"Good a taking money from seniors"

Ordered a Lively Flip Phone for a friend in hospital because he was having trouble using his phone. It is advertised as easy to use, but whoever designed the software did not know what they were doing. You have to press OK several times to get the contact and then press 3 more times to make a call. The flip phone he had would answer a call when opened. This phone will not. You have to press OK and sometimes twice. What moron would design a phone for seniors that did not answer calls when opened.

Second issue is they are ripping off seniors. His previous carrier charged .38 for Federal USF fee and .21 for Regulatory Recover. Great call adds $2.36 for USF and $3.23 for Fed Regulatory Recovery. They pay the same federal fees as the other carriers. I have never seen a carrier charge more than $1 for both of these fees.

Plain and simple, this company is not about helping seniors, it's all about getting as much money from seniors has they can legally. I might add, sometimes illegally also. The BBB site has hundreds of complaints where they misled seniors and charge their credit card hundreds of dollars for services they did not use.

"Bad 1st impressions"

After thoroughly reading over the GreatCall website, I still had some questions and concerns. So I called their customer service. I was calling for an organization that was looking into buying at least 30 medical alert devices. I was straightforward with the customer service telling him I needed more information before bringing it to our board fro approval. Each question I asked he tried to push me to buy something. After only a few questions he says something like, "I have to go now, I have other people on the line waiting to purchase our devices."

REALLY?!!! Is this is how you treat a potential customer who may bring you a lot of sales???

To say the least I am not impressed.

"Horrible product that won't hold a…"

Horrible product that won't hold a charge. Bad customer service and offer no help to get a replacement. Told them to cancel my account and they proceeded to charge me for 8 months saying they would send it to collections if I didn't pay.

"I do not recommend Great Calls"

I do not recommend Great Calls. The price and connectivity are ok, but the service people I've dealt with were rushed, impatient, and one even hung up on me.
As for the Jitterbug phone, they say it's easier for seniors, but I'm not that old yet and I found it a nightmare.
1. To make a call, you have to a) hit the button to light the screen, b) scroll up, c) hit 'phone,' d) then hit 'contacts,' e) then hit the phone number that pops up, f) then hit 'place phone call'...in other words, YOU HAVE TO PUSH THE BUTTONS/SCREEN 6 TIMES JUST TO MAKE A PHONE CALL.
2. The 'airplane mode' would kick in while I was in the middle of a call, which cut me off. This happened often.
3. My settings often changed without me doing it...volume control, photos, etc. I even found video compilations of my private photos in my 'Photo Album' that I did not make. Freaked me out.
4. If you accidentally bump the screen during a phone call, GOOD LUCK getting back to the call screen...it's almost impossible.
5. If you go over your call limit, you do not get a notification, you just pay more money; other phone services I have used (and now have returned to) notify you before you go over.
The phone itself is a nice size and weight, and I realize some of the problems might be unique to me, but I DO NOT recommend the Jitterbug or Great Calls.

"Great Call's jitterbug 2 is the only…"

Great Call's jitterbug 2 is the only cell phone that I was able to learn and understanding how to operate quite easily. the videos, cards, manuals, etc. all tie in together with little confusion from one product aid to another.

"Customer Service is professional but BAD company"

Customer Service is professional and courteous. However, they claim they solved your problem and it never gets fix'd. They lie to you about pricing. Fees is absorbent. The plans are set up to where an older person can get into trouble. The lively phone never worked. They replaced with a JitterBug and finally got working after 2 days. Then the bill was extremely high with fees not telling what they were. The speaker on it is terrible!!!! They should be investigated for marketing to older people with their lives in their hand. The crap doesn't work now!!! Years back the jitterbug was a great product!! But it isn't now. Also, they trick you with the activation fee too when buying the package. You can't talk to tech support. They are just terrible and you can tell they don't care about the struggling you are doing trying to help your elderly parent. Mr Walsh should be a shame of supporting this. Also, Best Buy is a fool for buying you! Lively should be called Deadly. Buyer beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Greatcall needs to do better to protect their senior customer base...…"

The Greatcall products seem good quality. The customer service has been courteous and professional. I originally bought the Jitterbug Smartphone for my 80 yr old father. He found it too complicated ( never had a smartphone prior) so I got him the Lively flip. Unfortunately, I transferred his existing cell number, one he's had for about 15 yrs but once transferred, he started receiving relentless spam calls and texts. I was told by Greatcall that they do not sell their customers info but find that hard to believe when some spam calls coming into his number were addressed to me. I set the account up for him and pay the bill. He became so disgusted with all the spam that he turned his phone off and refused to use it. I just cancelled the service so now he will need to start over with a new cell number and service while I'm stuck with 2 new Greatcall devices! Do better to protect your senior clients!!

"This company may offer good emergency…"

This company may offer good emergency services although we never used them. However I gave them one star because my mother had been moved out of the house (into my sisters home) unable to care for herself after my father’s death. Over 16 months we continued making payments because we forgot through the transition it was on automatic bill pay. My mother has been not using that service for over a year and a half. I was notified because our credit card had expired and it didn’t process. I called to explain we had forgotten to terminate the services and I was told even though we haven’t been using them the last year and a half, we still owed $40. I feel that is bad customer service. I would never use this company again.

"Great Call lacks compassion"

My sister is a Great Call customer; she is elderly and lives alone. She lives on a fixed income that puts her below the poverty line. Recently, she got 2 months behind on her phone bill. She is proud and is not comfortable asking for help; she thought she could make up the arrearage once she received her Social Security check at the beginning of January.
She tried to explain her situation to Great Call, however, they were having none of it. They cut off her phone service on Christmas Eve.
Now she lives in the middle of the country most of her family lives on either coast. We were unable to contact her on Christmas, which, due to Covid, she spent alone.
I understand that Great Call is a for profit entity and my sister should have not gotten behind on her phone bill. But cutting off one’s phone service on Christmas Eve certainly lacks compassion and borders on the punitive.
As it was, the local police department did a wellness check and were able to convey that i’d deposited adequate funds for her to catch up her payments which she did immediately.
Lesson learned: i’ll ensure she always has the money to pay her phone bill.

"If I could give Great Call a minus 5…"

If I could give Great Call a minus 5 star rating I would. We only had the service for 48 hours. My phone would send texts and the phones were SUPER cheap. We were assured that we would not receive a bill since we had cancelled and didn’t incur any charges. 2 months later I am still fighting with them over the final bill amount. Liars, poor phones and even worse customer service.