I'm looking at cutting my cell phone costs. I've got a Galaxy S3 I'm on a month by month with since my contract expired in October. I've got a reduced price of $80/month for unlimited talk & text + 3GB of data. Verizon has prepaid plans I can use my current phone on. $60/month for unlimited talk & text + 2.5GB of data.*
It seems I wouldn't get 4G service only 3G. I can't see it would make that much of a difference.
Has anyone made the switch? Any issues?
I read Verizon's website incorrectly. I can't use current phone, but I could get a phone for $50 or so (Motorola Motor G, which gets good reviews). Will be running by Verizon tonight.
Prepaid phones suck. I mean maybe one puts up with the suck because they are cheap and you prefer to pay ahead (I have). But just so long as you know they suck. I can't even make a call without being reminded before the call goes through of how many minutes I have for the call. I'm like "I don't care I just want to make a @#$# call, and if it times out oh well". But if one doesn't mind this ...
A few of them are really annoying, when the balance gets low they send you to a really long message about reloading the card, so 5 minutes of that before making a call (that was AT&T, Verizon isn't that bad). And I'm like "I know my balance is low I just want to make a @#$# call". Also if you don't reload in time, they threaten to expire the phone number (Verizon does). Now I don't know if they follow through but your like ugh. And then also the periods of time you can buy are SHORT. I'd love to just buy a years worth of time (but no contract) and forget about it for a year while I used the phone. But the longest periods the prepaid reload cards have is 3 months (the options by credit card etc. may be different). So I'm having to get a reload card every 3 months etc.. It's to the point getting a contract crosses my mind, though not to the point I'm going to do it quite yet.
Tracphones exclusively serve the prepaid market so they might be a better option if one must have prepaid. I don't have much experience with them.
Trees don't grow on money
Actually, I've had Virgin Mobile prepaid for going on 10 years, and they do some of the stuff you described, but I'm okay with that because the phone meets my littlebitty needs(except for limitations--occasional bad reception-- in their service area, sometimes)and because it is very economical. The service reps I've spoken with are helpful. They've never carried out their threats to cancel my number and keep my leftover minutes, for not prepaying zackly on time. . That said, I can understand why someone who is heavily reliant on a cellular & has no landline might find prepaids to be less-than-satisfactory. It just depends on what your needs are, and I'm glad there are a range of options.
Apathetic, this would be prepaid, not pay as you go. There's a difference. It would be $45/month for base plan of unlimited talk/text and 1 GB of data.
Tradd, I'm really happy with Virgin Mobile prepaid, unlimited calls, texts, and data for $35 a month--I bought an iphone at Radioshack and signed up there. You can get a sim card, I think. . .
I don't have any recent experience with Verizon although I'm with rodeosweetheart, my wife has an iPhone attached to the Virgin Mobile prepaid network. She gets 300 minutes per month and unlimited texts and data for $30 per month. Virgin uses the Sprint network which can be spotty in some areas, although we've yet to run into any dead zones on her phone.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
I haven't switched with Verizon, but it's well known in the prepaid community that they are one of the most stringent carriers when it comes to activation (only Sprint is fussier). You'll have to ask Verizon if they will have to deactivate your phone since their rules stipulate that only inactive devices can be -- err -- activated. Depending on how much data you need, you could check out Selectel Wireless. They're a Verizon MVNO that offers more data for less money but otherwise has pretty much the coverage Verizon offers. There's also PagePlus, which for years had an excellent reputation as an MVNO offering great value, and they still do, but they were bought into Carlos Slim's wireless empire (TracFone, Net10, etc.), where customer service is not a strong suit. n.b., I have no direct experience with these carriers, having left Verizon behind in 2008 or 2009.
For what it's worth, both my wife and I have been on prepaid for more than a year now. My business phone has been prepaid even longer than that. Her plan has those end-of-call notifications of how much was spent/how much is left, and they cannot be exorcised. But they're a small price to pay for $10 and some combination of 250 minutes/500 texts/data. I have my iPhone (6; not all phones on prepaid are crappy) on a monthly GoPhone plan and, short of some roaming and creative ways to buy phones, I get exactly the same service AT&T postpaid customers get. No notifications after each call, same performance. I could buy cards every month, but I'd rather save the hassle and go auto-renew each month. Depending on the carrier, too, you can often buy a year's worth of service (or some other large denomination) and not have to worry about cards and PINs and such every month or three.
It's possible with a little homework.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
If the notifications were after the call it might be tolerable, they were before the call on Verizon and AT&T (recently yes). *blood pressure* going up each time I make a call since instead of my call going through as I expect (from landlines) I first have to listen to that, that's why I question if it is really worth it.
Trees don't grow on money
I'm a slow learner. I've had three smart phones, and I've returned two of them. I currently have a prepaid HTC 816 on Virgin, and I think I'll keep it, though it's become increasingly obvious that what I really need is a simple flip phone plus a small tablet, so I'm keeping my flip phone active. I can't really go wrong for the price. Unless I decide to ditch the landline. I'm sitting here at the computer with three phones stacked up at my elbow...
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