Cell Phones

PatMcD

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My wife has a cell phone in her car for emergency purposes. It rarely gets used. I want to cancel the contract we have with the carrier and switch to buying minutes on a card or something (the kind you see at convenience stores). How do these things work? Can I use our current phone? Once you buy one of those cards, do you have to program them into the phone? I need the complete rundown. Thanks
 
Oh, dear. Pat, you're in for a rude shock. If you're still in the initial contract period with your cell phone, it will probably cost you about $175-200 to break it.

Once that's done, you can port your number to a new company if you want, but if you want to go to one of those "buy only the minutes you use" plans that you get at Walmart, you need to get a new phone. It's got the display you need to show minutes remaining. But I don't think that they're too expensive.

You can donate your old phone to a group that provides cell phones to battered women. Your local PD should know where you can find such a group locally.
 
Pat, check with your carrier, they might have a plan like T-Mobile has. I keep a cell phone in the car just for emergencies and it rarely gets used. So instead of paying every month for a phone I hardly use, I called T-Mobile to cancel my service and was told that I could switch over to a Pay as you use type of service. I kept the same phone and number,but now I only pay whenever I use it.
 
You can donate your old phone to a group that provides cell phones to battered women. Your local PD should know where you can find such a group locally.

wow! ive got a drawer full of all my old cell phones ive had through my trials with different carriers, ill have to make a phone call and check that out.
 
dwarven1 said:
Oh, dear. Pat, you're in for a rude shock. If you're still in the initial contract period with your cell phone, it will probably cost you about $175-200 to break it.

Once that's done, you can port your number to a new company if you want, but if you want to go to one of those "buy only the minutes you use" plans that you get at Walmart, you need to get a new phone. It's got the display you need to show minutes remaining. But I don't think that they're too expensive.

You can donate your old phone to a group that provides cell phones to battered women. Your local PD should know where you can find such a group locally.

I'll call the carrier first (Cingular). She's had this phone for a couple of years now, so I am assuming the initial contract period is finished. If I have to get a new phone, I'll see about donating it. I might have a few others around here, too.
 
The system is set up so that any cell phone, whether or not it's attached to a plan or has an active number can still dial 911. That's why the old phones are useful for these groups. I donate all my old ones to a place in Lowell for that purpose. If you really only want the phone for emergencies, you can do the same thing. Carry the old phone without any plan at all, and dial 911 when you need it. I can't verify it for here, but a friend in California tells me that the 911 dispatchers there will patch you through to AAA for roadside assistance.

Ken
 
KMaurer said:
The system is set up so that any cell phone, whether or not it's attached to a plan or has an active number can still dial 911. That's why the old phones are useful for these groups. I donate all my old ones to a place in Lowell for that purpose. If you really only want the phone for emergencies, you can do the same thing. Carry the old phone without any plan at all, and dial 911 when you need it. I can't verify it for here, but a friend in California tells me that the 911 dispatchers there will patch you through to AAA for roadside assistance.

Ken

That's good to know, thanks. Of course, when I say "emergency", that covers the spectrum from "I'm off the road" to "Do I need to get milk on the way home?".
 
One thing to check very carefully. It is my limited understanding of these pay-as-you-go phones that the minutes you buy are only valid for a few months, then you lose them if you didn't use them and have to re-buy another card.
 
Do not get a pay as you go phone for emergency only use. Most carriers will have a basic service for around $20 a month that would be better as an emergency plan. Most prepaid services have expiring minutes, unless you add more minutes before the due date, then your unused minutes will carry over. Even if you do not use the phone, but just keep adding minutes before yours expire, you'll be spending $20 or more to keep it going. If that isn't enough to dissuade you consider this, what happens if you car dies in the middle of the night, on a lonely stretch of highway, and you run out of minutes while waiting to talk to an actual person at AAA? You my friend, will be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

I know T-Mobile and Nextel (now Sprint) have $20 plans. Cingular and Verizon used to have them, but don't have them on the website. The $20 plans are never advertised (any carrier), and you usaually have to ask a manager about them, but they do exist.
 
Uncle Fester said:
Do not get a pay as you go phone for emergency only use. Most carriers will have a basic service for around $20 a month that would be better as an emergency plan. Most prepaid services have expiring minutes, unless you add more minutes before the due date, then your unused minutes will carry over. Even if you do not use the phone, but just keep adding minutes before yours expire, you'll be spending $20 or more to keep it going. If that isn't enough to dissuade you consider this, what happens if you car dies in the middle of the night, on a lonely stretch of highway, and you run out of minutes while waiting to talk to an actual person at AAA? You my friend, will be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

I know T-Mobile and Nextel (now Sprint) have $20 plans. Cingular and Verizon used to have them, but don't have them on the website. The $20 plans are never advertised (any carrier), and you usaually have to ask a manager about them, but they do exist.

