Total Wireless, No Wi-Fi Calling, and Ineffective Customer Service

Please note that Total Wireless currently supports Wi-Fi calling. They added the feature in late 2019. You can find information about it on totalwireless.com. At the time I replied to this reader and when I previously reviewed totalwireless, Wi-Fi calling was not offered. If you are currently using Total Wireless, leave a reply below and share if Wi-Fi calling is working for you. You’ll help out others such as yourself looking to find out more about Wi-Fi calling.

A reader, Rick, recently shared his bad experience, trying to sign up with Total Wireless.

First don’t believe their web site. Wi-fi calling will not work on Verizon phones on a BYO phone activation. It says it will. Your IMEI will say good to go but it will not work. I spent 3 hours on the phone to get the account setup and 2 phones activated. Got disconnected after an hour on the phone with first rep when I asked to speak with a rep that spoke reasonably fluent English.
After about 5 hours total phone time with customer support that could not get either phones wi-fi calling working I said I wanted a refund. They then lost the connections again. Another 30 min call I got someone and they said “so sorry – you used 300mb of your 22 GB data so we can’t refund your $$. I said the rep told me to go to google to see if data was working. How are you supposed to find out it’s not working if you don’t try it? Their rep told me to do it. I had to go back home and get the order number off the home PC email which is where the order was created. Then another hour on the phone through multiple people to get the address to send the sim cards back to to obtain a refund.
This is the most painful experience I’ve ever had with anyone anywhere. I would not recommend them to anyone.
Hopefully they will actually refund my $$$ when they get the SIM card back.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, that is unfortunate. Prepaid wireless isn’t for everyone one of the biggest complaints I hear about the Tracfone brands and prepaid wireless in general is the lack of prompt, effective customer service and support when there is a problem. Most of the prepaid wireless customer service departments I have spoken with seem to be located off shore typically in India or the Philippines. Prepaid wireless companies typically charge much less than the post paid companies, and I expect that customer service is one of the areas they reduce costs.

I’ve heard stories from other people about customer support issues with all the different prepaid wireless companies, typically with activation issues. It’s hard to tell how prevalent they are as most people don’t typically comment on line when everything goes smoothly.

I’ve used prepaid services for about seven years both personally as well as for reviews and have never really needed customer service or was able to resolve issues, so for me the tradeoff is worth it. That’s little consolation for customers that encounter a problem when signing up or a later time.

For customers that want to know they can rely on customer service and support, I recommend sticking with prepaid services from AT&T or Verizon. You’ll pay more, they generally support more features (like WiFi calling). One advantage with these two companies is you should be able to activate new accounts in one of their stores rather than do it yourself. Both companies, do however, have different phone and online support teams.

As I said in my review, Total Wireless does not support Wi-Fi calling. I’m not sure were you read that they do but if you have a link to a place on totalwireless.com that says they support WiFi calling please share it so I can add it to my post. I know they discuss Wi-Fi calling in the terms and conditions of service here. https://totalwireless.com/termsandconditions and they link to a page to check / register your phone for Wi-Fi calling here. This later page is used for a number of tracfone brands, and interestingly enough doesn’t list Total Wireless at the top of the page.

I hope that you do get your refund, but if you are asking for a refund based on Wi-Fi calling not being available make sure can provide a link to their site that said they support Wi-Fi calling.

In the past my reader have had more effective support by contacting their Executive Resolution department. They list an address for that at
The address is
Total Wireless
Attention Executive Resolution Department
9700 NW 112th Avenue
Miami, FL 33178

They don’t list a phone number, the last one I has was (800) 876-5753 ext 3324.

I hope you will get a refund without following up with them. If not and you bought your plan with a credit card, you may want to dispute the charge.

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