Despite announcing with great fanfare that no changes would be made after Tracfone announced the purchase of Page Plus Cellular last year, it seems that America Movil has different ideas and has instead decided to shut down the Ohio based call center that was the hallmark of Page Plus when it was an independent virtual provider, highly-regarded for its efficient and effective customer service. In its place, Page Plus customer service will be outsourced to Guatemala, where Tracfone already outsources much of its customer service for its other prepaid brands, along with the Philippines.
This has caused great consternation within many online, as many Page Plus users took Tracfone’s word at face value when the acquisition was first announced, including many Page Plus dealers that touted the quality of customer service as a selling point compared to other virtual operators and brands. Without the assurance of a local customer service call center and the many horror stories that abound with Tracfone’s outsourced customer support, many are now considering leaving Page Plus for other carriers and services along with persuading others not to use the service as a result of the job losses, with many adamantly against Tracfone’s business practices.
I never thought they would leave the call center in the USA forever. TracFone just doesn’t do things that way. As far as leaving Page Plus over this… where are you going to go? If you want to have inexpensive prepaid service with Verizon coverage, what is the alternative? I almost never have to call Page Plus customer service, and I hope I never do. But unless some other MVNO offers Verizon coverage at a low cost, I have to stay with Page Plus.
If you don’t need data, Ting. Ting is a Sprint MVNO, but they do provide voice roaming on Verizon (No data roaming, though) and their service is excellent.
I should add that the one time I had to use Tracphone’s customer service (for a NET10 phone), it was good.
As a dealer for Pageplus, this news has really hit us hard. We offer the other Tracfone products and the offshore customer service is the worst in the world. I am so disappointed at the jobs lost and the terror in support that the future holds.