I just switched two T-mobile phones over to pre-paid. I was paying $25/month per phone. If you buy $100 worth of minutes then they last for a year. I probably won't use that many in a year so I'm effectively paying eight bucks and change per month for each phone.
 
... what I could advise for you here... [shocking ha... an advise coming from Manila about celfone in America.. dont get surprised... ]

First you have to advise your wife to call the carrier, not unless your authorized by your wife] and advise them that you would be shiftin to a lower rate plan. It all depends on how you got the phone and to which cellular phone company you got yours.

Try to negotiate.... some cellular company may or may not agree to that wihthout terminating your original contract which may cost you 150 to 300 USD. PLEASE NOTE that is if you got it directly from the carrier as the vendor of the cellular phone might have tied you to another contract. Some folks actually has TWO CONTRACTS... one from the carrier and one from the vendor where customer got the phone at a discounted price.

If you got it directly with the carrier, well you have one less headache to resolve.

Things that you can do to get away with the contract or paying off are:

1. Areas that they said is covered but are actually not or reception is bad or
2. You can just have it transfer to somebody else at a discount.

Now in regards to pre-paid as against post pay cellular phones. You are actually also obliged to be feeding it once a month... you also have to pay some monthly dues [feed it with a card a month or service will be terminated and you can not make or receive regular calls and eventually even loose the number that goes along with the phone]... the only difference is that your service is terminated after consuming the number of minutes that you have paid for.

e.g. You pre-paid for 300 minutes. You only have 300 minutes to use and you can not go over it versus with a post pay where 300 minutes is just basically your initial minutes to use and service will still be available even if you exceeded it [you would then be charge for the extra minutes].

I just hope that I can recommend one but if you can provide me at least your zip code maybe I can help you. Please be careful in getting a pre-paid service.... good companies to consider are those providing the network directly and not those resellers of celfone services.... [T-mobile,
Cingular, Verizon are the companies that you may consider as these are the same companies that I will be avaling from Im downthere]. Some pre-paid companies are just resellers of services...

just my two cents worth....
 
Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you intend on keeping the same number, do NOT cancel your contract first. When you "port" the number, they'll notify the old company that you're canceling.... Otherwise you may loose that number all together, which happened to me :(
 
Republic of Mass said:
Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you intend on keeping the same number, do NOT cancel your contract first. When you "port" the number, they'll notify the old company that you're canceling.... Otherwise you may loose that number all together, which happened to me :(

right, you have to have the number ported succesfully before canceling your contract with your previous carrier.

BUT IN CASE YOU HAVE DONE IT [CANCELED YOUR OLD CONTRACT] WITHIN 24 HOURS AND YOU REALLY NEED HAVE THAT NUMBER BACK [as you can not afford to loose it].... you may.... [not guaranteed] call back your old service provider [where you are having the number ported FROM] and have your service restored! [wink]
 
Republic of Mass said:
Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you intend on keeping the same number, do NOT cancel your contract first. When you "port" the number, they'll notify the old company that you're canceling.... Otherwise you may loose that number all together, which happened to me :(

Sorry to hear that. I know it was an agonizing process... and it was really a headache... [cry]
 
Republic of Mass said:
Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you intend on keeping the same number, do NOT cancel your contract first. When you "port" the number, they'll notify the old company that you're canceling.... Otherwise you may loose that number all together, which happened to me :(

if you have just canceled your contract with your previous carrier and you really need to have that number back, you may try to call them up [old carrier] as that number could still be available. The reason why they can not offer it to you is they are not permitted by law to invite you back [you are porting the number away from them] but if you will be the one to initiate in going back then they maybe be able to help you out. [wink] Again, this is only applicable if you are retaining your service under a new contract. [wink] Ofcourse this will entail again another issue of canceling your new contract with the new carrier [which could be under a 3 days or more, money back guarantee].
 
The other thing is to extend your family.

My cell, the wife's, my parents, and my aunt are onon the same plan. Work pays for my line, and each of the other's is just $12 a month with all the taxes. None of us use our phone much and we now have over 4000 minutes on rollover.

So, find someone that 'needs' a phone and offer him some $$ to add you to his plan.
 
Is anyone else here cell phone only?

When I moved two years ago the area has comcast high speed internet.
It seemed a waste of $ to me to have high speed internet, land line and a cell so I dropped the land line and am now a cell phone only boomer.
So far so good.

Anyone else take the plunge???
 
No, not going to do that. Mainly because my house is so old and we have all tube and copper, so trying to get a reception in my house sucks.

I have been kicking around going to Verizon's VoIP. It sounds like I could save a ton of cash...just haven't decided if I'm going to do it our not.
 
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