Why is Jitterbug Cell Phones still scamming seniors? Taking advantage of the elderly? More complaints about the Jitterbug Cell Phone Company

I am absolutely disgusted with Jitterbug company. I was an unhappy customer for two years. Unhappy about missed and delayed calls. Unhappy about charges higher than competitors. Unhappy about bills with no detail. The only draw you have is the ease of use of your phone. My daughter finally transferred my number to a new phone service on March 16 - 2010. The company told us that once the number is transferred, the service would be cancelled with Jitterbug, since there would be no account associated with the number.

However, I received a bill in April. I called on April 26th and talked to an associate to officially cancel the account. In May, I received a bill for two months of service. I called on June 1 and spoke to Amy. She explained the overlap of service from March 17 April 16. I immediately sent the $60.77 payment for that month even though I had already transferred the number to my new account by then. Amy said the additional $60.77 was for service from April 17 26. First of all it is ridiculous to pay for a full month even though it is only for 9 days! Second of all I DID NOT use the phone. I told Amy this and she said she would refer the account to financial services and they would contact me with a decision.

I received NO response from them. Instead, I received another bill. On July 1, I called and spoke to Carlos. He tells me that the bill is actually for Feb March which is a LIE. I tell him I want to speak to a supervisor. Jason Long gets on the line and tells me no, the bill is for the partial April month. I tell him I didnt use the service. He says I did. I cant know this because there is NO detailed information on the bill. He says he will send me the detailed bill. I ask him to read me the numbers over the phone. He says that would be an unproductive use of my time and Im not going to give you the information I can send you and My going over this bill with you is another hoop for me. These statements were condescending and offensive. When I said this to him, he hung up on me!

I find this treatment deplorable. I believe your company takes advantage of elderly people by luring them in with your product and then treating them like imbeciles.

Jeanne of St. Louis, MO July 22, 2010


I called for information on the Jitterbug phone - CSR convinced me to look at the phone and try it for FREE for 30 days and only be charged if I use the phone. I said I didn't want to use the phone just look at it to see the features and how it worked - she said OK and that it would be free shipping too. I got the phone looked at it decided it wasn't any better than the one I had and sent it back the next day - then they refunded everything except for $50.39 which Beth CSR said was the activation fee that they did at their center before shipping it out and the shipping out fee. She refused to refund the balance. Total ripoff for senior citizens.

Laverne of Fargo, ND June 10, 2010


I originally purchased the Jitterbug phone because I didn't want a monthly service fee, which they said I could buy my minutes as I used them. Which was fine until the first year was up and they renewed my plan and started charging me for a monthly service fee. I feel that the phone was misrepresented to me and that Jitterbug charged me fees that I did not incur myself, the whole phone is just a ploy to get money out of older people. Do not get involved with this company. Loss of $400. and no help from Jitterbug to recover.

John of Greenville, PA May 27, 2010


Jitterbug should be shut down. Their billing is deceptive, if not illegal. They cannot provide accurate minute usage because they say it takes 3 days to collect the info from other carriers. They do not provide itemized statements.

Susan of San Jose, CA Feb. 2, 2010


I bought a jitterbug phone and then signed up for service only to be told they had no numbers available in my area code. After several calls and promises and phone numbers over the course of 5 months, including one that belonged to someone else, I gave up. Glad I disconnected my other cell phone service. Be sure to ask if they have a number in the area you want!

Anne of Kennebunkport, ME Jan. 5, 2010


I too purchased two phones. One for my elderly mother and one for my husband. My mothers phone sat on the charger for over two months while I tried in vain to get the number from her old cell phone switched to the Jitterbug. The Customer Service is awful and the people are rude and nasty. They would never let me finish a sentence, they would continually talk over me. When my check did not reach the payment center on the due date they immediately cut off phone service and left my elderly mother without phone service. The bill's that have come are never the 14.99 plan that I signed up for. The last bill was 86.00 and I still can't understand why. I would not recommend this phone company. They have horrible customer service and I believe they are trying to con money from the elderly.

Deana of Midland, MI Dec. 9, 2009


I called about a Jitterbug phone for my elderly father. The first question I asked was about service where he lived. I was told it was the best. I also asked about the return policy and was told if I was unhappy for any reason I could return the phone within the first 30 days for a full refund.

