Pure TalkUSA Cell Phone Provider

This has been a horrible experience. I switched to PureTalk USA because it was listed on AMAC's website. I purchased my phone from PureTalk USA at the time the account was set up with them.

I already had heard about a future 3G shutdown, so as I looked at the phones PureTalkUSA was selling online while speaking to a representative of PureTalkUSA, I asked to make sure the phone I chose was going to be fine and not affected by the 3G shutdown.

I was assured that it would not be affected. It is a Nokia 5.3, 4G LTE. I made the purchase, completed the account set up. It wasn't long before problems began. The phone would stop working and I'd have to get on the phone with them. They ignored my requests for help sent on their website.

Finally had to contact AMAC and they contacted PureTalkUSA who then finally contacted me. During calls to them with their own representatives, I asked two other times on different dates and with different representatives if they were sure that the phone would still be OK during the 3G shut down, while trying to solve other problems the phone presented.

I was assured by two other representatives that it would be fine, no problems. Well, guess what? I haven't been able to make or receive any calls since March 16th, 2022.

PureTalkUSA had me on hold for an hour- no one ever picked up the call, I had to hang up because I borrowed a phone to call them because again they did not respond to online messages and I obviously couldn't call them.

I went to my online account today, March 18, 2022 to find that the phone that they had 3 times assured me was going to be fine and not affected by their 3G shut down was 'no longer being supported by policies of PureTalkUSA'.

No warning, no reimbursement for the phone I purchased from them, and they are still taking my monthly bill out of my checking account this week. That will be remedied when I go to the bank for Saturday morning hours tomorrow.

There is nothing pure about this company. In my experiences with them, they will tell you anything just to get your dollars. Worst company ever!

I have auto pay on my account, I had to cancel my card because of a transaction that I did not recognize. I called the 611 number and have been waiting 2 hours for customer service to answer. Still not able to talk to anyone. Your customer service SUCKS. Craig **. Do not cancel my service for non payment.

I have had the service for about 2 days now, took almost a month to get number ported over. Been on hold for about 15 hours now, nobody seems to be able to help fix issues just get put back into hold rotation.

Never able to get any text support, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!! If my business treated people this way I would be out of business! I WISH I COULD LEAVE ZERO STARS!

9+ months ago I started having issues with the service. Nothing has been done about the dropped calls and sudden loss of signal. On Monday 21FEB22 we have lost our ability to receive or make phone calls. They said that it's a problem on their end (they switched something).

It has been four days thus far and all I get is the "We're sorry for the inconvenience" line. They have made promises and lied to me. They say that they'll make it right. So far all of their lie have truly been nothing but pure talk and no action.

I'd really think twice about going with them for service. Unless you want to feel like the cow that the bull serviced.

Everything was wine & roses until I activated my plan. I had to sign a two year contract. The new phone I purchased from them is horrible. I tried to exchange it for a different model within the first 30 days. They wouldn't do it. They wanted me to pay the full price for two phones.

I lose access to data (20GB plan) from the 25th to the 3rd, unless on wifi. Each month I have to resave my APN settings. Customer service is non-existent. They either can't or won't fix the problems. There are other provider options. I'm gone when my contract runs out.

Tried to get service and a new phone through Pure Talk. Called and talked with a representative who took my info and tried to process my order.

After being on the phone for over 3 plus hours she could not get my order to process saying the system does not recognize my address and suggested that I call my cc company which I did and they were not the issue.

Talked with the rep again and she told etc try it online which I did and I got the same issue. It would not recognize my address. I called back again that day and talked with another rep who put in a ticket to support. No call back on it.

I again called and talked with another representative who placed me on hold after over 30 minutes on hold I felt she was not going to pick my call back up.

I hung up and called back again and got another representative who got in touch with a supervisor who suggested that I contact my post office.

My reply was that I get my mail there no problem on this end. Representative indicated they could not process my order and that was basically it. Good customer service! NOT!!!

Don't know what Pure Talk did but my phone and my wife's phone do not work as soon as we leave our house..lose internet immediately... They don't respond either with any reasons.. Going back to AT&T..would rather pay more than no coverage...

Been with them for a few years. Simple, straightforward talk & data plan. Can't beat it for $35 a month. However I just received a notice that I have to upgrade my phone because they claim it is not VoLTE (voice over LTE) -- which is not true!

Phone is barely a year old and handles VoLTE. It is a world-class, dual SIM phone! I just enable VoLTE to work on their SIM card.

If they don't fix this misinformation, or if it does not work on their network, I shall find another carrier. They need better tech research before broadcasting this misinformation.

Pure Talk was fine for the first several months. I heard about them from Mark Levin Show. This past two weeks have been HELL!!!! I have been sitting in the queue for hours every day. Four or five times I have gotten someone to answer and they supposedly get me a new APN.

Twice in the process the calls dropped and I had to start all over again. Other times I get rerouted to main menu after an hour of waiting only to get stuck listening to their pathetic music for another hour.

