RAZ Memory Cell Phone Review

I bought the RAZ memory cell phone for my mom who recently suffered a stroke. It was easy for me to set up and she figured out the phone very quickly.

She was having a lot of frustration with her old phone and would delete contacts, get lost on different screens and couldn’t figure out how to get back, and I was constantly having to go to her long term care facility to pick it up and make changes for her.

This phone was a great solution for all those issues. There are 2 things I would change if I could. On the phone you can set it to where only people in the contacts can call her, great feature since she has received spam calls asking about her social security number.

I wish there was a way for the caregiver to record a voicemail away message that just informs the caller to call another number to get in contact with a family member.

I am not having to contact all her doctors and make sure they know to only contact me moving forward, but if they called her and got the message to call me that would be nice. Also, I love the option to be able to make changes to her phone from my phone.

I wish RAZ had an app for this and not just a website you had to go to. The app would just make this process easier. Otherwise it is a perfect phone for my mother.

I'm sure Raz had good intensions when making this cell phone, however beware, this cell phone is not for every senior or person with a disability. That's why they implement the $75 bucks restocking fee and it's a shame because they should be more understanding and forgiving for caregivers and special folks they cater this service to. Everywhere else in the market place, they'll accept a return on items with a full refund within 30 days. I'll tell you who this phone service does not work for.

Any senior or person who is hard of hearing and I'm not talking about deaf, just hard of hearing. The speaker volume is less than average and when you set the phone to auto answer because say the person does not hear the ringer at times, it goes right to speaker, it minus well be on mute for the hard of hearing. This phone is not for a senior who suffers from arthritis or a person who is weak in mobility with their hands and can not handle sensitive touch screen commands.

This kind of operation is very finicky, no matter how I set the commands, one touch, touch and hold, my mom could not operate this no matter what, there was always a wrong touch, an unintentional dial or just couldn't perform the task. This is especially troublesome if your loved one has never handled a smart phone before, the touch operations as simple as it seems to us, it's just not as tactile like an old school button flip phone. My mom could not answer a call, hear a call or make a call. Lastly, I purchased the charging pad for the Raz, I have a charging pad for my Samsung S9+, "now that has a great speaker volume". However, come to find out, you have to stick this charging sleeve on the back of the phone so it can charge on the pad or else it won't charge. The sleeve is stuck on the back of the phone with adhesive and when the adhesion loosens up, it just dangles from the phone and it's just cumbersome.

Not only that, the wireless charging is just not accurate, you have to make sure you place the phone and wiggle it around the pad for it to finally give you a confirmation that the phone is charging and most of the time it goes out of charging. Don't get the pad, it's just a waste of money. Like I said, I'm sure Raz had good intensions, I liked the backend with the caregiver app but if your special loved one is hard of hearing, limited in finger tactile mobility, and is a senior who has never used a smart phone, this service is not for them. you'll end up loosing $75 bucks like I did.

My mom will be going back to her trusty flip phone, she was able to handle that. I'm not trying to bash Raz, please just take this criticism and maybe work on an alternative for this type of case to improve your service or you should have a disclaimer about hard of hearing, tactile ness, and smart phone experience or hey, just give back a full refund on a return. "We're talking about special people here".

I should have believed the reviews that warned that this company has terrible customer service and a poor return policy. All I wanted was a phone that would give my family member, with dementia, a way to communicate with his loved ones. By the time I received the phone, my family member was no longer able to use a cell phone at all. The phone was completely new, never even activated, still with complete original packaging when I called Raz, 39 days after I ordered it (I received it a few days after ordering).

They would not let me return it. The return policy is for 20 days, with a $75 restocking fee, in new condition. I even offered to pay a higher restocking fee. They would not take it back. Buyer beware! This doesn't even speak to the issues of the phone itself, which I only read about, but still, in my desperation to find a communication device for someone with dementia, I ignored. Please read all the reviews before spending $349. I've only ever written a few reviews in my life, but I felt compelled to warn people about this company.

