Tell me about prepaid cell phones

[ncmickeyluvr]

My dd is 10 today and she is the ONLY 10 yr old on the planet without a cell phone....or so she tells me. It's truly her goal in life to have one. DH has been very against her having one, but I've worn him down. There have been too many times lately where I had wished I could call her easily. We've decided to ease into it with a prepaid. I'm a little overwelmed with all of the options. I think that the tracphones with double the minutes for life sounds good but I'm not sure. Also, how does texting work on prepaid phones....she's definitely going to want to text. Please tell me which plan/ carrier is best!!!

 

[shamrock30]

I've had a Tracfone for years, and it works for me. However, I only use it for brief conversations a couple of times a week, at the most. It would not be a good choice if your daughter will be routinely talking to her friends on it, or do a lot of texting. Texting is not free to send or to read with Tracfione.

 

[kjgy]

My DD13 has had a tracfone since she was 10. She doesn complains she doesn't have a real phone but
since she hardly uses it in saves me money in the long run. At this time
there is not need to add her to my plan. Tracfone doesn't have fancy phones. The reception is great. We used it when travelling to
Canada so we did not incur roaming costs with our verizon plan.
I would recommend it for a first cell phone.

K

 

[mrodgers]

Tracfones are not good if you are going to gab on the phone. They are a cheap way to have a phone for emergency use (meaning when I'm at the store, calling the wife to ask, "what did you want again?" )

You can receive text and it doesn't cost anything, but to send it costs 0.5 units (1 unit is 1 minute). The cost savings for usage as an emergency phone is that it costs about $20 for 3 months (90 minutes). You can get larger cards which costs more money and there is also the double minutes for life thing. Forget to update the phone with a new card once and you lose that though.

Minutes roll over if you don't use them up. Also, if you forget to update the phone, if you reactivate with a new card within a month after it expires, you will still have the minutes to roll over. After a month of inactivation, you lose the minutes.

I got my tracfone several years ago. We've let it run out on multiple occasions. We've let it run out for extended periods (6, 9, 12 months) multiple times. Every time it runs out and you reactivate it, you end up with a new phone number.

We reactivated it when my wife went back to work. She carries it with her and occasionally calls me on her way home late at night. I haven't looked in a while, but it probably has several hundred minutes because we don't use it much.

Good for emergencies and good if you want to have contact possible with your child when not at home, but I would say it is definitely not good for texting or if your child wants it to gab with her friends.

 

[NotUrsula]

Prepaid phones are great for kids that age, even if they want to do nothing but text; the trick is to choose your plan carefully.

Most of the prepaid carriers offer unlimited text plans, so buy that if you want it. If you don't buy it, texts will be charged against the account balance just like minutes; you get as many as you get, and when the money runs out, then the phone won't work except to dial 911. You have to add money to get it working again, so it's impossible for a kid to run up a huge bill without your knowledge as long as you don't make the mistake of linking a credit card with the account.

There is value in buying your child an "ugly" phone. Lots of kids take out their phones when they should not, just because they want to flash it around and impress people. An uncool phone takes care of that urge.

 

[abcboys]

DH and I both have tracfones and have no problems with them. We both have double minutes. He's on the monthly plan so he gets 100 minutes for 9.99 and I just buy the 60 minutes every 3 months, plus I usually find a code for extra minutes free. Neither one of us uses all our minutes every month and they do rollover. (I think DH usually have well over 200 minutes on his phone) We don't use them for just emergencies (really how many real emergencies are there?) but more like for convenience. Call to tell him something or call to pick up something. I will give oldest DS my phone if he is going somewhere without me and needs to call me. It has worked fine for us.

 

[robinb]

She's not the only one, as my 10-year old doesn't have one either. But I am currently comparing pre-paid plans to adding her to my AT&T contract so I'' be looking over your shoulder on this thread if you don't mind .

 

[anabelle]

My teenager has Virgin Mobile pre-paid. We have an extra "family" phone without texting for when the kids are at activities, but he wanted his own phone. So he found VM to be the most economical. He only texts. It costs him $20 per month for unlimited texting. There are a variety of other plans but that plan works for him. I can't imagine that a 10 year old is going to be calling or texting many people, so you might be able to get a cheaper plan. BTW, you can choose different plans every month if you want. You have to put money on it every 90 days (Top up), or it goes inactive. I grounded my son once and he didn't top up for more than three months and VM actually put money on it for him so they wouldn't lose the account.

