As far as the card itself goes, that setup is pretty standard. Visa gift cards work exactly the same way. Most if not all registers will reject the entire sale if you try to charge more than the current balance. Its just a corner they cut as far as maintaining a database goes.

They all have an 800 number on the back of the cards to find out how much is left. Honestly the best way to do it is to track how much you’ve spent on the card itself. I just sharpie the remaining balance on the card as I go, whenever I’m stuck with one of these.

Many cashiers don’t know how to deal with these cards, but if you get one thats worth their salt they’ll call the 800 number for you at the register and run the appropriate amount through. True that this is kind of a waste of everyones time, but its not the end of the world.

I will say that its yet another way for them to screw you out of rebate money. I wouldn’t be shocked if the cards had an expiration date…

I’ve never spent more than $20 on the phone itself.

At one point I lost my phone. I called them and they immediately froze my account so that whoever might find the phone couldn’t use it. They then sent me a (refurbished, not new) phone via overnight delivery for the cost of the delivery only, no charge for the phone.

When I logged on to the website to change my service over to the new phone I did not have to search for how to do it, I was taken directly to a page that said “Sorry to hear you lost your phone. You’ll want to do either A (a link) or B (another link).” Within an hour my new phone was up and flying and the only large hassle was getting all my stored numbers back.

If you want a phone that does your dishes and makes you sexier, go for some large, expensive phone and contract. If you want to make and receive calls, get voice mail, and maybe text some, pay as you go is the way to do it.

They dumped the CDMA equipment this Jan, so I was forced toget a new phone. No big deal, except that it was two months before I hit the road only to discover I have almost zero service along the area I travel!

Verizion users of course can hit the call button almost anytime and get connected. Even in my home town with a tower within three miles on a hilltop, the norm is for calls to be dropped constantly!

AT&T=A$$Holes!

I agree for the most part. The theory requires a significant percentage of consumers to know their options, and to make the hard decisions when they need to. Since all cellular companies play the BS game, a large percentage of customers would need to stop giving them money until they get their act straight. But when 95% percent of customers just pay them and put up with it, they have no incentive to change. I guess the theory is good, but the implementation is poor because not enough people adhere to it.

Also, until the lawmakers do away with all of the mountain of fine print that shows up in the simplest contracts, we will continue to see companies take advantage of their almost limitless (compared to the average customer) legal resources. Again, if enough consumers refused to enter into agreements that require a law degree to understand, things would change, but 95% of us just sign on the line and hope for the best (myself included)

I lost my original prepaid phone late last year. I went to the T-Mobile store and, after a short pitch on signing up for a contract, they told me to pick any phone I liked and pay the “invoice price”. I picked a low-end RAZR and it cost me $140 plus tax, that’s it.

The only thing I don’t like about this service is that you can’t get internet on the phone. In fact, I don’t think that any of the pre-paid services offer internet access. There are occasions when I’d like to whip out the phone and check a web site or two, but that convenience isn’t worth the tremendous extra cost of a monthly cell phone contract.

Plain vanilla communication service.

No one will sell this “plan” in the USA (although you can get it in Europe proving it is technically and economically possible).

Actually as I see it, every company will rip you off if given the chance. (shrugs)

Always, always get whatever they say/promise in writing with a signature and date. Always.

I wonder what Apple thinks about that… they gave up their exclusive royalty payments estimated at 12 to 18 bucks a month so that AT&T would subsidize the phone, and now AT&T isn’t giving the subsidy to all comers.

#23, thanks for the info. T-Mobile huh? I’ll give them a look.