When it comes to a proper communication company for prisons, Inmate Sales has become one that customers consider. Not without reason, most of them chose Inmate Sales due to the many services provided as well as the ease of access with the launch of the Inmate Sales mobile app.
But it doesn’t eliminate the facts regarding the customer complaints, as we’ve found in their reviews on Inmate Sales. Whether or not Inmate Sales is legitimate to use is a big question for those of you who plan to use this service, right?
Okay, here’s what you can know about the reliability and legality of Inmate Sales!
Is Inmate Sales Legit?
When you question whether Inmate Sales is legit, we can say it’s actually legal to use. It is known that Inmate Sales is a legal entity under the laws of the state of Kentucky.
Inmate Sales emphasizes that they keep the customer’s data protected in accordance with their privacy policy. However, they’re not responsible if you provide your data to other parties outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
Keep in mind that the legality of Inmate Sales does not correlate to its performance. That means you have to do research first by finding information and various references from people who have worked with you before to find out whether or not Inmate Sales is reliable to use.
What Does Inmate Sales Offer?
Just like most prison communication companies, Inmate Sales also provides plenty of services that facilitate inmates and their families or friends staying connected. They can actually make phone or video calls and send messages to each other
They can do this through the Inmate Sales website and mobile apps called InmateSales App and InmateSales View; both can be downloaded on Android and iOS.
- On the InmateSales website, you can create your account and purchase its services, such as adding funds for calls, paying for chirping text messages, buying tablets, and taking a video visit.
- On the InmateSales App, you can make a deposit for calls, schedule a video visitation, and send emails.
- On the InmateSales View, you can take an actual video visitation with inmates, wherever you’re.
The following are the products that Inmate Sales offers:
Calls
Inmate Sales provides three options for outside parties to make a call with their loved one in prison. And each has a different service. Here they are:
- Direct Pay: This option allows inmates to call only one specific number. Since it is linked to one phone number, the Direct Pay account is owned by a friend or a family member. Every call made will take a charge from the inmate account.
- Prepaid Call Card: This option allows inmates to call any number, as long as they have a calling card ID number. The card can be purchased at the facility.
- PIN Debit: This option allows inmates to call any number, as long as they have sufficient funds on their account. Even though it is owned by the inmate, the funds are usually added by outside parties.
Chirping Text Messaging
This is a real-time messaging service where inmates will use a Chirping Device to send and receive messages from their families or friends without any apps. The device costs $4.00 for monthly service, which will be deducted from their debit account, and it uses a rental system.
Tablet
Aside from chirping devices, Inmate Sales also provides tablets that inmates can use to access educational resources and entertainment.
View
View is one of the Inmate Sales services that can be used for scheduling video visits. You can choose between taking a video visit at the facility or at home. Before making a schedule for a video visit, you have to add funds first.
Issues That People Find When Using Inmate Sales Services
We’ve found customer complaints regarding the use of Inmate Sales on Better Business Bureau (BBB), a platform for buyer references. And it is one of the websites that shows the Inmate Sales reviews.
On BBB, there are about 46 people who have their own issues with Inmate Sales. BBB categorizes the issues into some types, including:
Billing Issues
Most of the billing issues at Inmate Sales refer to refunds, and some users experience difficulties when requesting refunds. Customers who have billing issues complain that Inmate Sales does respond to their complaints regarding refund requests, but they don’t process them, so consumers don’t get their money back.
Based on their complaints, funds owned by an inmate that are used by another inmate, both prepaid calling cards and debit PINs, are an important issue for them, but Inmate Sales seems to ignore the problem.
Service or repair issues
There are so many complaints about Inmate Sales services and troubleshooting. On BBB, the customers mention the following:
- The connection is suddenly lost.
- Not approved when sending emails to inmates.
- The message was not sent but is still charged for.
- The chirping, e-mail, and video visit systems often suddenly go down for quite a long time, around 5 days.
- Inmates cannot reach the landline phone that has been registered on Direct Pay.
- Customers failed to add money and the funds have not increased, but the balance in their bank account has been deducted.
- Failure to log in to the Inmate Sales account for a long time.
- Not connecting when making a call.
- When doing a video visit, the screen suddenly keeps freezing, the conversation is not clear, sometimes fast and slow, and it shows connected and not reconnected repeatedly.
Sure, there are still many issues regarding the services, but we show the outlined ones.
Product Issues
Some customers experience difficulties when purchasing and using Inmate Sales products. In addition, they are sometimes charged additional fees for using services, such as Chirping device rental fees.
Customer service issues
Customer service issues refer to the lack of response in handling customer problems, so they think the representatives don’t help much with problems when they use Inmate Sales. Apart from that, slow responses and even rejecting customer calls are additional negative points for Inmate Sales.
Delivery Issues
Only a few customers complained about delivery issues. These are related to delayed message delivery, but they are charged. When they complained, there was no confirmation about a refund.
Reviews from Inmate Sales Customers
We also dig up information regarding whether or not Inmate Sales is legit from other platforms. This time, we got some customer reviews from the PissedConsumer website.
It is known that PissedConsumer provides a space for buyers to provide their opinions regarding the products or services they have used—Inmate Sales is no exception.
On PissedConsumer, Inmate Sales only obtains 2.9 ratings out of the 44 reviews, and the majority of customers are neutral, meaning they don’t give positive or negative reviews.
To make it easier for you to know their reviews, we’ll show them below:
Positive reviews
Even though Inmate Sales customer satisfaction is below average, that doesn’t mean Inmate Sales products and services are not reliable to use. Of course, several customers also give positive assessments to Inmate Sales that they post at PissedConsumer.
Here are some positive reviews of Inmate Sales:
- Quick problem solving for forgotten and wrong PIN debit.
- Representatives give assistance to customers when they send money to the wrong inmates.
- The availability of easy-to-use mobile apps.
- Purchasing the products is quite simple.
- A fast response is needed when customers need to recover their password.
Negative reviews
Refund issues remain the main issue that occurs at Inmate Sales. These refund issues are not only related to refunds to customers or inmates’ accounts, but they also concern the issue of services such as telephone or video calls that are still charged, even if they do not fail.
In addition, they also experienced failure when adding funds but did not receive refunds, even though the balance in their bank account had been deducted.
Here are some negative reviews of Inmate Sales:
- Visitation takes a long time to be approved, and it is still pending for more than two weeks.
- Customers fail to take a video visit at the facility, but Inmate Sales don’t give notification.
- Customers are unable to get video visits that they have paid for.
- Any additional purchases for services
- The connection when video visits is bad.
- Many issues are not resolved.
It’s important to note that we picked the Inmate Sales reviews from two trusted sources. Sure, there may be other references regarding the Inmate Sales services.
Conclusion
Inmate Sales is legitimate to use, but whether or not it is worth using will depend on your own decision. By reading and understanding the Inmate Sales service and the issues that usually occur in it, along with the customers’ reviews that we showed above, you should have an idea of what to decide.