High hopes left us disappointed. Although I thought they had figured out how to help us take care of Mom with this device, it’s been nothing but a headache. Customer service is only available 10-7 ridiculous!!! In this day and age when technology provides opportunities to work from home especially with tech help someone should be available 24/7. The phone DOES NOT do what they say. Read everything!! Directions are sketchy at best. Then customer service reps are know it alls (condescending) who don’t know or understand dementia or the demands it presents to the patient or caregiver or family. They need more training in dealing with the customer and the phone needs more work before it will truly be beneficial to dementia patients and those who care for them.

When the phone stops responding at 9 pm and you can’t get help and aren’t with the person that has dementia, it’s disheartening to say the least. I wish I had read more reviews and done more research. It’s a great concept but Raz hasn’t perfected it yet! So sad. $424 down the drain. FYI. When a company has a restock fee, that should be the first clue that even they know it’s not what they advertise. Probably need to report to BBB for claims that just are just simply not true.

The Raz Memory Cellphone is good in concept only. Application is buggy and has issues that are directly opposing the needs of Alzheimer/dementia patients. My mother constantly made unwanted phone calls by holding the phone by the bottom. Also, we have owned the phone for less than a year and have had two batteries expand and go bad, leaving the phone useless. For someone who may rely on this form of communication, it simply does not work.

There is insufficient control of the phone as caregiver. The user guides are useless. They do not include any troubleshooting. For example, all the contacts on my More Contacts list disappeared. I could not add any, nor could I edit the six allowed contacts. There was no indication the phone was in safe mode, however I followed instructions to exit safe mode by restarting the phone. This did not help.

The customer support is only available 10 am- 7 pm Eastern, M-Sat. I found it very frustrating that there are not useful FAQs for problems. The FAQs only deal with basic operational issues which are in the user guides. The lack of control is also frustrating, for example you can't delete call history, calls after 2 weeks just fall off. Why can't caregiver do this? All of the allowed control is very limited, which seems ridiculous since I am the caregiver and should be able to do just about anything you can do with a normal phone; it's the senior phone user who needs these restrictions.

I think the concept is good. My father in law likes the phone and has had very little trouble learning how to use it. However, he is prone to holding a finger on the screen which places a call. I wonder why can’t all calls be like the 911 call option? When a user placed a call, have the secondary screen allow to either call or hang up?

At first the phone worked as advertised, but our relative with dementia was very quickly able to press buttons and log out of the easy to use picture buttons to an internal admin screen. We ended up having to reset the phone every day.

The notifications to remind to charge the phone did not work. The advertised video mode, is still in development, but I had to contact customer support to find that out. After just a few short months, the phone stopped charging all together.

It turned into a very expensive paperweight and left most of our family unable to contact our relative, leaving them isolated and alone, which is the exact opposite of what we wanted to achieve with this phone.

Customer service was great via email but did not actually help solve any of these issues. They do not seem to have a warranty policy, so when the phone stopped working, they recommended us trying to sell it. I would not recommend this phone or company to anyone.

I bought a phone for my 86 yr. old mother with dementia, and it worked “OK” for about 6 months. Hint for new user’s power off (not restart) the phone once a week and it will work better. After 6 months the phone would not work in speaker mode.

After hours of phone time with support we sent the phone back. The battery had swollen making the phone unusable, they sent a new replacement phone. This phone gave horrible feedback to the caller hearing themselves echo back.

After the endless calls with support, they sent another phone, same issue. FYI, they use FedEx to ship phones and must use the cheapest method it takes a week or so for the phone to get there. They will not send a new phone until they get the old one, so your dementia patient goes weeks without a phone.

The company doesn’t care about the effect this has on your loved one. When I sent back the 3rd phone, I was told it would be replaced with a different manufacture phone and expected a quick turnaround.

So now after a couple of months of not having a working phone or no phone at all, I am being told “We are looking into it”, and we will call you when we know something. Who knows when or if I will ever get a working phone from them? I have begun looking for alternatives.

Be sure if you are going to buy this product you do so with your eyes wide open, it is not the panacea they make it out to be and the support after the sale is not very stellar.

BTW expect to pay them a monthly fee so the "Emergency number" doesn't call 911. Somehow, they can make it call them for a fee but can't make it call you for free.

The phone is super sensitive and nearly impossible to carry without unplanned calls to everyone on the screen. I have seen this phone dialed a number while setting on a table untouched. My dad is not making all of these unplanned calls. The phone just does it sometimes.