These people act clueless, don't give a rip, and in some cases are nasty and hang up. I have been dealing with no Wi fi away from home, inability to send pictures or even send and receive texts. What is going on with this company?!!!

I want to smash my phone and drink some whiskey. Their music gets SO ANNOYING after two hours. What am I paying for????

Do not use Pure TalkUSA! They never answer the phone - I have been on hold now for 59 minutes! Also, their coverage is very poor! Almost every call drops and that is very aggravating when you have been on hold for over an hour, then you finally get a live person, then the call drops!

I read all these post about the service from Pure Talk, so I guess I can put 2 cents in, Have been a customer with pure talk since 2013 so I believe that is long enough to give a report on their service.

First off if they would have given one reason to leave believe me I would have been gone but the service, the price and their customer service was a good enough reason to stay and have no regrets.

Now I am 85 years old, do not use my phone nothing except phone calls and texting, don't play games, take very few pictures (have a camera for that) so why do I want to pay 70 or 80 dollars for all I do when I get it at Half that price and that includes 2 phones, Pure talk is my service!!!

Our problem (2 out of 4 people on our account) have had bad issues with text messages. Mostly with sending and receiving pictures but not limited to that. NEVER had this problem with Sprint for many years.

Have tried to resolve the issue with their tech support but it has NOT BEEN RESOLVED. Very disappointed because they say that everything is the same as the big carriers. One good thing is that you will be connected to a real person in the USA and not in the Philippines which is nice.

If you read a positive review about Pure Talk, it's fake. Search around and you can easily find real reviews on these clowns. Their customer service is managed by a 5 year old. Seems that way.

23 calls in 5 days and still can't get their phone activated. They've managed to shut my old provider off but can't activate theirs. So I'm borrowing my son's phone for 3 days now. Worst customer service on the planet. Steer clear of these jokers!

Activation was fairly painless. Had to call for tech support to get web access. Tech was efficient and SPOKE ENGLISH CLEARLY! Nice. You don't get that with a lot of cell service resellers.

I'll go out on a limb and guess a lot of the negative reviews are from tech-challenged seniors.

Many of my generation (late 60's) are intimidated by technology; not a slam, but it is a fact. If that is you, get your grand's to help you with setup of your service. This is a Veteran-owned company with decent prices using the ATT network, and deserving of your business.

I have two parts to my review. First and foremost, I've had the service for about six months now and have had no issues. I always have full bars on my phone, YouTube videos come through just fine, though I haven't used the phone much for watching videos. I have unlimited talk/text and have had great coverage.

I'm happy with the price, coverage and service, with one exception: I made a call today to get information to decide if I wanted to order a data package for my senior citizen dad's iPad. The rep I got started right in on verifying MY account and the incident went south from there. The rep, Rebecca, was overbearing and ordering me to change the name on my account. It is MY choice as to the name I want on my account, which is a security phone for us for when we talk to people we don't know and don't want them having access to where we live, etc. and MY account had absolutely nothing to do with ordering an account for elderly dad. I concur with a statement below that the reps will TALK OVER YOU.

I finally had to yell into the phone to get this girl to SHUT UP and listen to what I was saying, and I was furious by then. I just had a simple question to ask and she was not willing to listen to my simple (totally unrelated to MY account) question, which was, does PureTalk have a data plan for iPads! I finally just hung up on her, after she told me no supervisor was available for me to speak with, and called back and got the sweetest young lady, Darias (I think), who gave me the answers I was seeking.

I don't know that she wouldn't have talked over me as well, had the issue been more substantive. NOT GOOD to talk over your customers. Put the talking-point note pad down and actually LISTEN to your customer.

Well after 4 hours, I have my phones ported, with voicemail, phone and txt service!! Not so simple as the 3 easy steps that they said to get ported over. YEH!! Customer service was helpful, but it shouldn't have been this hard!!

Hopefully now that we are setup, the phone service and customer service are better than the port experience! Phone is from Verizon, so it keeps reporting that the SIM is not from Verizon, yet customer service doesn't know how to get that shut off.

If they are true to their customers, they should figure it out and then they and their customers would know how to fix it!!

Had service for 1 1/2 months so far -no difference from ATT except for the bill!!!! Cut more than half!! Being a senior this is important and service is just as good!!!

Customer service was above and beyond — I’m happy/not sure why all these other people are having so many problems- live in College Town but get service in city also!! Happy happy!!!

I signed up with Pure Talk to save money on my cell phone bill. What a mistake! They took seventy dollars from me to sign up and receive sim cards. One of them didn't work so I had to wait for another one.

Then I went through a back and excuse session on why they could not port my phone number from Verizon. I called technical assistance, then after a long wait they answered and redirected my call, then another long wait.

I spoke to someone who told me they would not refund my money because it had been longer than 30 days. This was not my fault but the fault of the porting department.

I chosen this provider because of cheap prices. However finally I found that low price is for the first month of use only. Further prices are higher than of competitors.

Anyway I paid for the sim card online and the website promised to deliver it to my address in 2 days. 1 week later no sim card, no response to my numerous messages, no refunds. Run away from this provider.

