Stuck with a prepaid phone that wouldn't activate, NH woman turns to NBC10 Boston Responds

What good is a new phone if you can’t use it?

When a Greenville, New Hampshire, woman couldn’t get her phone activated, she contacted our NBC10 Boston Responds team as a last resort.

 Holly Patterson says she isn’t interested in fancy smartphones.

 “I know other people spend like, thousands, hundreds, and that's fine, but I don't use the capability that other people use it for,” says Patterson.

 She’s been in the habit of buying a low-cost Straight Talk pre-paid smartphone every year during the holiday sales and activating it when she needs it.  She bought one last November.

 “My other phone was still fine, so I just put it away,” she says.   “I transferred all my information and apps over and then just put it away for when I needed it.  Well, the day after Valentine's Day is when I needed it.  I dropped my phone in water and there was just no coming back from that.  So, I went to activate the phone and it wouldn't activate.”

 Holly says it was usually a simple process. She called Straight Talk Wireless for help and was told the phone wasn’t scanned properly when she bought it.

 “They never scanned it into the system, so it looked like it was a stolen phone,” she says.

Holly says she was told to go back to the store where she purchased it, but they said they couldn’t help her either.

“We can't help you, like you're going to have to call the wireless company back, so everyone just kept passing the buck to everybody else,” she says.  “ They said that I just, I waited too long. I had like two weeks that I could have done something.  I wasn't trying to get a refund, I wasn't trying to get a new phone,  I just wanted my phone to work.”

Holly says she called Straight Talk several times and returned to the store again to try to get the issue resolved,  but couldn’t.

“I had been going back and forth and back and forth for like two weeks at that point, and I was so frustrated that I just didn't know what else to do,” she says.  “So that's why I reached out to you guys, and you guys were absolutely incredible!”

NBC10 Boston Responds contacted Verizon, the parent company of Straight Talk Wireless, to alert them to the problem.

“The next day they called me.  I was shocked and within like a couple of days, it was all said and done and over with,” she says.  “Straight Talk got it up and running, no issues. The lady that I ended up talking to was very nice.  She gave me, a month’s service for free for everything I had gone through.”

Straight Talk thanked us for bringing the issue to their attention, and  told us, “we were able to resolve the issue to the customer’s satisfaction.”

“I’m so thankful,” says Patterson.   “If anything ever happens again, I’m calling you!”

If you have a consumer problem, contact NBC10 Boston Responds by filling out our online consumer complaint form. 

We will get back to you!  We are the only local station dedicated to answering all of your inquiries.