ConnectNetwork

My family member was incarcerated for a three week period. The Connect Network was extremely unfriendly to consumers. I funded my cell phone and my home phone and two other phone numbers. When my family member attempted to call me, their automated system did not respond to the prompts on my phone so the call was always disconnected. It was heartbreaking to have my family member waiting for me to respond and they continually ignored my phone prompts. When I called them, they told me to call my cell phone provider because something was wrong with my phone. Very unhelpful; When my family member was released I asked for my $90 refund on the 4 numbers I funded. They said, nope, not unless I can show ownership on all 4 numbers. Too bad they weren't upfront about that when I was putting money in. I had a passcode, a login, a password, my charge card, but they said those things were not adequate identification. Its sad in the first place that a jail has to make money by selling part of their system to a for profit system. Really sad.

I added $20 (they charged me a $3 fee for this so actually I had $17 on the phone) to a google voice number in August of 2018 because I heard it would be cheaper by the minute versus my regular cell phone. Well... I ended up not using the google voice number at all, so last week, I decided I would transfer the $17 to my regular cell phone. I called Connect Network and they told me I had to call the VAC number... whatever the f**k that is, and not them... they are GTL... still no clue what they are talking about... so I called the VAC number and they told me they couldn't find my phone numbers and to call the GTL number! Really?! I called GTL... again... and guess what... they said they couldn't help me that I had to call VAC. Long story short... because I didn't remember what credit card I used over a year ago (they would even give me a hint... like the last 4 numbers of my card) they would not transfer the $17. I needed to give them the first 2 digits and then the last 4 digits in order for them to help me. I've cut up all my cards since last year and I only have one now... and that wasn't the right one... so guess what... to bad for me... they get to keep my $17 unless I can figure out what card I used. UNBELIEVABLE! Horrible customer service to by the way... very unprofessional. How this company is still in business is beyond me.

Deserves ZERO stars. To send ONE email with letters and numbers and SOME punctuation ONLY... no pics, no links, no emojis, not even a colon parenthese smilie :) it just does NOT show up at all... one email with 2000 total characters (spaces incl), costs me $0.25 and the inmate pays in linkunits (asinine system) that can cost them anywhere from $0.25-$1.00 depending on how much they buy. Why not make all the units the same? I AM THE ONE BUYING THEM ANYWAY! The system times out constantly. It loses your work even though it claims it saves it to draft. And if it fails on the inmates tablet, they just lose the data and they have no way to draft it elsewhere so that's not frustrating at all. For awhile this summer, if either of you used more than like 1500 characters it would just fail and not tell you why, for 3 weeks it did this... that was real fun to figure out. THEN if it does make it through... it takes anywhere between an hour and 7 DAYS! To get to the other person, and if you send more than one, they come in random order with maybe a day or 2 in between! Seriously this system is the BIGGEST POS I have ever seen and I have been in IT for 25 years. This makes Windows 3.1 look good. Filing out this review was a DREAM compared to
What I can not comprehend is that if they fixed this crap, we would probably spend more money on it. So do they not like making money?
I know its prison, but why do you need to punish the friend or family? I didn't do anything wrong, let me talk to my friend without wanting to punch my computer.

THESE PEOPLE ARE A RIP OFF... MY HUSBAND WAS INSIDE AND THEY RATES TO TOALK TO HIM CHANGED ALL THE TIME. I WAS TOLD THAT HE WOULD HAVE A DEBIT LINK ACCOUNT SO I SET UP IT ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT THE AREA HE WAS BEING HELD IN DID NOT HAVE IT AND THEN I WAS TOL DHE WOULD GET THE MOENY WHEN HE WAS RELEASED WELL THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. THEN I WAS TOLD THAT I WOULD HAVE I WOULD HAVE TO PUT INA REFUND REQUEST AND SHOW MY BANK STAEMENT SO I DID THAT... THEN I WAS TOLD THAT ANYTHING OVER 90 DAYS THAT IS NOT USED IS NOT REFUNDED... WHAT A F*&^#N RIP OFF...

THIS SYTEM SUCKS! CAPITALIZED LETTERS SO THEY KNOW I AM HOLLERING. I DOWNLOADED THE MOBILE APP BECAUSE WHEN USING THE WEBSITE IT TIMES YOU OUT SO FAST WHEN TYPING AN EMAIL AND THE EMAIL IS LOST. MY MAIN COMPLAINT IS YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! THEY DO NOT HAVE A DAMN CLUE AND THEIR ARE UNCONNECTED TO ANY POLICY OR PROTOCOL1 ALSO EVERY TIME THE SYSTEM UPDATES IT LOSES YOU INFORMATION AND YOU HAVE TO START OVER AND UPDATE WITH A NEW EMAIL ACCOUNT BECAUSE CUSTOMER SERVICE DO NOT GIVE YOU ANY INFORMATION ONCE YOU CONFIRMED YOUR IDENTITY AND EMAIL ADDRESS THEY GO BLANK NO ASSISTANCE SO IT IS NO NEED TO SAY"CONTACT US" BECAUSE YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS OUT OF CONTACT. ALSO I LOST CREDITS AND SEVERAL TIMES FROM MAKING NEW ACCOUNTS AND I AM RUNNING OUT OF EMAIL ADDRESSES LET ALONE I WANT MY ORIGINAL ACCOUNT WITH ALL MY EMAILS! DON'T GET THIS BECAUSE UNFORTUNATELY IT WILL FRUSTRATE THE HECK OUT OF YOU OPPOSED TO HAVING A CONNECTION WITH YOUR LOVES ONES AND IT TAKES ENTIRELY TOOOOOOO DAMN LONG TO RECEIVE EMAILS!

