Customer Reviews

Firefly Mobile glowPhone - Pink

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My daughter got lost the other day so we thought we would get this emergency cell phone for her and her sister (6yrs and 9yrs old). Firefly gives you the option to choose pay as you go, or other plans that have more minutes (which cost less per minute). Since we were looking for an emergency phone, we chose pay as you go and will put $10 into it every 90 days, which is just fine for emergencies. I think the reason the other reviewer could not make calls was because there is a setting under the parental controls where you can turn off outgoing and/or incoming calls. The set up was as easy as anything, with no problems whatsoever! The directions were clear and quick. And, the $.35 per day fee is only if you use it that day.

The girls love choosing the ring tones and pictures for each person on their call list. They will also like playing the games on it. It is a very kid friendly phone and it works fine.

We have service with AT&T and love this phone!! My son had the original Firefly phone several years when they first came out, and just last year past it down to his little sister. We recently upgraded her to the new glowphone and love it!!!
To activiate it all we had to do is take it to AT&T and they did it for us!!! And we were able to add her to our family cell phone plan!!!

One would suppose that a company producing and marketing a product for young children would consider children. One might also suppose that children's product company would consider child safety.

And you might also think that a telecommunications company would be required by law to provide what they sell. Or, that a telecommunications company would remember that phones are for safety as well as for fun and games. Not so with Firefly Mobile, producers of the flyPhone and glowPhone for children.

I am a grandmother. When a family crisis hit, I decided my seven year old grandson needed to be able to have easy, friendly, reliable access to family members and to be able to reach help, an adult or parent when necessary. The phone was principally for his safety and security.

At the heart of a phone for a child, regardless of age, the telephone is a way to reach a parent or helper when necessary and much more than just a way to play games or try out ring tones when bored.

Firefly seemed to have considered children and produced a phone that is user friendly for young children, so I ordered one and had it sent to my grandson in a different state.

A WARNING BEFORE YOU RING IN A DISASTER FOR YOU AND YOUR CHILD: THE FIREFLY CELL PHONE FROM CINGULAR WIRELESS

Four months, two hundred dollars, innumerable hours and several other problems later, I can accurately report that Firefly Mobile isn't interested in your child, your child's well-being, you, or providing the services that you paid for.

Now, why am I spending my time to tell you this? Because sixty years later and forty some years in the world of business, I'm still surprised and saddened that a company trading in the illusion of caring about children doesn't and that a communications company can sell communication methods that it doesn't provide.

I purchased the firefly glowPhone with accessories and had it sent to my grandson. I signed up for their automatic refill option so that he would be safe, able to make calls whenever he needed to and would never run out of minutes. This plan refills the phone from your credit card whenever the balance is low.

His parents and I spent several hours setting up the account online after the phone arrived, but the next day, the information wouldn't be there. We could never get the account to work and the phone worked for three days. After several thirty minute waiting periods to get someone in Customer Service, I finally did.

The problem? The phone was out of money. I wondered how this was possible since it was supposed to automatically refill. I was advised that their software didn't work, but that it would be up and running very soon and they added some money to the phone from my credit card while I was on the phone.

A very long story short, we tried for two months to get the account to work. At long last, I was advised that Firefly had no idea when the software would work. Their solution was that I could call in and wait the half hour for Customer Service to answer the phone and add refills verbally on my credit card on an ongoing basis. There was no way to know how much was left on the account without making the call.

After needing to use the phone several times during a two day period, the inevitable finally happened. My grandson had an emergency and the phone didn't work because it didn't refill and I didn't know he had needed to use it as often those two days.

Enough! The safety tool had become a liability. I called fireflyMobile, waited the allotted time to finally reach someone in customer service, added fifty dollars to the phone and was advised: "We have no idea how long it will take to get this problem fixed. It could be a very long time. The only way we can solve this is to change the phone number and hope that works."

Needless to say, I got my grandson a different phone. One that worked. One he could feel safe with.

So when I contacted fireflyMobile and asked to return the phone and get the balance on the phone account back, you know what they said? "There are no returns even if we didn't provide you with the services we sold you. Even if we kept telling you the last three months it was going to be fixed." Oh, the the balance? It disappeared from the account.

