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Pre-paid Phones

T

teddyv

Senior member
I am organizing an event and need an emergency-only cell phone. I do NOT want to use my personal phone as this is going out on all the flyers. I do not anticipate any use unless there is an emergency so minutes are not a big issue. If I have to put a name on it I would rather put it in the name of the org as I do not plan on running it again next year.

I would love to find a phone for like $50 that comes with maybe 100 minutes. I've seen a bunch at Target but not one has any info on how the minutes work or how one buys more, whether they expire after a certain amount of time, etc.

Anyone?

Thanks!
 
I believe Virgin Mobile's service is like so - you buy a phone, buy some minutes for the phone. the minutes expire after one or two months or something if unused, and if you need more minutes you have to buy more.

did you ask a sales clerk about the phone and read the brochure? both have some surprisingly useful info when it comes to pre-paid phones.
 
i know with tmobile you buy a prepaid simcard, pop it in, and use it till you run out of money. try to find the 'authorized dealer' boot in those stores. maybe those sales rep can answer your questions.
 
Different carriers work differently. Most of them have a minimum airtime purchase (say $10), but it expires within a month unless you buy more. With Tracfone, the more you spend on minutes, the longer they go before they expire. If you buy a $20 card, it expires in 60 days unless you buy more (so the phone costs $10/mo pretty much, for 30 minutes a month as long as you're not roaming).

If you buy a 1 yr prepaid plan from Tracfone.com for $100 (450 units, 1unit=1 minute local, 0.5 min roaming), you get a reconditioned phone free.
 
I think state law in quite a few states require pre-paid carriers to allow emergency phone calls on their network, even if the phone has no minutes remaining on it.

Although this only helps if your emergency is an emergency in the normal sense of the word...
 
Originally posted by: MrBond
Different carriers work differently. Most of them have a minimum airtime purchase (say $10), but it expires within a month unless you buy more. With Tracfone, the more you spend on minutes, the longer they go before they expire. If you buy a $20 card, it expires in 60 days unless you buy more (so the phone costs $10/mo pretty much, for 30 minutes a month as long as you're not roaming).

If you buy a 1 yr prepaid plan from Tracfone.com for $100 (450 units, 1unit=1 minute local, 0.5 min roaming), you get a reconditioned phone free.
Click to expand...
They have $20 phones too that come with minutes, I believe. I'm thinking I'm going to choose Tracphone simply because they are more up-front and don't have the extra charges that the main carriers have.
 
Originally posted by: CrapHead
I used TracFone for my pre-paid cell.
Click to expand...

I had tracfone for a while. got the phone free and would buy a "card' every month or so. it was great for what i needed it for.

i just had it for emergancy's. most cell phone plans still were more expensive then useing the tracfone. then got a good offer from T-mobile.
 
I bought a T-mobile at Target for $35 - comes with $15 free airtime (which works out to be 60 minutes, good for 60 days.) Activation was pretty painless. Thanks for pointers 🙂
 
Originally posted by: CrapHead
I used TracFone for my pre-paid cell.
Click to expand...

Ditto! I have got to add minutes by the end of July to keep my service active though. I received some bonus minutes for activating my phone through their website too.
 
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