 

[shamrock30]

You can receive text and it doesn't cost anything, but to send it costs 0.5 units (1 unit is 1 minute). The cost savings for usage as an emergency phone is that it costs about $20 for 3 months (90 minutes). You can get larger cards which costs more money and there is also the double minutes for life thing. Forget to update the phone with a new card once and you lose that though.

Actually, my Tracfone charges to open the text as well. I think a few of the older models used to let you read them for free, but they stopped selling those a while back.

 

[robinb]

I was researching pre-paid phones today and found out that all of them block downloading of photos from the phone to your computer. You have to EMAIL the photo to yourself, spending a credit or "minute" to do so. My DD loves taking photos with my phone and I assume that she would want to take photos with her phone too but it would chap my hide to have to pay 10-25 cents per photo just to get the darn things off her phone.

If I am wrong about this, I would love to be set straight!

 

[NotUrsula]

AFAIK, you're correct, at least where VM is concerned (unless you spring for a phone that will take a MicroSD card, that is.) VM does include picture texts in the text plan, so if you have unlimited, there is no extra charge, otherwise you spend a message or $.25, depending on what kind of plan you go with.

Something that is important to remember is that you cannot look at these phone charges as nickel and diming you if you go with a pay-per-use plan. They are considerably less expensive than any contract plan that you will find, and allow you to really hold down costs if you have the self-discipline to do so. Still, you have to accept that budget is budget for a reason.

People who are used to contract plans tend to look at their big buckets of messages as "free", and convince themselves that individual charges for single messages are an expensive rip-off. On a PAYG plan, you pay for nothing that you don't use, and you don't pay for waste. You pay more per unit for what you do use because of that. I maintain my VM account, WITH text messaging and internet when I want it, for $80/year. I don't get a lot of time for that price, but I don't use a lot of time; I roll some over every month, and now I have a fairly large time balance. If I paid $40/month a huge amount of my "free" airtime/messages would totally go to waste, and I'd be out nearly $500 for the year, besides.

Be aware that most contract plans will not allow you to re-use a prepaid phone unit on a contract plan. If you plan to use the prepaid as a temporary phone until you can add her to your contract plan after you renew, then don't spend big on the prepaid.

 

[dyna]

The past few months we have had a lot of trouble with tracphones, usually that came with an upgrade from tracphone we lost service on 2 of our phones at home. DH spent several hours on the home phone with tracphone trying to get problem fixed. Each call was usually 2 hours he was told something different each time he called an was told the problem would be fixed within so many hours or days depending on day an person he was talking to that day. The 2 phones it was 2 seperate times so that was twice he went thru that. Finally each time traceophone decided to send new replacement phone which did not solve all problems DH could not get the phones activated, thenhad trouble getting minutes switched from old phones once that was worked out many days many hours later the ohones stopped working at the house again IT has been a never ending problem for months with tracphone.


dH an I more or less use our phones for emergencies or to ask the quick question while the other is out etc funny no one but dh an my dd's even has my number. The 3 dd's are on our tracphone plan too they do some texting...DD has some trouble with tracphones in her dorm as well but the ohone that does not work at home so far works in her dorm.

While we not happy with tracphone service for the money they can not be beat

 

[2minnies]

If you are in a Verizon market check out http://www.pagepluscellular.com/.

 

[robinb]

AFAIK, you're correct, at least where VM is concerned (unless you spring for a phone that will take a MicroSD card, that is.)

Thanks! That is the conclusion I came to last night and I just came to post here that I found a Motorola EM326 slider phone with a MicroSD card in it for $50 on Net10.

I do have to disagree with the "nickle and dimeing" you, because that's exactly what the prepaid phone companies do when they sell phones that intentionally block the transfer of data through the Bluetooth and/or USB connection and force you to use time/credits to transfer your photos and other information. They suck you into buying a specific phone with promises of a camera but then you are stuck with an extra expense.

I guess that pre-paid plans are not for everyone ... and probably not for my family because of the equipment restrictions. I am still considering a phone with a MicroSD card as my 10-year old really won't be talking on the phone a lot or texting ... but she does like to take photos! I'll report back here if I can find any more phones that fit the bill. For me, I have to weigh the expense of a pre-paid phone with that of adding my DD to my AT&T account. The downside of adding her to my account is that her phone comes with a 2-year contract and if I want to ditch AT&T next year I will be stuck paying for an individual plan for an 11-year old while I also pay for an individual plan elsewhere. OR ... I would have to pay a fee to AT&T to get out of her contract.

