Any info on TracFone or other pay as you go services??

[Kevin Palmer]

Had a friend of mine that is interested in TracFone or something like it. I really did not have good info for him as I have NO CLUE about it. I did go to there site and got decent info, but would like to tell him the real info from those that may have used it or, another service like it.



Thanks in advance...

 

[Dan Miller 3]

Kevin...I had a couple of TracFones here for the kids for a couple of years. The phones worked great and the cost was pretty reasonable. I found Wal-Mart to have the cheapest prices on the airtime cards as they discount the cards a little.



I just recently went with Verizon since my son left for college and I needed more coverage area. TracFone is great for controlling cost and giving somebody cell phone capabilities without the need for a contract. The kids took the phones with them everywhere and the service never failed us.



E-mail me if you need more info.



Dan

 

[Paul Howard]

I have the Cingular GO PHONE and like it a lot. Very good coverage. They have two options, one option is to charge $1 a day and 10 cents a minute only on days you use the phone and another option is to be charged 25 cents a minute whenever you use the phone. I use the second option because I VERY seldom ever use the phone and when I do use it I only talk for seconds. The 100 dollar refill cards expire in one year. Lessor amounts expire in shorter increments. Cingular sends a text message with your account balance every time the phone is used. When I had a regular contract I got billing that showed zero usage and I still was paying 40 some dollars a month.

 

[kil roy]

my cousin had a trac phone and it seemed like a waste to me

when you can get a regular cell phone with 300 minutes and

unlimited weekends for about 30 bucks a month from t-mobile



and one with 200 minutes per month and unlimited nights and weekends

for 29.99 from sprint

 

[Ryan Schaecher]

My wife has the Cingular Pay As You Go, it's been nearly a year now. She buys the $25 cards which will roll any unused minutes over for three months (she have about $40 on the phone right now...). She uses the $1, +$.10 a minute (unless calling another Cingular phone). Since all she really calls is my work cell (another Cingular phone) all it costs her is $1 for the first call then every call to a cingular phone after that is free....



Most of the phone companies have that sort of plan. If your friend knows that most people they would be calling has Cingular or T-Mobile or Verizon, etc, I would suggest that they get that particular phone. Since they are all about the same anymore especially.

 

[B M]

We have Virgin mobile for our parasite, I mean child. Soon we will be switching to a phone added to our real cell plan. They are all pretty much alike, good for kids, but the minutes run on the high side with cost per minute. I am not sure what it is but it seems like .25 cents a minute which is crazy. I would go with a real cell plan, HOWEVER, make DAMN sure you have restrictions for minute usage, internet usage, text usage, and area usage, such as roaming or international calls. Those mistakes can cost greatly if you don't catch them ahead of time. Especially with kids. Goodluck.

 

[Richard Gosdin]

I have used Virgin Mobile for myself and my wife for the past 2 years. We seldom use the phones except in emergency situations so they are very cost effective for us. I have to top up (add time to phone) every 90 days, so It costs me $20 every 3 months for the phone service.

 

[Bill V]

parasite, I mean child

Ouch--That's pretty cold, even in jest. I can't imagine ever talking about either of my kids that way...

 

[Mark Grumpy]

Coastie,

same as Richard G above but, I have them automatically add the minimum every 90 days with a credit card which only costs $15.00. The min's (or dollars actually) roll over forever. For limited use, emergencies and such, I find it very good. Cost is 25c per min for first 10 mins daily, then 10c a min after that. Cost is the same nationwide, regardless of where you go or who you call, no roaming etc. With my occasional military travels, it works execptioanlly well with the rollover time that adds up between trips.



virginmobileusa.com



grump

 

[B M]

My sincere apology to the WHA WHA police. Use the torque wrench next time, that way you can loosen yourself up to the proper specs. I will put you in for the National Parent of the year award.... Goodluck

 

[Judd Quarles]

I have used TracFone for about two years now. I like it. I use the phone daily for something or another, but never a tremendous amount. But, I have only been spending probably an average of $20 per month. I go with the best deals when I purchase minutes. Before that, I had a regular Alltel plan and the service often sucked. Plus, I got bills that were higher than they should have been with no explanation.

 

[Richard L]

My wife and I switched to TracFones about 6 months ago and we think it's great. The cost for our cellular sevice for both phones has been reduce by at least a third and perhaps even more.



We were previously with AT&T, Alltel, Nextel, and then Cingular before switching to TracFone. Cingular was very good but their cheapest plans still offered and charged for far more minutes than we ever neaded to use. We had the roll-over plan and after a year we had nearly 3000 minutes that began dropping off our account because they were not used.

Based on the actual number of minutes we actually used, it was costing us nearly 75 cents per minute. TracFone has reduced that cost down to a more realistic 20-25 cents per minute which includes the cost of the phones



We purchased the Double-Minutes card with 400 minutes and one year of air time. With the Double-minutes feature we can buy additional minute cards and get double the minutes on the card...ie: a 200 minute card will register as 400 minutes, and a 400 minute card yields 800 minutes, etc.



Another great feature of TracFone is that they lease their air-time from Cingular and Verizon's networks. Those two companies are the largest most widespread cellular networks. If you can't get a connection on a TracFone, you would not likely get a connection on anyother cell phone.



