Tracfone customers have taken to social media to complain about the rude and unhelpful customer support, poor service, frequent outages, and call drops. Their 3G network shutdown is adding to customer woes as several of them have to upgrade to 4G LTE or 5G.
Earlier this year, a massive lapse in their security inconvenienced and impacted approximately 6000 customers. Miscreants ported out customer numbers from Tracfone to other carriers without their consent, and many customers suffered because of this switch.
If you are a dissatisfied Tracfone customer looking for an affordable alternative to their pathetic service, poor reliability, and security issues, read on. This article covers how to port your number out of Tracfone and why Community Phone is the best alternative.
Can You Port A Number Away From Tracfone?
Yes, you can port your existing number away from Tracfone, but you must ensure your number is active with them until you port. You can contact your new service provider, familiarize yourself with the porting process, check the charges, and initiate the port.
Before porting your number out, you must also ensure you have paid all your dues to Tracfone.
How To Port Your Active Tracfone Number to Community Phone
You can switch your Tracfone number to Community Phone through its hand-held porting process in 3-5 business days without disrupting service. Follow these steps to port your active number:
1. Contact Community Phone
Call their customer care at 866-271-7804. Inform the rep that you would like to port your number. A dedicated representative will be assigned to help you with your porting process.
2. Check for Coverage
Your rep will check your area to ensure Community Phone has coverage before you sign up with them.
3. Sign up with Community Phone.
Once the rep confirms coverage, choose a plan that suits your needs and complete the signup process with Community Phone.
4. Authorize Porting
Once the rep confirms coverage, you can share the necessary information to port your number. Community Phone will need:
- The phone number you want to port
- Your name as it is with Tracfone
- Account number from them. This is not your phone number. It is your phone’s IMEI serial number or the MEID. For a BYOP SIM Card, it will be the last 15 digits of your SIM.
- PIN from Tracfone
- The billing address Tracfone has on file for you
- A letter of authorization
5. Contact Tracfone
Request Tracfone to port your number to Community Phone.
6. Ready Your Devices for the Port.
Unlock your phone if you want to use it with Community Phone.
7. Wait For Porting to Complete.
Your dedicated rep will keep you updated on the porting status and any challenges during the process. Alternatively, you can check the status by logging into your Community Phone user account on dashboard.communityphone.org.
Read More here: How Long Does It Take to Port a Number?
8. Verify Whether Your Number is Active
Once Community Phone has completed porting, test your phone to check if you can make and receive calls. Contact customer care if you have challenges.
9. Cancel Service With Tracfone
After verifying that your Community Phone service is active, you can call Tracfone and cancel your service.
Community Phone Features for Great Telephonic Experience
Get reliable phone service and fantastic features at affordable prices with Community Phone. Here are some features that give you the best value for your money.
Spam Call Blocking
68.4 million Americans were victims of phone scams in 2022, a 23% increase from 2021. Manual call blocking is no longer effective due to scammers' persistent attacks. According to reports, con artists have discovered a technique to get around the STIR/SHAKEN regulations that the government has implemented for customer safety. You need a spam blocker to block unwanted calls before your phone rings.
Get the Community Phone spam-blocker, your one-stop solution to barring unwanted and unlawful calls from ringing your phone. The spam blocker challenges robocalls and blocks them before the call can ring your phone, ensuring protection against spam.
The "Safelist," a new Community Phone feature, allows you to list the numbers you want to accept calls from. Your phone will ring to let calls from these numbers through and block all others before the phone rings. You can update your allowed list anytime to add or delete numbers, or Community Phone specialists will be happy to assist you.
Studies report that several people miss legitimate calls fearing spam. Understanding the need to balance robust spam protection and legitimate calls, Community Phone is launching another iteration of the Safelist soon.
This feature will allow you to accept calls from numbers you want and route the rest to voicemail. Since Community Phone will not block other numbers, you can check your voice messages and respond to the ones you deem necessary.
The soon-to-be-launched "blocklist" is an aggressive spam blocker that blocks over 6 million spam calls based on an ever-growing database of spam numbers and a spam score. You can actively contribute to this database by adding a spam number to protect yourself and other Community Phone customers from scams and fraud.
Talk to Community Phone specialists to learn more!
Call Routing
This premium Community Phone feature lets you get the most out of your second number. If you use the second number for business, you can program it with a dial menu complete with call routing, custom greetings, and voicemail.
Ring several phones at once or use an automatic call distributor to accommodate your unique personal and business needs.
Simultaneous Ring
Program several numbers to ring simultaneously to alert you of an incoming call. This way, any available person can answer the call.
For example: If your and your spouse’s or sibling’s numbers are programmed to ring simultaneously, both phones will ring when there is an incoming call, letting the available person answer the call.
If you are a business that would like to be available 24/7 for your customers, you can opt for this feature. Enhance your reputation and increase customer goodwill by having multiple numbers - your second cell number, your business landline, your landline, and a colleague’s phone ring simultaneously. You or anyone available can answer the call minimizing hold time for your customer.
This feature has no limit; you can add as many numbers as you want to satisfy your needs.
You can also set the business hours message as a greeting, allowing customers calling after hours to leave a voicemail for you, helping you maintain a work-life balance. The options are endless!
Talk to a Community Phone Business specialist to learn more!
Ring a Second Number
This feature can also serve as conditional forwarding for remote or work-from-home employees who juggle work and home. Your second cell number can be a forwarding number from your landline when you are away from your desk and cannot answer calls on your landline.
If you are a business, you can use the automatic call distributor available with this feature to route calls evenly and sequentially among a group of numbers.
You can show your customers you appreciate their time and value their business by routing repeat callers to the same number. This feature saves your customers the hassle of repeating information and allows the reps to build a lasting relationship with the customer.
Call History
Enable the call history feature and access information on incoming and outgoing calls, the name of the caller, the extension number dialed, and the time and duration of the call.
You can use this feature to
- Return missed calls from known contacts
- Store legitimate contacts
- Check caller information against known contacts
- Send a message or
- Block spam numbers
Benefits of Choosing Community Phone
Here are some benefits when you join the Community Phone family:
Unlimited Talk: Stay in touch with loved ones with the unlimited talk
option. Collaborate effectively with team members and colleagues without
worrying about unreliable call apps and internet bandwidth.
If you are a business, you can use unlimited calling to stay in touch with your
team, employees, or customers without fearing a massive long-distance bill.
Unlimited Text: 60% of Americans now prefer texting to avoid phone calls out of fear of scams. Utilize the unlimited text option to stay in touch with loved ones to ensure they get all the benefits of communication and social interaction.
Launch marketing campaigns, share offers and discounts, and stay connected with customers, employees, and team members during emergencies with the unlimited text feature.
5G or 4G LTE: Your Community Phone cell service will switch between 5G and 4G LTE seamlessly, depending on whichever is the strongest in your area.
International Calls: You can make international calls to 229 countries from your Community Phone cell at competitive and affordable rates.
FAQs
Why is my number not eligible for porting?
Your number might not be eligible for porting if you recently ported in, ported out, or the number was suspended in the last 30 days. You must wait for 30 days before attempting to port your number again.
Additionally, your number must have been active for at least 60 days for you to port away from your provider. Telecarriers cannot port inactive numbers.
Conclusion
If you are a customer dissatisfied with Tracfone’s service or impacted by their 3G network shutdown, you can check out Community Phone as a viable and affordable solution.
Community Phone provides the reliability and affordability you need from your phone without the hassles. With world-class support, wait times of under a minute to reach support, no hidden charges, and great plans, Community Phone is the best wireless service provider. Talk to their specialists to learn more!