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Reasonable Pre-Paid Cellphones in the US?
MBCook asks: "I've been with my current cell provider for a few years, and never been terribly happy with them. They lock and cripple their phones, but their coverage has been decent. However, in the last month I have experienced having my phone telling me it had voice mail when it didn't for about 2 weeks (little icon was there, but calling in said 'No messages'). Then today (Dec. 4th) it notified me of a very important call I missed — on November 19th. Since my contract expires next month, I've been looking at pre-paid cell phones and their plans. I'm not a big talker, and it would take me a while to use up 100 minutes. All the pre-paid plans seem to like to expire your minutes relatively fast (30 days) unless you buy a large number like 1000, then you get 90 days. Add to that the daily access fees some of them want to charge you ($1 per day you use your phone) and I may as well be paying $40 a month to one of the big boys. Is there any way to get cheap pre-paid cell service in the US? I don't care about ring tones, and while I'd like to be able to get games I can survive without 'em. I can't be the only one in this boat, what have others found?"
The cost savings of going on a month-to-month plan are tremendous.
It seems that the prepaid, no contract deals are often marketed to customers who for whatever reason can't pass the carrier's credit checks. So, just as the "second chance" car financing and credit card companies, and the title loan outfits, the "cash 'til payday" shops and all the other companies who exploit students, people who have had bad luck, been suddenly unemployed and had to decide between food and bills, divorced, (and yes, actual deadbeats too) can charge their "customers" an interest rate straight out of Goodfellas because their clients have nowhere else to go, expect to be treated the same. You get reamed with prepaid. I wish it wasn't so, but it is.
So, a couple of other people have already recommended virgin mobile. I used them as my first cellphone provider, and they worked great for me.
:)
Just wanted to relate a little story about dealing with their customer service. I set it up with my debit card to automatically withdraw, and near the end of one semester, I lost the phone. I ended up getting a monthly plan with another carrier, as it turned out to be cheaper. However, things were busy, and I didn't have the phone handy, so I never got around to looking up their customer service number and actually canceling the service.
Then I forgot about it. I think it went for 7 or 8 months before I noticed that I was still getting charged. So, I called up virgin and canceled. They asked why, told them that I lost the phone, and got another provider, because their plan was too expensive for how much I used the phone. No hard feelings, no awkward moments. Instead, the guy looked at the last time I made a call, and refunded all the money that had been automatically deducted since my last call.
Needless to say, I was totally floored. This is the best customer service I've ever had from a cellphone company. Which I guess is another way of saying "I'm glad these guys weren't trying to screw me out of every possible penny, too."
If they had a competitively priced monthly plan, I'd be with them. The only other downside besides price is that I got the feeling that I somehow wasn't really cool enough to be using the service. It was really spunky. I'm not..
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I can't stand talking on the phone and I detest the idea of signing a 2-year contract for a phone (much less any contract), but over a year ago I bought a T-Mobile prepaid cellphone. I absolutely could not be happier with it. When I put 1000 minutes on the phone for $100 (for a $0.10/minute rate), I was automatically moved into their "Gold Rewards" program, which gave me a year to use those 1000 minutes. However, as I've stated, I don't like talking on the phone. After a year, I still had over 600 minutes left on the phone. When I went to add more minutes, I discovered that I only had to add the minimum amount of minutes (I believe it was 10) in order to have all of my leftover minutes from the previous year rolled over into another year of service. Basically, so long as you spend over $100 on minutes and renew with the minimum amount of minutes at the end of each year, your service will continue. The downside of having a prepaid is that my cellphone isn't insured against loss, theft, etc. Moreover, if I lose it, I lose those minutes I added. Regardless, I'm very happy with the phone.
T-Mobile has been good for us. We paid $100 in the beginning for 1,000 minutes, which are good for a year. We don't use that much, and we extended the remaining minutes for another year by buying more minutes. (We use two-way radios and other methods of communicating.)
It is extremely offensive that phone companies think they can take away things for which you have paid, without giving anything in return by expiring the minutes. That is one of the many, many consequences of having a corrupt government.
T-Mobile has proven to be dis-organized and adversarial, but not nearly as adversarial as the other companies. There is a lot of really, really stupid game-playing. (Companies don't allow people to work in marketing now unless they have had a brainectomy.)
Here is a T-Mobile example: "Good news! You asked to hear your remaining time in minutes, and now you can..." That message, which has been playing for a year, refers to the fact that T-Mobile uses fake dollars, that are equivalent to as many minutes as T-Mobile says. The customer is not allowed to know the formula to calculate minutes per dollar, except that $100 is 1,000 minutes. (Really, not kidding.)
T-Mobile will unlock your phone free after three months, so you can use it on a different network. That service may be tied to the idea of the customer traveling to another country.
T-Mobile uses the GSM cellular protocol, which is the best, by far, and is used throughout Europe and most of the world. If you plan to travel to other countries, you will need a quad-band phone like the Motorola Razr V3.
T-Mobile has international service with is very, very expensive, so you always want to get a SIM card from a GSM service provider in the country you are visiting.
Eh?
I have perfect credit and a good job. I could get any cell phone plan I want. What do I use? I have a TracFone for which I pay an average of about $10/month. Got any contract plans for that rate?
I guess a plan is good if you live with a phone glued to your ear all the time. I tend to use mine about 20 to 30 minutes a month, ussually 1 or 2 minutes at a time. I don't need or want a plan. I don't even really want a cell phone - but it's useful on occasion.
I've had worse experiences with landlines. And cable TV for that matter. At least no one company has a monopoly on cell phones, even though none of them are at all concerned about customer service. Maybe if cellphone providers make just a little effort to please their existing customers they wouldn't have to spend so much on advertising.
Yes, I hate how those bastards at the FCC auctioned off the radio spectrum. Radio waves go through everyone's airspace, so we should all be allowed to share it fairly.
If the radio spectrum was properly allocated, we could just use a home based transceiver instead of a cell phone when we are within range of the house (probably several km). It could switch to cell mode when out of range--assuming you want a cell carrier in the first place. Imagine essentially free phone calls near home.
Don't even get me started on how WiFi was pushed into a small band shared with microwave ovens...