TracFone pre-paid cell phone

[working on it]

...A minor annoyance is that the phone number I obtained was recycled. I already received a few calls even though I have not shared my cell phone number with anyone yet.

Re-cycled numbers...that's one of the reasons I've stayed with AT&T for so long. When my wife was switching us every year or so, I got so many calls for other people, it was maddening. I also had the same with On-Star in my HHR (got rid of it, didn't need the annoyance). I got a fresh number about ten years ago, and that stopped the errant calls. Now that I finally have a Smartphone, I can easily screen/block other (spammers/scammers/whatever) calls with an app; my non-smartphones always seemed to let some thru.

[Nesandhills]

Both my wife and I switched from a contract phone through a national provider to Straight Talk offered by Wally world a little over a year ago. The money we have saved is great, less than half our normal monthly charges on the contract phones and we have unlimited time and data now also. Service area has been great in my travels thoughout NE, SD, ND, WY, CO, & MT.

[rowerwet]

I've been with tracfone since 2001/2 the phones keep getting better, the service is ok, and customer support is as horrible as ever. Non English speaking people who have to keep putting you on hold to get more information, and REFUSE to put the supervisor on. I spent two weeks trying to add airtime to phone, finally after being strung along and even put on hold while everyone went home, and don't forget the guy who couldn't pronounce english numbers "sero", what? "sero", oh zero. yez, then fife,... (I hung up) I always wonder what kind of service I would get if I spoke spanish and pressed two when I first called
Finally turned out the phone was too old to work with the current software they had, took two weeks to tell me that?!
Get a new Phone every 6 years at the most, their website can't handle much older than that.
Recently I lost my phone, after a week of looking I bought another one, LG440 (I just need a basic phone that folds so I don't turn it on in my pocket) some jerk found my phone and used up over 1000 units in about 5 days. I don't even use that in a year normally.
I love the $99 dollars a year part of the whole deal, no contract and no having to buy more airtime each month, (every other company requires that)
I travel all over the Northeast for my employer, there are some more remote areas where my tracfone won't get a signal but the company phone will. however this isn't the end of the world, I can still send texts if there is a tower tracfone doesn't contract with near (and make 911 calls also), which my wife (she also has a tracfone) and I prefer to do as a text only takes 1/3 of a unit to send or receive, while calling takes 1 unit in my local area, or 2 everywhere else.
Since nobody else offers the 1 year for $99 deal, I gladly continue to buy tracfones, however if customer "service" doesn't fix your problem in one call, throw the phone away, after you buy a new one and transfer service!
If you text and talk all day every day, tracfone is more expensive in the long run.

[Bigwoods]

My wife and I have had Tracfone for 8 years..It has worked very well for us. Service has been good even when traveling. I agree customer service is tough if you get a person with poor English. I just hang up and call back. It usually takes an hour on the phone so I grab a coffee and surf the net while I'm put on hold.

We are please. Now if my wife would just quit sending hers through the clothes washer.

BTW we have a Family Value plan. $18 a month.

[Fenlason]

My wife and I have had Tracfone for 8 years..It has worked very well for us. Service has been good even when traveling. I agree customer service is tough if you get a person with poor English. I just hang up and call back. It usually takes an hour on the phone so I grab a coffee and surf the net while I'm put on hold.

We are please. Now if my wife would just quit sending hers through the clothes washer.

BTW we have a Family Value plan. $18 a month.

I ran mine through the washer and dryer. [it was turned off] It came out working fine.

I purchased my tracfone and minutes through Radio Shack. I go back to them to get it refilled. [as of yet I have not had any other service problems] Doing it this way, I have never had to deal with a customer service person, other than the clerk at Radio Shack.

[rowerwet]

I refill my phone by checking for good coupons at retailmenot.com then I go to the tracfone site and buy the airtime with any good coupons I can get. after the transaction is done, you just shut the phone off and turn it on when they tell you to. Airtime and units show up just like that, if it doesn't work, they will send you a text to turn the phone off and on again.
Much better than the old "enter this line of code, hit send, enter this line of code, hit enter, now enter this line of code, hit enter and tell me what the code on the screen says..."

[Fenlason]

I only go once a year to get it renewed. They usually have deals with extra minutes. I find it hassle free and it works for me.

[rebapuck]

I've had Tracfone for over twelve years. It works for my purposes....AAA or other emergency. Can hardly beat $100 /year.

[Esteban]

The phone I bought has kinda sorta gone up in price to to $79.95. hsn.com/lg-840-no-contract-smartphone-tracfone-service

I paid $10.00 less plus shipping. Now the price includes free shipping. So almost the same cost.

