Does anyone use prepaid cellphone services

Hi, yes I have one through alltell. The thing I don't like about many of the services is that the minutes expire whether you use them or not. Alltell is better, but check the fine print. I save alot of money using prepaid.

There are some where the minutes don't expire, if you purchase a certain amount: tracphone and virgin mobile. I think T Mobile may have a similar plan as well.

I don't use a cell phone much, either, except when traveling. I bought the Virgin Mobile phone and a $90 card. Six months later, I finally ran out of minutes. So, it cost me $15 a month, plus the price of a phone.

If I hadn't used the phone at all, the minutes would have been good for one year.

Ilovetoledo - you dont have an alltel one anymore!!

I use net10, its $.10 a minute. But you have to get a new card every 30,60,90 days etc. But if you refill your unused minutes don't expire. And for text messages its only $.05 each, unless you get the new samsung slider phone, then the texts are $.03 each. I've also never had problems with reception anywhere, not even in the mountains heading down to Georgia.

Oooh, TM, I do belive we've got a winner!!!

I use virgin mobile. It's only 20 bucks for 200 minutes, and if you refill before the day you bought them the next month the unused minutes roll over.

I would recommend to you a local company... Page Plus Cellular. I do not use the service (I'm in a family plan w/parents), but I know people that work there. Good and growing company.

http://www.pagepluscellular.com/

They have plans where you can pay as you go (buy minutes online/by phone/in stores) or they have "all inclusive" pay by the month plans without contracts.

Hope that helps.

Oh... I wanted to add that though the company is local (Holland, Ohio), the service is nationwide with a great coverage map.

http://www.prepaidreviews.com/bestrated.html

decent review on many different providers

I refuse to deal with these things anymore, although I had used a Tracphone for looking for work in 2007.

In late October, I went around looking for a low-usage cellphone (since voice mail on the home phone was incomprehensible to add, and pagers stopped being cheap some time ago). I ended up at Meijer, struggling to calculate the cost-per-day. It didn't help that there were loads of tiny type, which is just designed to stop you from comparison shopping. It also didn't help that the phones were hanging on locked hangers, which stopped you from turning them around to READ THE TERMS. After finally making my selection (having to call a service person over with each phone that I wanted to look at to get it unlocked), I confirmed that I had the lowest cost one (Virgin Mobile), and then left.

The next morning, I opened the package and read the instructions ... and then noted it said "30-day plans" on the list of plans. The minutes refill card claimed that the phone only needed to be refilled every 90 days. Then in smaller type, it said the minutes were only good for 30 days. I GOT SCREWED ... and I had tried like hell to NOT get screwed.

Well, as you might suspect given the tone of this story, Meijer didn't honor a return on these things, even though the phone was only opened and charged, and the minutes card was not scratched off. The Meijer receipt never said that these things were NOT RETURNABLE.

My advice now: Consider all your options. Read EVERY word, no matter how small (and the type on those cards is VERY small).

As for me, I've gotta dump this stupid phone and minutes card on Craigslist, probably at 50% of the price, and chalk the lost money up to a LESSON LEARNED. And that lesson is: The phone industry is crooked.

(And I'm never going back to Meijer.)

As for my continuing needs, I have a friend who has an existing Verizon plan, with shared minutes for he and his wife. He said that the plan allowed adding a line (another phone and phone number) for $9.99+tax per month, which will turn out to be about $13. And Verizon offers free phones for such things, which means you buy the phone and then apply for a full rebate, so you only end up paying the tax. Of course, there are better phones with lesser rebates, with price differentials of $20 on up, if you have more expensive taste in phones.

So we researched this, and then went to a Verizon outlet, and with their kind assistance, we selected a similar phone (they didn't have our first choice in the store), and they waived the activation fee ($25 or $35, depending on who you ask -- the cust svc line claimed that during November, such a fee would be automatically waived if done on Fri-Sun), and now I have a cellphone for CHEAP.

Of course, my friends and I trust each other, so that's what enabled that. I didn't want the cell for gabbing, so their shared minutes with me are not in danger. And the cell's airtime is free after 9pm and on weekends. I also don't do texting.

Good luck in your search for an appropriate communication device. After my experience, hopefully you won't make a similar, critical math mistake with your costs, which is all too easy to do considering how DECEITFULLY that these things are marketed.

I've been using Virgin Mobile for 5-years, no more than $30 a month and no problems.