I never use my cellphone. I carry it around because I am paranoid about my car breaking down and leaving me stranded somewhere ( which has happened twice). I never even turn the thing on. I have the cheapest plan I could find which costs me about $26.00 a month. Not a lot, but an irritating bill for something I rarely use. I was thinking about getting one of these TracPhones, where you just pay as you go. From what I could gather fromn the website, you do have to renew your minutes every 60 days, and the cheapest card is $19.99, but thats still half of what I pay now. Does anyone have any experiences with these phones they could share with me? Are there hidden scams?
I had one years ago, but it wasn’t very good at the time. A few years later someone gave us another one for Christmas. It works really well now. At Wal-Mart you can buy the time cards for about $16.00.
It’s good for soemone like me that only has a cell for emergencies.
I used a tracfone about 2 years ago. (don’t know how diff. things are now)
Tracfone, IMO, is good for three purposes:
- You lack the credit to get a regular phone plan
- You want to keep a tight rein on your (or your teenager’s, say) cellphone expenses
- You barely use a cell phone at all
I was in category 3 at that point. I probably made 3 cell calls a month (it was only used for coordinating with my wife in the city when we were shopping separately during the day, etc.).
Here are the downsides:
a) very expensive per call. And you do tend to use up those minutes quickly. You’ll be surprised at how many missed calls, etc., you make during the course of a month. Even though they used to give you the first 15 seconds of a call free, it often takes that long for a call to connect with someone, so you’re usually out that minute of calling time if someone isn’t home or you have the wrong number.
b) it is a bit of a pain in the ass to continually re-up your minutes; you used to have to go online, etc., and go through a laborious verification process. But then, I have automatic debit on my current cellphone acct. Maybe it’s no worse than writing out the check ea. month.
But if you really do use almost no minutes per month, it can work. I think, eventually, you’ll get sucked into a genuine cell phone plan at some point–and then, of course, you’ll have to give everyone else your new number, and get a new cell phone (since tracfones work with no other plan).
I just got my bill Cingular bill yesterday- I used 3 minutes last month. That was a call I made on Christmas day to my brother., so it was a busy month, cell phone wise. I usually have no usage at all!
Before you decide, compare with [url=http://www.freeup.com/]Verizon FreeUp. Having sold both, FreeUp is a better deal, IMO.
One advantage of Tracfone is that you can buy time in one year increments. With other plans, the air time expires in 45, 60, or 90 days.
I’ve got a Tracfone for the same reason–I rarely use it. I’ve been quite happy with the Tracfone. I think the cheapest way to do it is buy one of the one year service cards. You can usually get them on special with extra minutes on top of the 150 that come with the card. That’s usually more than enough for me for a year.
The refurbished phones they have on their site sometimes are a good deal.
Looks like the one year plan is $94.99, which includes the phone, one year active service and 150 minutes. My phone now costs me $312 a year, so this looks pretty good. 150 minutes gives me 12.5 minutes a month , which is way more than I will use 
.
Thanks for the feedback !
I use a TracFone. Got it to establish a new business. Cheaper than a monthly fee since I only use the phone to answer service calls.
As a car emergency phone it seems ideal.
Be aware that the phone is like cash. Lose it and you lose the minutes and the phone number.
One other thing. They charge you two units a minute when roaming.
Had my analog TracPhone for two years. I use it infrequently but am glad to have it. Among other things it’s useful to have an alternate phone number for family members to call when my son is online with the computer. I buy the annual card and that’s enough minutes for the year. Works out to something less than $10 per month.
Customer service sucks but haven’t had much need since problems with the original phone, which was replaced.
I’ll second Q.E.D.… if you might use your phone more than you are now, check out FreeUp. You’ll pay more for the phone but the minutes are a lot cheaper. If you buy a $100 FreeUp phone you’ll get about $50 of free airtime to start off, but if you buy a $50 Tracfone you’ll only get 30 minutes of airtime.
If you really won’t use it that much, check out Virgin Mobile. They only require you to spend $20 every 90 days to keep your phone active, and they use Sprint’s network, so you’ll have decent coverage and sound quality.