The only bad thing is their customer service. We had problems signing up and activating our phones online so we had to call their 800 line. After going through that maze we still could not get the phones to work and had to wait online for a customer service rep. It appears their call center is in India. The people speak english with a heavy accent, and you can tell they are reading from scripts. They are very appoligetic about every problem you may have had but they are just slow an cannot go beyond the scripts.



The other problem we had was trying to keep our old Cingular cell phone numbers. We were told by TracFone that it might take up to 4 days. Then when the numbers had not been ported over they claimed that it might take 8-10 business days. When that did not happen then they claimed it might take 30 days or more. That's when I cancelled my requirest to keep my old cell phone numbers and got new ones from TracFone. I actually like the new numbers better than my old ones and both my wife's an my numbers are sequential, which we could never get with the other cellular phone services.



TracFone is great if you do not plan on using more than about 100 minutes per month. Also there are no contracts to sign, and no pentalties for early termination, etc. If you don't want to keep your TracFone, just don't use it....It's that simple.



The customer service issue was only at sign up and I have not encountered any problems and therefore never had any further dealings with their customer service. So unless you are unfortunate and have some kind of problem, you would never have any interaction with their customer service.



...Rich

 

[Terry O]

I use virginmoblie also. I don't talk alot so it is the best plan for me. Trac phones had roaming charges when I looked at them.

 

[Freshwiler 2002]

I have Virgin Mobile for both my wife and myself. It uses the Sprint network and has very good coverage. it costs 25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes each day, then 10 cents per minute after that. I use mine more, so I top-up more frequently, however, I am only required to top up a minimum of $20 every 3 months, and unused $s rolls over. My wife rarely uses hers, so I set hers up to automatically top up every 90 days. With the automatic top up, the minimum is $15 every 3 months. This was the cheapest plan around when I investigated 2 yrs ago. I'm very happy with it. If you are going to use the phone every day, it probably is cheaper to pay a monthly fee as many do. But since we don't use it that much, pay as you go works best for us. hope that helps

 

[L Roberts]

I keep a cell phone mainly for emergencies and don't want to pay a monthly fee for such rare usage, so I have had a Tracfone for years. I buy minutes once a year. Another BIG plus is that out here in the sticks where I live, Tracfone offers the most dependable service. I know that Cingular now claims to have the fewest dropped calls, but a few years ago my mom dropped Cingular and went to Tracfone when she had to give up on her phone and borrow mine to make calls home from our vacation.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

Freshwiler, since it uses the Sprint network, can you call other Sprint phones for free? If so, that would be a huge bonus for him as most of his co-workers are Sprint oriented.

 

[Richard Gosdin]

With Virgin Mobile you can't call sprint phones for free. There is no free in network calling with pay as you go phones.

 

[Richard L]

TracFone charges for every minute you use and there are not free calls within the network. TracFone use Cingular's and Verizon's networks which combined have far more coverage accross the US than any other single cellular service.



Sprint and Nextel are very good services but they do have a lot of dead spots in their coverage area and in some densely populated areas to my suprise. That's why I got rid of my Nextel phones for Cingular.



TracFone does not have roaming charges in most area's of the country, but there are some areas where the networks that do not work with some of their phones and that may require a 2 units per minute for a call on those phones. If you make sure you purchase a "Single Rate" TracFone like the Nokia 1100 (that's what I have), there are no roaming charges and 1 minute = 1 unit.



One of the best things about TracFone is the pay-as-you-go with no monthly bills, no 1 or 2 year contracts, and you only pay for what you can use and what you can efford.



The phones aren't fancy, but they only cost about $20 each. They don't have all the fancy features of a Razor, or a Chocolate, but if you don't need a camera, or all the other bells and whistles you can have great cellular service dirt cheap as long as you won't use more than about 100 minutes per month. You can probably even save money if you used your phone an average of 200-300 minutes per month, or at least it would be close.



...Rich

 

[CountyMounty]

I will just add in my vote for TracFone. I have had one TracFone for almost 4 years now and a second one for my wife for about 2 years. We have had very good luck with them and have used them all over the country with great coverage everywhere (roaming minutes 2 for 1 outside our area of course). What I always tell anyone who asked is to try to determine how many minutes you think you might use if its more than say 100 in a month it would be worth it. The reason why I switched is because I was getting a monthly cell phone bill for about $40 and only using 30 minutes or so every month and also I have my work phone for work purposes. With Trac Fone it figures out to roughly 50 cents a minute not factoring in any of the special promotions they run. It is a great idea for emergency pusposes or for someone who will use it just a little, it is a really bad idea and can get very expensive for anyone that will talk a lot. You will find the best deal on a phone right through the TracFone website they are always running free phone promotions and run minutes promotions all the time. Normally the phones are refurbs but they will work just as well. Oh just to add her my mother, father, brother, grandmother and several co workers also have TracFones and all have had good luck, I will note that I have no experience with the other networks as most are not available here.

 

[Richard L]

firedog,

You may want to upgrade your old TracFones for the new single rate phones that only charge you 1 unit for 1 minute regardless of where you are.



I drove to Louisville, KY from Waco, TX for the National Sport Trac meet in June and called home several times and was only charged the zinge rate, 1 unit = 1 minute.



You might want to go to the TracFone website and look at the phones and how the single rate service works. The only hitch appears to be the area you register your phone in. Some areas cannot use the single rate phones if that is your local area??? I don't know why, but I suspect it may be the who the carrier in that area is and what they charge TracFone to lease airtime in that area?



...Rich