My experience of itself was not “bad”, just complicated. I had a QLink lifeline account. When QLink was no longer participating in this government program, its customers or [some] were supposedly transferred to Assurance wireless. Not so. I had phoned service then the next day none. I called Assurance to inquire about having an account transferred to them from QLink in my name. This is day one. The representative I first spoke with lied and confirmed that I had an account. [ask about the account number, she didn’t have one] When I asked her to troubleshoot why I no longer had service, she went through the process of going to settings as if the problem was with my cell phone. She could have simply told the truth that I did not have an account transfer, rather than the pretense, and admitted that she was gathering information to start an application while I was on the line with her, and that I would have to go through the application process, which she’d said would take approximately 20-days to a month for recertification approval. The process she pretended to walk me through didn’t work, she told me to wait and retry. Of course the call had ended before I could know it wouldn’t work. The next day I called Assurance again, got a very friendly Rep and just said I wanted to transfer my cellphone service. Another request for information and application was started, supposedly. Don’t know why they do not just admit they are doing a screening process to see if you qualify rather than letting you assume you are completing an application. Which, at the end of your interview, they tell you that you will receive an application in the mail to complete and return. Of course, the timeline for getting your service varies. Through all this, customers are not told anything about products and services, ie, free smartphones, minutes, etc.,that they can expect to receive after they are approved. This whole process is very time consuming. You have to know the “right” questions to ask in order to actually get information you’re really interested in. Representatives should be cautious about establishing common ground by not becoming too familiar with customers, especially the elderly. Businesses is business, common courtesy is enough.