 

[CRdisMom]

one thing to consider while you are looking for the right phone is that VM does offer really cheap phones. Some are nearly free. I saw one for $10 on line. You may want to have her "try"one of the cheaper phones to see if it will work for her. I've had VM for over 6 years. I rarely spend over $20 a month. My plan isn,t even offered anymore. Each of my minutes is 18 cents, no monthly charges. My DH went to them and he got a plan with 200 min for $20 a month. You can transfer the number if you decide to got to AT&T. I do pay for each text and I do not have a camera.

 

[corie161]

If you are in a Verizon market check out http://www.pagepluscellular.com/.

I agree, I've switched my family over to pageplus and so far so good.
I'm currently on the 1200 talk/1200 text/50mb data plan. My husband in on the pay per minute and I currently pay for my daughter to have 2000 text. She adds whatever "talking" amount she wants.

You can buy phones from them, or you can use most any CDMA - Verizon phone. My daughter is using an older phone (LG Scoop). I purchased one from Ebay...a smartphone, and my DH is using his old phone.

You also can purchase a Verizon Prepaid phone from Target or whereever, but not activate it on that service and activate it on Page Plus.

Good info at this forum: http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=364

 

[robinb]

I agree, I've switched my family over to pageplus and so far so good.
I'm currently on the 1200 talk/1200 text/50mb data plan. My husband in on the pay per minute and I currently pay for my daughter to have 2000 text. She adds whatever "talking" amount she wants.

You can buy phones from them, or you can use most any CDMA - Verizon phone. My daughter is using an older phone (LG Scoop). I purchased one from Ebay...a smartphone, and my DH is using his old phone.

You also can purchase a Verizon Prepaid phone from Target or whereever, but not activate it on that service and activate it on Page Plus.

Good info at this forum: http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=364

So, Page Plus uses the Verizon network? It looks pretty cheap as long as you are not roaming and I assume that anywhere Verizon doesn't roam is OK.

 

[corie161]

Yes Page Plus uses Verizon Network. I haven't had any issues with roaming. Occasionally my roaming indicator will come on, but haven't had any excess charges.

 

[NotUrsula]

I do have to disagree with the "nickle and dimeing" you, because that's exactly what the prepaid phone companies do when they sell phones that intentionally block the transfer of data through the Bluetooth and/or USB connection and force you to use time/credits to transfer your photos and other information. They suck you into buying a specific phone with promises of a camera but then you are stuck with an extra expense.

Again, AFAIK, it isn't an issue of blocking that capability for the most part; it is just that most of the phones they sell simply don't have that capability; none of our phones have a USB port or bluetooth data capacity. Mfrs. will often make more limited versions of phones for the prepaid companies, in order to keep prices down, since prepaid users do actually pay for their phones.

FWIW, my DS' school bans cell phones with cameras, because they can so easily be used to cheat and to distribute amateur pornography. (Yes, they ARE supposed to be turned off during the school day, but the school is realistic enough to know that they do sometimes get turned on.) If your child is caught with a camera phone it will NOT be returned until the end of the school year, whereas on a first offense a noncamera phone can be retrieved by a parent at the end of the day. I guess I'm thinking that if you think that what she really wants is a way to take photos, why not just buy her a camera?

 

[robinb]

Again, AFAIK, it isn't an issue of blocking that capability for the most part; it is just that most of the phones they sell simply don't have that capability; none of our phones have a USB port or bluetooth data capacity. Mfrs. will often make more limited versions of phones for the prepaid companies, in order to keep prices down, since prepaid users do actually pay for their phones.

Just an example, Tracfone's Motorola em326 charges using a USB port and has Bluetooth for handsfree. BUT both are disabled for data transmission. I think that one of Tracfone's Samsungs is the same.

FWIW, my DS' school bans cell phones with cameras, because they can so easily be used to cheat and to distribute amateur pornography. (Yes, they ARE supposed to be turned off during the school day, but the school is realistic enough to know that they do sometimes get turned on.) If your child is caught with a camera phone it will NOT be returned until the end of the school year, whereas on a first offense a noncamera phone can be retrieved by a parent at the end of the day. I guess I'm thinking that if you think that what she really wants is a way to take photos, why not just buy her a camera?

My DD's school does not have the same rules, thank goodness! She also has a camera as do I. I just find myself taking my photos with my phone because it's with me all the time.