Anyone know about PREPAID phones and can answer some ?'s

[DeterminedOne]

I am asking because I have a friend who has a prepaid phone and every time I try to call it just rings, no voicemail or anything. I posted earlier this week about phone etiquette. For those who read that thread, yes, I am talking about the same person. At this point I refuse to believe this person is ignoring my calls. I'm starting to think the call is coming up anonymous or the minutes have run out. Anyone here experienced with a prepaid - do prepaids have voice mail or caller id? What happens if the minutes run out - does the phone just ring, or would I get a message that the phone is not reachable? I think the service is through Sprint.

 

[swilphil]

I have a pre-paid phone plan through Cingular. It has voice mail and caller id. I believe if the minutes have run out (only let that happen once in 4 years) you do get some sort of unavailable recording. It's possible that the person doesn't have voicemail or it's full so it would just ring even if the phone was turned off.

 

[Msslaydbug]

My son's prepaid phone will not ring - you get an unavailable message. It says something about temporarily disconnected

 

[1Prince2Princesses]

Several years back I had a Tracfone prepaid. It would indeed ring endlessly if the minutes were out. It did have caller ID, though, and I'm ashamed to say I avoided a few calls by saying "I must have been out of minutes."

 

[Quasi123]

I have a TracFone prepaid too. It has a caller ID but no voicemail.

 

[Pigeon]

I've got tracfone. Some of the phones you can buy from the service cannot do voicemail. You also need to go through some rigamarole to set up the voicemail and if you don't do that, it just rings. Since I use mine only for emergencies, I thought about not setting up the voicemail to conserve minutes.

 

[DeterminedOne]

With prepaid are you charged if someone calls you even if you don't pick up, or do the minutes start once the call is answered?

 

[poohs_hunny]

With prepaid are you charged if someone calls you even if you don't pick up, or do the minutes start once the call is answered?

You are not charged until you answer.

I thought that all prepaids nowadays had voicemail, but I guess I'm wrong. My very first cell phone was a prepaid Tracfone back when they first came out (around '99 or '00). It had no voicemail, but I've had two others since then, and both had voicemail.