For the price you get a LG 840 phone and one year of service including 1500 minutes. With free long distance. To most of the world.

My phone came with an initial 20 minutes of air time and 60 days of service on top of that.

So, you may get a phone, 14 months of service, 1520 minutes of airtime, and free shipping for $79.95.

A PDG deal.

[jseyfert3]

Not sure how many, if any, of you TracFone users would like a smartphone, but I have the Moto X smartphone and pay $10/month ($12 after taxes) for unlimited texting and calling, no data, no contract. This is through Republic Wireless. They offer this because the phone uses WiFi to offload texting and calling when it's available. When it's not, it uses Sprint's Network, and Verizon to roam. There are a couple other plan options, including a $25 one that has unlimited cell 3G data. They also allow switching plans from your phone instantly twice a month, so say I go on a trip, I can switch to the $25/month plan to get data to look up places to go and things to do for two weeks, then switch back to my normal $10/month plan. In this case, I'd be charged half of $25 for half a month of that plan, and half of $10 for half a month of that plan.

Only downside is you have to pay $299 for the Moto X, which is not a bad price for a smartphone with no contract and cheap monthly rates. Upside is if you don't like it, within 30 days you can return it for a full refund of the purchase price and your first month of service (you don't get a refund on shipping).

So for only $12 a month, I have a smartphone, which the geek in me "needs", with no data except on WiFi. Some people ask how I can have a smartphone with no data, isn't that the whole point of a smartphone? No, the point of a smartphone is the variety of things it can do. My smartphone is my alarm clock, notepad, reminder, calender, camera that's always with me unlike my DSLR, stopwatch, timer, flashlight I always have with me, clock (although I also wear an analog watch), calculator, unit converter, GPS navigation using pre-loaded maps, and more, all without data. Of course I can also text and make phone calls too, both of which are unlimited.

[Esteban]

tracfonewireless.com/android-phones now has Android phones.

[jseyfert3]

tracfonewireless.com/android-phones now has Android phones.

I could never use one of those on a daily basis...sorry. I like being close to the upper end of the smartphone range. Those look too old and slow for me. They may work for some, but even the upper priced ones are borderline for a good Android experiance, IMO. The LG Optimus Dynamic is the worst of the bunch. At Android 2.3, it's not going to give a good user experience to anyone anymore, apps just aren't going to run good on it, it will be sluggish, etc.

Also, not sure how the texting works with Tracfones, but I send and receive a couple thousand text messages a month...I really need unlimited texting. But that is just a sign of my generation, we send lots of texts.

As with anything, requirements for phones vary wildly from person to person.

[rowerwet]

tracfone is for those of us in the granny lane of the information super highway. The one bright note, tracfone is also the Obamaphones, of course they probably are paying $100 for a phone we pay $20 for

[Fenlason]

tracfonewireless.com/android-phones now has Android phones.

I could never use one of those on a daily basis...sorry. I like being close to the upper end of the smartphone range. Those look too old and slow for me. They may work for some, but even the upper priced ones are borderline for a good Android experiance, IMO. The LG Optimus Dynamic is the worst of the bunch. At Android 2.3, it's not going to give a good user experience to anyone anymore, apps just aren't going to run good on it, it will be sluggish, etc.

Also, not sure how the texting works with Tracfones, but I send and receive a couple thousand text messages a month...I really need unlimited texting. But that is just a sign of my generation, we send lots of texts.

As with anything, requirements for phones vary wildly from person to person.

Boy am I glad I am old enough.. that I don't give a flip.. how old my phone looks.

My phone is to serve a specific purpose.. and if it does that, I am good with it. I have had my phone a little over 2 years.. and I bet I haven't used 15min. of time on it yet.

With that being said, the info in your above post sounds interesting. I didn't use the internet much before I got a computer.. so once I have more phone.. I mind find I "need" more phone. [which may or may not be a good thing]

Thanks

[mustangcats]

My Tracfone is an ancient Nokia 2285 I bought back in 2005. I only use it for emergencies, to call long distance or take on vacation. I used to do the yearly $99 plan, but since I don't need the 400 minutes that comes with the yearly plan (I have 3500 banked), I renew my service every 90 days for $20 which gets me an extra 60 minutes as well. I recently discovered that I now have double minutes for life, but I don't remember signing up for that. I need to get a new Tracfone because some of the buttons on my phone don't work well...but I'm not sure how hard it is to transfer all my minutes to a new phone. I don't want to have to call Tracfone to do it because I never can understand a word they say!