Jude 2

My son wanted a cellphone all the time. I just said yea sure.. ok, nada.

Enter Tracfone.

Then we were walking thru Wal-Mart and he mentioned the tracfone. So we took a look. He had some christmas money burning a hole in his pocket and the woman explained the plans fairly effectively (for wal-mart etc). So I let him buy it. The phone costs $13.00 and some change and had double minutes for life + texting. He's loved it... and once I activated it and signed up an email.. it gave us twenty more minutes (plus you can shut down activate online/purchase more minutes etc).

For a child.. this seemed like a great plan. No hassles. You use it till it's gone. Then work/chores to earn some cash to put more minutes back on.

The other shocking thing is that our local cop stated that they were impossible to track. You can pay cash for it, get it working on prepaid minutes, and can't get any records from it... even in a serious crime etc. Been there done that he said.

So Bingo, Hello Terrorists talking in the wide open.. that's a weird eye opener part for sure.

We used to have one of these. It was a pretty good deal.

It some circumstances they are impossible to trace. We paid for extra minutes by credit card, so ours could have been traced. However, if you buy one of those extra minutes cards from Walmart in cash, it would be untraceable.

Unless prices have changed, they are MUCH higher cost wise, but are chosen more for the ability to control usage and not be tied into a contract or go over your contract and be hit with a bill.

One warning, (again unless they've changed it) minutes do expire if you don't add at least a minimum additional minutes each month or so.

I thought the disney plan was nice, family plan, you could allocate minutes to a child, then they would be limited to that and couldn't go over, plus you could add or remove minutes for them anytime online, but it was still part of your family plan so it was cheap. The company they were working with didn't get good reception here, and my kids don't need them yet, so I haven't looked any further, but would love to see other major companies head that route, although they would loose the money from overages, they would probably gain happy parents as customers.

Tracfone is the ONLy phone I have.

I buy a twenty dollar card every three months.

Thats less than 7$ a month phone cost. Compare that to the cost a "real" cellphone, or a house phone.

I am not a phone chatter, I usually have many minutes rollover when I extend my phone.

Gerald Creasy wrote:Tracfone is the ONLy phone I have.

I buy a twenty dollar card every three months.

Thats less than 7$ a month phone cost. Compare that to the cost a "real" cellphone, or a house phone.

I am not a phone chatter, I usually have many minutes rollover when I extend my phone.

Yea the double minutes for life phone was really cool also. Buy a 100 minute card and bingo.. 200 minutes. Yes my son's expire every 90 days.

The other great thing is that we live in a "dead zone" so we don't have cell service unless we travel a few miles down the road. Cool eh?

MacUser wrote:The other great thing is that we live in a "dead zone" so we don't have cell service unless we travel a few miles down the road. Cool eh?

I have noticed dead Zones in certain sections of Louisville: Like No service once you proceed north on Onestreet off of the Expressway until you pass such and such etc and so on.

And the phone only works in the kitchen, cause everywhere else in the apt theres no reception.

We use to have tracfone and we had to get a card every 60 days or so.

We now use a pre paid virgin mobile(husband and daughter) And love it,

We sell prepaid service at our convenience store. We sell a TON of it. People look askance at some folks who go prepaid, but personally, I think it is an excellent tool to manage costs, access, etc. Sure the phone companies make more that way, but they either stick you by fine print and overages, or they stick you by charging more for fewer bells and whistles on prepaid. Either way, you're stuck. So, IMO, be stuck and in control on the front end.

Gerald Creasy wrote:

MacUser wrote:The other great thing is that we live in a "dead zone" so we don't have cell service unless we travel a few miles down the road. Cool eh?

I have noticed dead Zones in certain sections of Louisville: Like No service once you proceed north on Onestreet off of the Expressway until you pass such and such etc and so on.

And the phone only works in the kitchen, cause everywhere else in the apt theres no reception.

This deadzone isn't just with the tracfone.. it's all cells at my rural residence. Zip zero nadda.

I heard the great thing about the tracfone was that is used ALL cell towers around you and not just company specific. Not sure if truth or fiction.

I wore my Cricket phone out. I have been with Cricket since they came to Tn except for our stint in NC. I bought a new phone last year at \New Years and it is all but trash today. I love the unlimited service though for $45 a month.