Monday, December 17, 2007

Jitterbug Cell Phone Scams Seniors... Complaints... Fraud

Here are links to sites outlining what the Jitterbug Cell Phone aka Great Call Inc. has done to rip off unsuspecting seniors (some of them have taken down the negative reviews due to Jitterbug trying to conceal and hide all the bad press on their unethical and illegal business practices). Charging customers for minutes they did NOT use is called "STEALING." Great Call Inc. & Jitterbug are "STEALING" from the elderly. This is a company with "NO ETHICS" which should be examined in Business Schools and Business Ethics courses.

http://app.businessweek.com/UserComments/combo_review;jsessionid=509F060FF8DA71A2454ED5CECBFE6342?action=all&style=wide&productId=18283&productCode=spec

http://lonestarconsumer.statesmanblogs.com/entry.aspx?q=18feb784-6a91-4de5-ac8d-999e0074facf

http://www.betanews.com/article/Jitterbug_Makes_Cell_Phones_Easy/1165958010"

Here's what a former supervsor of the company had to say:

"As a former supervisor in this company's customer service department I can vouch for all of the claims made here by others claiming to be former employees. This company and it's team of leaders are doing nothing more than BILKING seniors, they do constantly give erronious billing. I myself had to deal with these poor customers as they called to get their money back, and if you buy a jitterbug don't expect a refund they will falsify information, and anything else to avoid refunding customers who are due. The sales department is an outsourced company that encourages misinformation because if a customer doesn't have the facts then Great Call has them at a disadvantage. The sales manager for this company Olivier is a despicable thief at heart and he does nothing to hold sales accountable for the unending amount of lies that they tell customers in order to sell the phones. Daily i spoke to customers who had been suspended for no reason or because the inept people in charge of the billing and network departments would just shut off the wrong phone. or even better i can not even recount the far too numerous times that a customer's payment was taken and they were suspended anyway, and then it takes up to 60 days to get the service restored because these people don't care about Seniors at all (except their money). In closing i would caution anyone from buying a Jitterbug phone so long as Great Call Inc. is affilliated with it at all. Honestly you would have better luck with 2 cans and some string."

Another employee said this:

"Verizon and AT & T are coming out with the same style of phones with more minutes and for half the cost. Save your money and go with Verizon or AT & T. Jitterbug are notorious for leaving seniors without cell service for weeks. Meaning, if your grandmother or grandfather need help in an emergency, the Jitterbug cell phone is useless. Either the Jitterbug networks are down or their order department is delayed in shipping back repairs of defective phones. There are so many complaints that can be made against Jitterbug and its customer service. Even worse, if you return the product to be serviced for a hardware issue, most of the time the company will say it is your fault due to water damage or some other ridiculous claim. A lot of the times you can't even get your own area code. They will ship you an 866 area code # that 800 numbers and most people will block. They even bill you for minutes you don't use. They do all their billing by hand. Their systems are extremely out of date. Don't take a chance with this rouge organization. Stay away from Jitterbug and its parent company Great Call. Stick to the big companies who know what they are doing. Jitterbug is bad for seniors."

9 comments:

CLB said...

This company is a complete
fraud. Do not buy anything
from them.

Ruth said...

I have a Just5 mobile phone which has an SOS button for emergency purposes. My five year-old daughter and my 69-year-old dad are using it. One time my daughter was able to use the emergency response feature of the phone when she was locked in the school’s bathroom. She just dialed the SOS button and her classroom adviser received an instant message that she’s having an emergency. In minutes the teacher

Robert Platt Bell said...

Great posting!

It occurs to me than ANYTHING advertised in the back of Smithsonian Magazine is an utter rip-off, whether it is a Jitterbug Phone or "Gov't Gold Coins!"

They also advertise in AARP magazine and Good Sam.

Anything that is target-marketed to the elderly is bound to be a bad deal.

I use about 50 minutes a month, and I would like to find a legitimate cell phone company that has a basic cell phone with 50-100 minutes for about $20 a month.

I guess I'll have to keep looking!

Edwin North said...

Jitterbug has odd definition of fraud

in October my mother went to a nursing rehab facility temporarily. Two days in her jitterbug disappeared. We have no idea if it was lost, accidentally thrown out or stolen. We called jitterbug about how to replace the phone and if we held service till she got a new phone, would she be able to use her old number. Due to costs and time (it would take as long as two weeks to ship a phone verses going to a local store and buying one.

We made sure that knew that they knew, until we picked up a new phone her old one was missing and to make sure no calls are allowed until we get the new one set up. This took about a week. At least $200 worth of calls were made after teh old phone was reported missing and teh new one wa sstarted. They want us to pay for these.

Ahh no. we told you not to allow calls to be made or billed. Why is this so hard..OHHH you are trying shake us down for $200. Jitterbug are theives get rid of your phone use a real service. They show no evedence of "fraud" yet calls were made from a phone reported missing. Well it wasn't mom. She lost the phone must be unauthorized or FRAUDULENT use.

CLB said...

Doing business with Jitterbug
is like doing business with a
nest of thieves

Edwin North said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PMA said...

I bought jitterbug phones for my folks several years ago..and have never had issues.. they always have had service in areas that my expensive data phone doesn't always have. The customer service people have always been pretty good with us. Always very friendly and helpful. They allowed us to drop down a level when mom and dad didn't use as much minutes to save them money. When my dad passed away they let me pass the one phone on to my handicap sister and she used it up until her passing this last year and now her husband is using it still. They are very understanding and have no issues .. we have never been billed for minutes that were not used. When my sister was in the hospital dying and the only phone charged up to call the family to come to the hospital was the jitter bug .. we ended up going way over on minutes.. we called and they raised the minutes on the phone to avoid a very excess bill. It was so kind of them. They didn't have to do it because we had already used the minutes. We just called and explained the circumstances and they were very understanding. I know this sounds like a commercial or something for them.. but it is the truth. I am very grateful to them.. it gave me peace to know that my folks and my sister had a reliable cell phone service when they were out going to doctor appts. and such. We had tried others and it just wasn't as reliable of service. Sorry others have not had the same experience.

Blazing Mad said...

I called to inquire about using a jitterbug phone a neighbor gave my mother, suffering from dementia, and they gave me a number to start phone service. I never called that number and they have since billed us for service. I called and told them we never used the phone and gave it back to the neighbor, who stashed the phone in a drawer. Greatcall said they would look into the matter and call me in a couple of days. A month later, we were billed for another months service. They refuse to settle this, and just to be done with it, my mind numbed mother is only too happy to give her money to this evil company.

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