I'm thinking there are a lot of people out there who have had this problem. People who spent a ridiculous amount of time, money and their child's security on a "refill" program that didn't work. I think this is called a class action suit. I'm thinking this is child endangerment.

Firefly Mobile flyPhone

I bought this phone for my daughter and after several attempts at activating via Firefly mobile, decided to go to AT&T and add her to my family plan. AT&T activated the phone immediately and at only $9.99 per month this is far less than the firefly mobile plan.

Are there better phones out there? Absolutely, but this one works for my child and she's very happy with it!

The 35 cents per day is actually whether you use the phone or not. In addition, if your account is at zero for more than 30 days, they inactivate the SIM card permanently, making it impossible to add more minutes. You have to buy a new SIM card, which takes 5 business days. In my opinion, they have the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Condescending and rude are two adjectives that come to mind. Ignore the hype and keep looking. While the concept may be great, the execution is terrible.

I bought one of the phones for each of my daughters....Not only could we not get any help activating them, but we have just found out that we are charged 35 cents per day for usage. When we call the help line they tell us to push a number on the phone to be directed to a department. The only problem is that these phones do not have numbers... My older daughter started with a pay as you go phone from T mobile and we did not have these problems. After the phones were finally activated our daughters attempted to test them out and each time that they tried to dial an outgoing number they received a message that stated that the system was busy. They were calling our cell phones which were turned on, not in use and with full signal. They could, howvever, receive incoming calls. The real kicker was that they were charged for every attempt! I bought these phones so that my daughters could contact us in an emergency. However, they have yet to be able to make a call and have already used 1/2 of their money balance on the prepaid card that we bought for them.

Save your money and add them to your own cell phone company or make them wait until it is worth $20 per month for them to have their own plan.
I plan to return these phones!!

We got this phone for our 10 year old for emergencies. It is a good phone for kids, but I am very unhappy with the customer service. About 4 months after receiving it, we started having problems (like blank screens). I called and was told that the phones were defective and we could send it back and get a new one. Sounded good but then I realized that I had to send back the old phone first at my own expense before getting a new one. Another complaint I have is the confusing website. I had initially signed up for the monthly plan which I thought would automatically add $20 each time the balance dropped below $2. I realized they were charging my credit card $20 once a month, and it was more than my child actually used. I had a balance of about $31 dollars and on the website, changed to the Pay As You Go option. All of a sudden my child said that there was no money on the phone and it wasn't working. When I called cust. service I was told that the Pay As You Go minutes expire each month. So I lost the $31 balance and there was nothing I could do about it. I would not recommend this phone at all, and will probably get a regular pay as you go phone for my next child.

I bought this phone for my 7 year old daughter when she started wanting to ride her bike to school in the mornings. I was so afraid of her falling off her bike and having to hobble to the nearest phone. I was excited to get it, but that wore off fast. Trying to set this thing up to have minutes was absurd and totally inflexible. It's a pay as you go, but you can't add minutes mid-month if you run out, your just SOL till you can add minutes the next month, no exceptions.

After all the struggle with this ridiculous phone, we ended up getting a free phone from Verizon and adding her to our plan for an additional 5 bucks a month.

All the kid features that I thought were fabulous about this phone (blocks all incoming and outgoing calls except for the ones you enter into the phone book) are standard on almost all phones these days, I just didn't realize.

Overall this phone is a waste of money and materials. I'm sure your current cell phone company has something cheaper and better.

I bought this phone for my 6 year old daughter! Although she is never alone, I purchased this phone so she can call her mom and dad whenever she feels she needs us! I feel that anyone that has children should look into giving their child this phone. You pay as you go and it makes after school activities that much safer!

We received this phone in excellent condition! TWO THUMBS UP!

I actually bought this at Target. I got a free Target gift card so that made it worth it..I thought. I called 5 times to try and set the thing up. I always got more to the story each and every time I called. There is service in my area (Eastern Iowa) but no local telephone numbers. I was also told that only the numbers programmed into the phone were the numbers allowed to call. That is on the OTHER model. I'm went ahead and had the phone hooked up with a long distance number in the meantime, but I'm still waiting for our area code (it's been almost a month). Also, I was not given a user guide in the package from Target. That annoyed me! The only thing worth ANY OF IT was seeing my daughter's face when she realized Santa brought her a cell phone!