# Teach me! Pay-as-you-go Phones

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-pay-as-you-go-phones/539370>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 14, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-pay-as-you-go-phones/539370 "2010-05-14T00:46:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-pay-as-you-go-phones/539370/21 "2010-05-15T21:47:43Z")

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> [@Mr\_Downtown](#):
>
> I’m very keen on[PagePlus,](http://www.pagepluscellular.com/) partly because they use the Verizon network. If you already have a Verizon phone from somewhere, you can use it instead of buying a phone from them. You can port any existing phone number to the service. No daily fees; just add some minutes every few months. A 100-minute card is $10 and extends your service 120 days.

I really wish we had that around here. That card would cost $30 on Trakfone.

Anyways, I want to mention that, most of the time, when you buy a new phone, it comes with a card or free minutes as a reward. In fact, it’s often cheaper to buy a new prepaid phone than it is to buy separate minutes if there’s any special deal on the phones.

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**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-pay-as-you-go-phones/539370/22 "2010-05-15T22:49:55Z")

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I’ll ‘third’ Net10. In addition to being stupidly easy to use (important to me, because I’m technologically impaired), you can either buy phone cards at Wal Mart, just about any truck stop, and just about any store that sells the phones, _or_ (and this is what I usually do) you can buy minutes online. They even have a service that will _automatically_ add minutes each month (as few as 150 minutes for $15.00, if you don’t use your cell phone much) and then bill your credit or debit card.

The _only_ downside I’ve found to Net10 is that if you have a problem and need to call customer support, it’s amazingly difficult to get to speak to a real human. Then when you _do_ get a real human, odds of them being fluent in English are against. Seems like most of the customer support people I’ve spoken with have _two_ English phrases down pat: “I’m sorry you are having this difficulty” and “Thank you for choosing Net10”. Everything else is, well, hard to understand.

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