Aug 12th I received an email from Pure Talk stating that my phone was activated, followed the instructions on the email and then called customer service. Spent 2 full days trying to get the phone to work with about a dozen different people at pure talk.

I was finally told my phone wasn't compatible with their system after I was told by the individual who sold me the plan that my phone would work. So I asked for a refund and told them that I was going back to VERIZON.

2 weeks with no phone because Verizon can't get thru to Pure Talk to port my number back on my phone. Now have Lawyer involved due to the fact no refund and no phone, also tired of spending hours on hold.

Bad customer service and crappy phone service. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AT ALL COST!

Heard about on conservative talk radio. Was excited until I couldn't get a signal is many places. I live in the city and next to the interstate. I switched to another carrier only after two days. I lost the month I paid for. Cheap is oftentimes more expensive.

From the first day our phones are unable to connect for data usage. No problem with the call quality but always a message " not connected to the network" . I signed up tor minimum data plan 2 gig. without a connection I have virtually not data. Called Pure Talk customer service and was pleased to talk to a real person who directed me to the tech dept for help.

For that person to come to my aid I waited on line over an hour. I first heard of Pure Talk from radio adds. I will be contacting the stations and tell them that the adds are not what they claim and that their is no truth in the advertising.

Too absurdly unreliable to believe. No major issues the first month, but for (at least, that I know of) 9 of the past 11 days at the end of this second month, service has completely cut off for HOURS at a time, i.e., "emergency calls only", no phone or text capability, etc, as if the SIM card had been completely deactivated. No such coverage issues in my area, and while I was given the excuse more than once that the AT&T network was being worked on and experiencing outages near me, my emergency backup AT&T Prepaid phone never missed a beat the whole time.

Several calls to customer service, all but one of which was completely useless. One tech rep had guessed that some sort of rogue software update had wiped all settings clean and walked me thru repair process on APN page, etc., which fixed problem immediately but it returned almost as immediately the following day. A couple of times it resolved on its own...after most of an entire day without service...I'm currently almost TEN HOURS into the latest "no-service" event as I type this while taking a short break from shopping for ANOTHER PROVIDER, since I'm supposed to be paying for 24-hour-per-day service, not 24 hours per month! I'm a charitable-to-a-fault person, thus the second star. Completely ridiculous, I wouldn't recommend if my life depended upon it.

I had Pure Talk USA for about 5 months. The cell reception was getting worse and worse. I began experiencing dropped calls, calls that never came through, texts that failed to send, and no internet connection. I finally decided to switch carriers. I ported my number to a new carrier on April 29. Pure Talk in the meantime billed me through automatic payment for April 23 through May 23.

When I called them about a refund for the amount from April 29 to May 23 that I did not use, I was told it is a prepaid service and I was not due a refund. All wireless companies are prepaid services. You don't pay in the rears for wireless service but other companies, more respectable companies, give you a refund for the amount you did not use. There is no way you can port a number to a new carrier on the exact day you are charged from your existing carrier. This company does not get my approval. I think their service and their support are below standard.

Agents with Customer Support are snotty, talk thru Customers, severely lacking in knowledge of their own Operations and inner workings, cannot offer solutions to Customer questions, more than 3 times told "I don't know the answer to your question".

Spent over 3 Hrs. on the phone trying to get some answers relating to their system and phone information. After 20-25 minutes on hold, calls dropped off on their system. Egregious and reprehensible interface with Customers. No matter how positive the product, the majority of people cancel Services with a Company because of poor Customer Service. If Customer Service is important to you, this Company rates a -2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

First, the only positive to using Pure Talk is dealing with friendly people (which isn't common these days when it comes to customer service). However, the service is sketchy and setting up the phone was extremely stressful. I had no idea I'd have to use data (even when WiFi is available) to send / receive group texts and also photos in texts.

So, low data plans are a gamble with Pure Talk if you are in that category. It also took several phone calls to even get that information. Finally, I decided before my trial period was up, I'd better go ahead and switch companies. I drove 35 minutes to AT&T (since this whole setting up cell service over the phone had driven me crazy with Pure Talk) and they were porting my number over from Pure Talk when literally the Pure Talk porting department closed and I was left in limbo standing there in AT&T.

In the midst of a tropical storm rolling in to town, by the way. No cell service at all if I wanted to keep my number. I'd have to wait until the Pure Talk porting dept folks went back to work the next morning (and myself drive 35 minutes through flooded streets). I called the customer service dept (who was open) and they said there was nothing they could do. So, while the folks are friendly, if you happen to have any hiccups with this service (or you don't want to use all your data on texting), buckle up and get ready for an unpleasant roller coaster ride. You get what you pay for, unfortunately.

Went from T-Mobile to Pure-Talk about 3 years ago and the only apparent difference is my phone bill cut more than half. Live in a rural area so not every provider could cut it but Pure gives me 4-G with 4 bars. Even use the "Hot Spot" on my smart phone for internet when my internet is down. Very happy.