anyone thinking about switching to this outfit CAVEAT EMPTOR!!! Luckily I only have $10 tied up in a sim card so far and am not brave enough to dump much more of my $$ down their hole.

I bought my Mom and Dad the Doro 750 flip phones. It was easy to start their service. Six weeks later the outer screen on my Dad's phone started showing only a white screen with some black marks on it. He had used the phone less than ten minutes since we bought it. I called Consumer Cellular and they immediately told me that my Dad had damaged the phone. There wasn't a nick on the phone and he had not dropped it. They don't back up their products and I am looking for a new carrier.

Consumer Cellular is not to be trusted; they let someone open an account in my name. They wouldn't give me any details except to say the number was "never used" and demanded I pay $60 plus for a month of unused service. They said the details I was asking for was in the “paper invoice” which I never received because they didn’t have my correct mailing address. I don’t know what address they had, all they would say when I told them my address was “well you’re close but that’s not right”; for goodness sakes, I know where I live and have liked for 25 years!! I also tried explaining I’ve had Verizon for over 15 years and when comparing Consumer Cellular plan to my Verizon I have more and pay $5.00 a month less so again why would I open an account! And, I have no idea what phone I was suppose to have their number on... again they wouldn’t tell me. PS...Consumer Cellular at first removed the charges then recharged me and added a late fee. The bill is now several months past due and over $72.00. This company my “have your back” just watch for the knife their holding. Still fighting them, just hope they don’t harm my credit rating in the meantime.

Consumer Cellular has a practice of checking your credit AFTER you've given them your debit card/ bank information. This is a practice that I do not approve of. When asked for the last four of my social security number and birthdate information I check to see why and it said for contact reasons but never said that they were going to check my credit. I did not give permission for that and their reason for taking my information is a lie and false advertising! If there is no contract, why is this company checking credit anyway? I understand that some people are not approved and I accept that IF the company truthfully reveals to interested consumers IN ADVANCE, that they are going to check credit scores. However taking bank information before giving a decision is an unfair practice. Now my information is in a database out there somewhere where it can be manipulated and hacked with a company that I've decided not to use as a service and my credit score has been affected without my permission! This needs to change!

Customer service tremendous. Call quality better than Tmobile. The problem? - atrocious data speeds, upload speed almost non existent. If your looking to just make calls, go for it, but if you need your phone to search online, open apps, send emails, for work (Im on the road, county buildings where wifi not available), forget about it. Sad but true, i couldnt even get Consumer Cellular app to open...

I just dumped Consumer Cellular after being their customer for only 7 months. I previously used Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile so I have a pretty good frame of reference. Consumer Cellular is hands down the WORST cellular service provider. They do not have any real infrastructure to deal with the most basic customer service. They don't know what the term "customer care" means and they don't care. There's no way to escalate an issue; they don't want you to be able to reach escalated customer service and/or corporate escalation contacts in their company. The promise that you can sign up at Target is also ridiculous based on my experiences with Consumer Cellular at Target. No one at Target is trained on anything having to do with Consumer Cellular. The fact that J.D. Power gives them such a high rating leads me to question their judgement. Their advertising promoting J.D. Power recognition is an echo chamber of incompetence. You can also Google other customer complaints - they are plentiful.

I had been a good consumer Cellular customer for year-and-a-half. In May of 2019, I had a problem with my phone running very slow. It wasn't until I opened up and read the billing cycle notes, did I found out the consumer cellular had slowed my data rate down, because I went over my 20 gigs. Not only did they charge me $20 extra, but they continued to keep my service at the slower data rate. Since the phone was unusable at that point for the services that I needed, I switched back to my previous provider mid-month. Now consumer Cellular insist did I pay for the full month of June plus the $20 overage fee 410 days of service that I won't receive, and data service that I never received, once they slowed it down. It amounts to $84 on top of having paid my final bill with them! interesting lie enough, the very rude young girl that helped me on the phone, told me that she wasn't even a consumer cellular customer, even though she work for their company!

I would give it 0 stars if possible. They had some of the worst cust service ever. My son left for 2 yrs to be a missionary. I canceled his phone on my acct but did not take out his sim card or turn off the phone. The service didn't get turned off (even though I confirmed it with them twice after the initial requests (once while paying the next bill & once when I called for help with a feature) because apps must've used data & there were incoming texts (out of my control) they said it was used & that I hadn't requested a disconnect. They could supposedly see record of every call except for the one where I originally asked for a disconnect. I asked them to listen to the recordings from the other 2 calls then and that would prove it. I asked them to see that no calls were made, no texts were sent, I had no way to prove that he wasn't using the phone except that he's not here and I can prove his whereabouts. They opened a billing dispute but I never heard back. I told them to make sure that his phone was at least turned off now so I would stop being billed for it in the future at least because I am a widow with a small child and a very tight budget and cant afford to pay that extra amount. Then they turned off the wrong phone-mine! When they turned it back on after yet another phone call, my phone would not work properly. The supervisor was rude & disputed any of this even happened. No credit was ever offered or applied. My phone didn't have MMS or data after being turned back on & he said it was my fault or my phone's fault & there was nothing else he could do. After 7-8 hrs on the phone w/consumer cellular in 3 days, I had to figure out how to troubleshoot it on my own. tried the sim in another phone and had the same problems which proved it was a service problem not my phone. I called back and had it resolved for about an hour, paid my bill & had the same problem again. When I told the supervisor about the disappointment in the billing & service, he told me I was welcome to leave. Where a couple of the phone agents were polite, the bulk of them treated me like I was lying and trying to scam them over $30 or so and refused to help with the billing at all. I couldn't even be transferred to a billing agent. And then they weren't even able to fix the problems they caused, couldn't admit that it was due to their error when they turned off the wrong phone. And tried to make me buy an expensive new phone from them (I was already using an unlocked Samsung note 9 which had worked perfectly before the disconnect in error.) When pointing out the horrible service, they told me if I didn't like it than I could leave. I did. I paid my bill and then ported my phone to MetroPCS. Even that was a headache because consumer cellular wouldn't release the number for a port without additional phone calls and insistence including speaking with the customer (me) directly. It was a horrible experience! (& I've never gone out of my way to leave a bad review anywhere before...)

I ORDERED A FLIP PHONE ADVERTISED IN AARP NEWSLETTER. THE FIRST PHONE DIED AFTER 1 CALL! I HAD TO TRAVEL TO TARGET SO THEY COULD TELL THEM IT WAS DEAD! THE REPLACEMENT NEVER WORKED AND THE 3RD FINALLY WORKED AFTER 3 DAYS. NOW THEY WANT TO CHARGE FOR 92 MINUTES WHEN I MADE 1 CALL FOR 1 MIN BEFORE IT DIED.NOT IMPRESSED WITH THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE....