Anyone Use a Tracphone?

My gal's 90+ YO Mom doesn't cotton to much technology, but does well with the Jitterbug phone and plan we got her. BIG buttons, simple simple simple. They are proud of their phones - cost us $150 or so + $16/month in California for 30 minutes/month. Designed for those with less than perfect eyesight and hearing. Might be an option for some here who are not on the early part of their retirement...
Jitterbug Phones: Easy Emergency Cell Phones
 
I think T-Mobile To Go is the best deal around for folks (like me) who only use their cell phones occasionally. They have good phones and often run internet specials. I got a Nokia phone with 30 initial minutes plus a $25 refill card (another 130 minutes) for $40. The 30 initial minutes were good for 3 months. I then used my $25 refill card which rolled over the minutes left from my initial 30 plus added another 130 minutes, the total of which are good for another 3 months. So I ended up getting a nice phone, 6 months of service, and 160 minutes for $40. The minutes are anytime, anywhere (in the US) minutes, with no roaming charges. As has been mentioned by other posters, once your total refills reach $100 (you don't have to do the $100 all at once), you become a Gold Rewards member, and all subsequent refills, regardless of the amount, extend your minutes for a year. Since the smallest refill amount is $10, once you are a Gold Rewards member your total cell phone cost can be as little as $10 per year, assuming you have an adequate supply of carry-over minutes. For me, this setup is perfect, as I use, on average, fewer than 10 minutes per month. Another thing I like about T-Mobile is that their phones use SIM cards, so you can transfer your SIM card (essentially your account with its minutes) to any other phone that uses a SIM card.
 
BTW, a good trick with tmobile is to hang onto that included refill card, put the $100 card on the phone to get the thousand minutes/good for a year/gold rewards status, then use the refill card after 364 days to extend the minutes for a second year.

A lot of people automatically put that small refill card in first, wait the 3 months, then put in the 1 year/$100 card.
 
cute fuzzy bunny said:
BTW, a good trick with tmobile is to hang onto that included refill card, put the $100 card on the phone to get the thousand minutes/good for a year/gold rewards status, then use the refill card after 364 days to extend the minutes for a second year.

A lot of people automatically put that small refill card in first, wait the 3 months, then put in the 1 year/$100 card.
Click to expand...

The $25 refill card that came with my phone said on it that it was void if not activated within 90 days of purchase. Otherwise, I would have done exactly what you are suggesting. Also, if it had been possible to do it that way, you would get 150 minutes instead of 130 for $25 card, since you would be a Gold Rewards member
 
I've also have had Tracfone for 5 years with no real problems. I got a new phone and one yr./400 minutes for $106 with tax last year. $8.83 per month for cell service is cheap. Tracfone + AAA = ablility to drive older cars and save thousands.
 
cute fuzzy bunny said:
BTW, a good trick with tmobile is to hang onto that included refill card, put the $100 card on the phone to get the thousand minutes/good for a year/gold rewards status, then use the refill card after 364 days to extend the minutes for a second year.
Click to expand...

This is what we did last week. Have had T-Moble to go for about 2 years now never any problems, and CFB's trick works like a charm for us. We use the prepaids because we do not use much, and while our overseas cellphones work in the states, buying each T-mobile to go +1000 minutes was much cheaper than 60 minutes of using overseas roaming. :eek: Had Tracfone before but would never go back. Too bulky, no txt msg (at the time anyway), Best Buy stopped carrying them and their re-fills, so had to go on a hunt, codes and activation much more hassle than T-mobile to go, etc.

R
 
Well actually, we bought a $10 card...extended the 900 minutes we had let for another year...
 
I plug Net10 as one of the cheapest services. Flat $0.10/min, reasonable expiration dates, and good coverage in most places. Probably even cheaper than TracFone, or I would have bought a TracFone :)
 
Goonie said:
I've had a Cingular/AT&T cellphone for 15 years, and I replaced it with a Tracfone....effective this morning when my number was ported over to a new SIM card. When I purchased my Tracfone last month (Motorola W370), I was told (wrongly) that a Cingular/AT&T # couldn't be ported to the Tracfone. I called Tracfone customer support last night, and was told (in English!) the # could be ported! YEA!!! :D So I'll have my old # as soon as my new SIM card arrives (no extra charge)!
Click to expand...

I received my new SIM card by DHL Friday morning. Swapped out the old one, and put in the new.....Turned the phone back on, and in just a few seconds I had my "old" number back! Yippee-Yah-Hoo!
 
When I got my son his first cell phone, I got him a TracFone. My idea was that he needed some way we could call each other to let someone know somebody would be early, late, arriving with friends, needed picking up, whatever, and I wanted to have a cost-control mechanism in place.

It turns out my son would rather use Internet IMs to keep in touch with friends than use his limited cell phone minutes, so his phone has cost us a around $9 a month for the last two+ years.

My mom and dad, both in their 80s now, are also planning to get a cell so they can call people to let them know when they are delayed, etc. For them I suggested one of the nicer $50 TracFone handsets (because it has a larger, easier to read display and easier to press buttons) plus a one-year card with 1000 minutes of airtime and a double-your-minutes-for-life on future airtime purchases for $140. Assuming they keep their usage low, that TracFone continue to offer one-year cards with 800 minutes of airtime (after doubling) for $100, and both they and the phone handset last for three years, that would make their monthly cost about $10.83 a month.

But that got me thinking: how does my wife's and my Verizon account, which has three phones (my sister has one of our phones), 500 minutes of "talk time" plus "free" evenings and weekends and Verizon-to-Verizon calling stack up? It turns out that the three of us actually only use an average of 450 minutes airtime (all types, with a range in the mid 300 to upper 500 minutes) per month at a cost of $78 or so. That's 17 cents per minute.

With pre-paid airtime running 8-12 cents per minute when purchased in bulk and comparable phones (or phones with TracFone's $40 one-time "double minutes" upgrade, a one-time cost that should be bundled in with the price of the phone) running $100 or so, our cost would run from $44/month and 10 cents per minute to $62/month and 14 cents per minute, a savings of $18-$34 per month.

All with no contracts and two-year agreements to hassle with. Better yet, my sister can get a better deal on her own cell phone and pay for it directly herself without depending on our "family" calling plan. (This arrangement has been somewhat of a logistical hassle, as you might expect!)

I think we'll move over to pre-pay!
 
we are going to dump our cellphone accounts and move to a prepaid version. We never use all of our minutes and typically only use it for brief phone calls.

I believe we can cut our phone bill in half by going to the prepaid cellphone.
 
Since making my last post, I went online to add minutes to my tracfone. Got to the step where it said "We have now charged your credit card, click Continue to add the minutes to your phone," and when I clicked Continue, nothing happened.

So now I'm waiting for a response to my email.
 
We have had a Tracfone for my wife for over two years and are very happy with it.
They recently changed the cards to 90 days service so we can get a year(4 - 60 minute cards) for 80 bucks plus tax.About 7 bucks a month including tax.
Gives us 240 minutes a year.
There are always specials to get extra minutes(20) or more with larger cards.
I would recommend them for folks who don't talk a lot and want an emergency/travel phone.
 
Final update: No response from my email to tracfone, but when I went back to the web site, it detected that my last transaction had not completed successfully, and added the minutes to the phone. However, instead of 60 minutes and 150 days, it gave me 90 minutes and 90 days.

Since I usually have more minutes than I need, I telephoned to get it resolved. I was connected to an operator quickly. I could only understand about 1 out of 5 words that she said, but we were able to communicate.

The operators have some kind of detailed flowchart script, such that instead of "OK, I see" they say something like "I understand that you are having a problem concerning a recent addition of airtime and you are calling to resolve that difficulty." I was able to get across that adding 60 days to my phone would solve my problem, and she did that.

Today I got a response to my email saying "I see you've gotten it resolved."

This is typical of my interactions with tracfone -- something won't be quite right, and I might have to resolve it over the phone, but it turns out OK in the end.
 
These are exactly the sort of small time manual interventions that make me nuts. Getting someone non english speaking with a script makes me double nuts.

When I looked at the cheap phone options, as soon as I saw the "we'll automatically autobill every xx months and roll your minutes over from month to month/quarter to quarter/whatever...I just saw a series of problems waiting to happen.