There's no Option for NO STAR in order to post a comment, otherwise, it wouldn't get ANYTHING FROM ME!
Every other day or so, I get these annoying VM's from so called "Inmates" trying to contact me from some foreign country's jail, asking me to bail them out. All messages I have gotten, are from guys I can verily understand, due to their heavy Indian or African Accents, and their messages always ask me to create an account in order to wire money to these strangers. Yeah, right! Today, (7-13-2020) I finally called the "company" and asked to be removed from their database, (only to have this guy who also verily spoke some English), to create an account and password, along with providing him with my full name and e-mail address, JUST IN ORDER TO THEN BE REMOVED FROM THEIR DATABASE! WTF?! So, I have to CREATE an Account, Provide ALL my Contact Details, only to be Removed from their List? Who in their right mind would want to do that? These Idiots should be ShutDown ASAP! There is NOTHING LEGIT about this so called "Company"... They are 100% SCAMMERS doing what SCAMMERS do... It's a shame that there's nobody out there willing to take them on and shut them down. Anyone else experienced this same issue? Plz comment! THX!

You guys really out here robbing inmates smh im guessing my brother never getting his $200 its crazy how gtl steal money and gets away with it

I created an account because the Topeka Correctional facility in Kansas is so stupid to change from Jpay to ConnectNetwork, or should I say NO ConnectNetwork. During signin it constantly times out, no matter if you use their app or website.
I wrote them and got a quick reply saying I needed to reinstall the app, remove cookies and empty cache (as if I never worked with computers... duh). And also the browser needed to be updated. I did almost everything but without any result. I ran some diagnostic programs on my computer which showed it was their server that is causing the problem.
Again I send them an email saying it still doesn't work. Their reply is: "unfortunately we can't guarantee international browsers will be able to access our website." HUH?
It's 2020, and you can't reach their website from outside the US! I was able to create an account from outside the US wasn't I, but I can't log in from outside the US. WTF?! How should I get in toch with my loved one now?
Worst application I came across in years. And the worst thing: THEY DON'T CARE THAT YOU CAN'T CONTACT YOUR LOVED ONE ANYMORE!

First your loved one is locked away and everything costs, from gas to visit to phone calls, to food and there are extra fees for all of this stuff so its like you're being taxed twice (and did I mention that nothing is cheap.) I try to set up a phone account, the recording says u can deposit up to $50 in $1 increments. Well try entering $1 the system will pretend there is a glitch and say the amount is insufficient. Try entering $10. Insufficient, but the minute you enter $20 it works just fine! You go on the website to get passed this glitch and it tells you that in order to add an inmate, u must add a facility! Makes sense, only after you add the facility there is no option to add an inmate, but try setting up an auto payment to this ghost account and that works just fine... As long as its for $20 or more! I ordered a tablet that never was delivered and they treated my husband like a "Criminal" when he had to write in to inquire about it because me, the purchaser of course could not inquire, but they basically told him that it showed delivered and if he didnt get it, it's not their problem, yet he has no tablet!?!?!? Ordered video visit that was never approved on his end and he was even told by guards that its a scam and usually only for certain ppl, was I refunded? NO! The lady said, it will be held as credit for the next video visit (minus any holding fees, meaning they will tax the $10 just since they have to hold it for the inmate) but remind you it's not an option, so Im sure that amount was exhausted in fees within a month or 2. The only thing that works smoothly is sending large amounts of money in, but you will get nothing back! They treat the inmates like they are nothing even tho there is a percentage of them that did nothing and there's some that are in there for long periods of time when a slap on the wrist would of been sufficient. They treat em all like murderous, child abusers who shoot at nursery schools and churches, when in actuality an individual that does that... gets shorter sentences because they are usually not brown. Calls are. 05 cent per call, we get 15 minutes =. 75 cent, yet the call actually costs 1.20 (nearly the same amount in taxes) they charge us hefty taxes and there is no relief. Send your loved one $100 they might get $60 and that my friend is a scam! They are sold vending machine items for 4 star restaurant prices, they have industrial jobs that the average Joe gets paid $20-$30 to do, yet they work for $2-$3 per hour! And they get treated like animals rather they are terrible people or not because society has created this image of a "Criminal" so that no one has sympathy because "they shouldn't have done it" but its not about reform or people being upset about crimes committed. Its an industry of slavery, tax cuts, contracts and isolation so that no one knows or cares about what is going on. Its sickening! This makes me want to give up, not the time but the system he is caught up in!