Pinwheel Kids PhonesReviews of pinwheel.com

Its phones are too strict. This good parental controls for a 5 year old but not for anything older. Its texting is so bad and notifications are random and annoying. and Location tracker is inaccurate. Complete waste of money. Says that Spotify is dangerous and when you try and download a messaging app that actually works it says that security wont let you. Constantly lagging and glitching, often times crashes apps. Doesn't not let you do anything fun. Would rate 0 stars if I could. Everyone writing a positive review clearly doesn't own the phone themselves.

Indescribably inept and ineffective customer service. Agents try their best but are constricted by asinine procedures. An agent cannot verify me unless I remember the last four digits of my billing card on file. I was willing to provide my great-grandmother's maiden name, blood type, and the address where I lived in 3rd grade, but they refused to verify me. I rattled off the last four digits of three separate cards. No go. I hung up. After confirming I'd given the correct numbers, I called back and have spent the past two hours in the most protracted, mind-numbingly unproductive calls, chats, and e-mails.

Really bad customer service. We have had our phone less than a month and it broke with some software issue that rendered the phone a paper weight. Literally cannot login to it. Contacted customer service and they said the issue would take 2 business days to resolve. It broke on the weekend. Still paying for both pinwheel and cellular service. An issue that renders the phone completely useless should be a top priority, not take two business days to resolve.

Pinwheel's Customer service team is among the worst. I have had to deal with them on numerous occasions to secure a replacement phone. At each interface, they would list a set of instructions or requirements. After I complied with the requests, in most cases, an different representative would take over the case and then require a different set of instructions. There was usually 3-4 rounds of this. When I pointed this out to the reps, there was zero acknowledgement that the previous rep offered non-comprehensive or conflicting data. Zero acknowledgement of the time it took to complete the task that simply didn't move the ball forward. We have two of these phones and have sent countless parents to secure phones for their children. My apologies to those of you whom I recommended this service. I am hoping there is viable alternative very soon.

$600+ for a pixel 8 phone, bought a case, screen saver, tossed the box, took to Verizon got a sim installed. GREAT, now just got to hand over to my 13 yr old for birthday gift….. phone will not recognize sim, 2 hrs on phone with Verizon, get sent replacement sim. 3 DAYS back and forth with pinwheel “customer service” (Different person, every time) phone still doesn’t work, not entitled to refund because box is gone. Phone still doesn’t work. Beyond frustrated! If I could give zero stars I would. Words of warning, when it goes wrong with pinwheel, there is literally zero support! On paper it looks great, but there’s no store to go to where someone can physically help, the back and forth ALL day via emails is a joke, and ultimately, unresolved, stuck with a $600+ doorstop. AVOID PINWHEEL AT ALL COST!

The concept is amazing and I REALLY wanted to love this phone. I did a lot of research to find a phone and app that I felt would serve my two young teens - giving them a degree of independence but also keeping them safe without me having to be techy. There was the normal learning curve of something new, but right away we encountered difficulties with basic functions such as texts, calls, and sending photos. Over the course of 6+ months I called customer service many times to trouble shoot these problems. They ALWAYS answered promptly and were kind/helpful. However, I continued to have to trouble shoot and it was not intuitive at all - its something they have to walk you through. After about 9 months I gave up and requested a refund of the phones because we simply could not get them to work at a basic level. They agreed to a refund despite it being outside the return window. Bottom line: great idea, awesome customer service, sucky product. It took me over a year from the time I purchased the phones to the time I actually got a refund and then settled things with the repayment company they use. MASSIVE headache all around!!!

We REALLY wanted to like the pinwheel phone. The concept was exactly what we were looking for and our daughter was excited to be able to call and text friends. However, the phones sold by pinwheel (which are samsung phones) do not work long term. My daughter used the phone minimally for 3 months and then phone quit working. We took it to Samsung store, private phone repair shops and all told us the same thing - it was a programming issue with the phone that only Samsung could repair. Sansung agreed to cover the phone 100% since still new and programming issue on their end. But, pinwheel would not honor that. Pinwheel's customer service is horrible and they said we would just have to buy a new phone. Samsung still sent us a new phone, but not a pinwheel programmed one and without all the protections in a pinwheel. I've talked to many other parents and people have had similar bad experiences. Unless you just want to be out the money, I do not recommend purchasing from this company. Our issue was a phone manufacturing issue and Samsung would honor that, but pinwheel would not and said we just have to start over.

It has been a nightmare. It was over 1 month shipping. The phone was defective. I notified customer service. I had to take it to a technician to verify it wasn’t my incompetence. Then they asked for 5 different sets of pictures and video to ensure the phone was not scratched even though the screen was not the issue. My request for a refund had been passed to five different “agents and they still won’t refund or replace… update I was able to get help from a team lead who was gracious and efficient. I do encourage buyers to be aware of a very complicated long return process.