I ordered the phone and had it shipped directly to my father. He was so excited to receive it until he tried to use it. The reception was horrid. He could hear us but be could not hear him it was breaking up so bad. There were several calls made to Jitterbug in an attempt to fix the problem. At one point he was "switched" to another carrier and was totally unusable for 6 days out of the 30 day return period. It still didnt work.
I called to cancel the service and return the phone within our 30 day trial period. Had to return with a RA number on the outside of the box or would not take it. We did that. Received at Jitterbug on November 12th and still have no refund. As a matter of a fact on November 20th they deducted another $49.00 from account. Clearly their mistake. According to them they forgot to stop the automatic withdrawal upon cancellation. So sorry for the inconvience. Called them again today November 30 and still no refund. Refund of the phone takes 21 working days and 5 working days for the additional amount taken after cancellation. The 5 days will start from November 30th not the 25th when I made the first call about the "Mistake".

There are also "rules" about returning the phone. Only 30 minutes could be used, no scratches on phone, and the list goes on. They will adjust the refund accordingly. Here is the best one. When I asked for the number to the financial department I was told from customer service they don't have that number. Their only communication is e-mail or fax. Are you kidding me!

Anyone considering a Jitterbug my advise DONT. I added my father to my Sprint plan of shared minutes for an additional $9.99 per month and it is great! Phone works wonderful and Dad has no problems with it. He is once again happy.

Karen of Roswell, NM Dec. 1, 2009


I recently purchased a Jitterbug phone with a Simply 29 plan (250 anytime minutes, 500 evening/weekend minutes) for my elderly mother. She tried using it for a month but was unhappy with the service for several reasons, so I decided to get her a landline. My mother has difficulty dialing numbers due to the rheumatoid arthritis in her fingers, so she used the Jitterbug operator service to dial her numbers. Little did she know, every time she dialed the Jitterbug operator, she was billed for 5 minutes of Jitterbug service! She though that this was a free service provided by Jitterbug. NOT! Be sure you READ THE FINE PRINT!

Then she gets her bill and she was charged for 120 minutes for dialing the Jitterbug voicemail retrieval number!!! After seeing the initial bill from Jitterbug, we decided that Jitterbug is definitely not "elderly friendly" as had been described, so we got a Comcast landline and changed the Jitterbug service to a basic plan (50 minutes per month for $14.99) for emergency use only. We made this change on the last day of the current billing period. Here comes the next bill.....WHOA! We received a bill for $86.00 when we were expecting a bill for $14.99! Ends up they treated all the calls in that billing period (400 minutes) as if we had been on the $14.99 basic plan the entire prior billing period! We were never told that we should wait until the first day of the next billing period to downgrade our plan! UNBELIEVABLE! In my opinion, Jitterbug preys on the elderly population. Many of the elderly will not be savvy enough to read the FINE PRINT and to question what is going on with their bill. Oh, and talking about the bill, did I mention that the bill does not include a call detail list that shows each call made? This information is not available on their internet site either! You have to call the Jitterbug operator (which you WILL BE BILLED FOR!) and ask for a call detail list to be emailed to you; it took them 72 hours to email it to me! I cancelled my mother's Jitterbug service today. BYE BYE JITTERBUG! GOOD RIDDANCE! I'm out $200.00 for a phone and various accwessories that I purchased, plus an additional $71.00 in phone call charges that I should not have had to pay for.

Janis of Arvada, CO Nov. 30, 2009


Here are things I believe greatly need improvement with Great Call's Jitterbug's billing and website:
The monthly bill needs to show ALL calls made to help the customer reconcile the minutes used and be on the same page. Currently it only shows the minutes used and cost, but not itemized as other phone companies do. Isn't it a regulation to do so?? It takes 48 hours for the used minutes to show up on MyJitterbug?? The change to the phonebook can be put in right away, why can't not this technology be applied to the minutes?? The used minutes on the phone show TOTAL usage of the phone, not the recent minutes purchased - it's too confusing to NOT show usage of the CURRENT minutes last purchased only. This would greatly help in keeping track of current minutes used.
I appreciate the phone,it's easy to use for my mother-but the billing combined with the site, isn't, and these need some major improvements to catch up with the times.
I'm only a consumer, and some companies would rather ignore than deal with the issues. I have used the comments area on the site to bring my concerns, but pretty much ignored.

If Jitterbug/Great Call is now promoting a new phone, they had better improve their billing/website as well to accommodate, or folks will surely find other solutions!

Karen of Santa Cruz, CA Sept. 24, 2009


I bought Jitterbugs services for my parents as there phones are eaiser for elderly to use. I purchased 500 minutes for them, not knowing there was an EXPERATION DATE on those minutes of 1 year.

Parents do not use phone much so 190 of those 500 minutes EXPIRED.

In todays mobile phone business I thought those plans were history. Why would minutes EXPIRE? The only reason I can think of is take advantage of seniors?

Kevin of Glendale, AZ Aug. 10, 200