Cell business profitability relies in a larger part on paid for minutes expiring unused. Pretty much the same model as gift cards.

Hence, one could expect they'll build as many switchbacks, pieces of fine print, catches and "whoopsies" to get your minutes to expire unused. The more transactions involved, the more opportunity for something to go wrong.

Still, nothing beats the conversation I had with a directv guy from india about the fact that they autobilled me a day late, then added a late fee, then autobilled me for that. Took me about 15 minutes to get him to understand that the lateness was caused by directv not billing my card on time, not anything I had a hand in. ::)

Okay, maybe the conversation I had with the comcast guy from india about how they also failed to autobill me because their system doesnt always work, then charged me a late fee, and then charged me a reactivation fee for my cable modem, and then a reactivation fee for the cable tv box I dont have, to use with the cable tv service I dont subscribe to.
 
Yes, exactly. One of my goals these days is to avoid any need for tech support phone calls or customer service calls. Impossible to reach that goal.

At least with Tracfone, little enough is at stake that I can afford to take a loss instead of deal with customer service. All that was at stake for that last problem was about $10. I figured if I didn't get a quick resolution I would just blow it off.

I'm sure there would be much more potential for heartache with a several year cell phone plan.
 
The one year plan has been pretty bullet proof. Buy a year of minutes for $88. Punch it into the phone. Put a tickler in my calendar for 364 days later to buy another years worth online, punch it in.

Worst thing that can happen is I fudge on the renewal and lose the rollover minutes, and get stuck having paid $7.30 a month for cell service and not using all the minutes.

The alternatives all seemed to either require at least four automatic or manual transactions per year, or for annual offerings a much higher price/minute or far less minutes.

We generally havent been big minute users, but there have been times when we were, like when my wife was pregnant and I was across town working on her old house, and when we were moving and getting our old house ready to sell. Those rolled over extra 'free' minutes sure came in handy.
 
Fuzzy Bunny, Your post about the Comcast guy was just teriffic. That one beats my worst experience by a mile.
 
Like it? The best part was at the end, when he issued the credit his system required that he put in a reason for the credit. He says "I must say why we issued this credit. Can you tell me what to put in?". In other words, I didnt really understand what happened here, but you're angry so I'm giving you your money back. Now tell me why.

I fought hard to suppress the first three things that came to mind.
 
OK, so I just ordered a phone from T-Mobile-2-Go. It's a Motorola V195, with a SIM card, and 10 minutes of air time. All for $42.00 (including tax, shipping was free) I think that is a good deal. I bookmarked your Calling Mart site to get discount minutes, and we'll see how it goes with T-Mobile. I like the idea of no contracts. If I don't like the service, I can just sell the phone on Ebay. And now, I'm a T-Mobile-2-Go guy.
 
Just got finished signing up for a TracFone for myself for 1 yr & 820 minutes plus a new phone (ok, reconditioned with a 1 yr guarantee) for $139.00 + tax. I'm going to do my best to discipline myself not to go over my 66 minute monthly average. Shouldn't be too hard. This works out tO $12.72 per month, about 1/3 of what I currently pay with ATT/Cingular. I also bought my wife (already on TracFone) 600 minutes + 1 year time for $99.99 + tax, which is about $9.72 per month for 50 minutes a month. That's more than she currently uses.
 
martyb said:
Just got finished signing up for a TracFone for myself for 1 yr & 820 minutes plus a new phone (ok, reconditioned with a 1 yr guarantee) for $139.00 + tax. I'm going to do my best to discipline myself not to go over my 66 minute monthly average. Shouldn't be too hard. This works out tO $12.72 per month, about 1/3 of what I currently pay with ATT/Cingular. I also bought my wife (already on TracFone) 600 minutes + 1 year time for $99.99 + tax, which is about $9.72 per month for 50 minutes a month. That's more than she currently uses.
Click to expand...

After a couple of months now, I'm thoroughly happy with my Tracfone! I especially DON'T miss the monthly Cingular/AT&T bill! My next cellphone expenditure will be 1 year from this week.....and 1 year/800 minutes will cost about the same as 3 months of my (former) Cingular/AT&T bill! :D
 
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