Who wins,you loses ,who pays for all the phones, its still pay to play

with the phone companies. The use of recycled and trade-in phones.

Who is behind all the different .com's that offer this service,is it like

signing up for Facebook.

 

I remember in the early days of phone contracts, it was free to sign up to a one year contract, cost a lot of money per month for a year, then would cost an extortionate amount to cancel the contract after the year is up.

Not my definition of free, but advertisers seem to have their own "rip-off" definition of free.

I still insist on pay-as-you-go. More expensive if you make a lot of calls, but you know what your commitment is, with no tie-in.

 

Same here. I use Net10, not the best deal, but still $15/mo.

 

I only buy pre-paid phones with no contract. So the phone is paid, then it costs about $30 a year for recharges, or more if you make a lot of calls (you just buy more recharges). I think my calls are about 50 cents a minute but I don't make that many calls.

Contract phones are a real crock, people are "buying" a debt! The stupidity.

 

I'm guessing your reffering to lifelink. FL since it has a overwhelming amount of senior citizens and an overwhelming number of them living on social security. If your over 55 or on Welfare or medicaid you can apply for a free cell phone with 250 minutes a month on it for free. The state foots the bill for the phone and basic service of 250 minutes. Then you pay if you want more minutes then that to the company. Their all cheap flip phones.

If your referring to the free phone you get when you sign up for a 2 year contract they just make the money back off your contract, or have a $350 cancellation fee so if you cancel before your 2 years you gotta pay for the phone.

 

If you buy our blades, we will give you the razor. --- Gillette

If you buy our film, we will give you the camera. --- Kodak, or maybe DuPont

 

loosewire,are u referring to something like thi s http://www.macminis4free.com/

 

I'm guessing your reffering to lifelink. FL since it has a overwhelming amount of senior citizens and an overwhelming number of them living on social security. If your over 55 or on Welfare or medicaid you can apply for a free cell phone with 250 minutes a month on it for free. The state foots the bill for the phone and basic service of 250 minutes...
...

No I was saying I actually BUY the phone with cash and then have no contract and no billing at all.

The phone may cost $200 but then its hardware I own outright, then my total yearly costs are about $30 a year for recharges. No fees, no rental, no payments, just cost of calls and i must make $30 a year worth of calls (actually i just buy $30 a year worth of recharges, the amount of calls I make is up to me so I can make $0 of calls this year and $60 of calls next year).

 

I know, I'm talking to Loosie. Here in FL we give out Free cell phones to people on disability and senior citizens, etc.... Its a state program. Since he singled me out I assumed he was talking about those.

 

My apologies. I assumed that because your post was directly after mine.

 

@ Max, Is this only a Fla program,interesting.

 

Well we have 5 times as many senior citizens as every other state other then AZ.

 

I only buy pre-paid phones with no contract. So the phone is paid, then it costs about $30 a year for recharges, or more if you make a lot of calls (you just buy more recharges). I think my calls are about 50 cents a minute but I don't make that many calls.

Contract phones are a real crock, people are "buying" a debt! The stupidity.

What prepaid carrier do you use, that doesn't void your minutes at the end of every month? That's the problem I run into. I can't find a prepaid plan that's not quasi-monthly deal. Or, are you not in America? For some reason I think I remember you being Australian.

In countries other than America, this crap about "plans" "contracts" etc isn't as prevalent. When I lived in the philippines they were just catching on, but were a slim minority. In that country, there's really no such thing as "locked" phones and monthly contracts, at least that I encountered. You just go buy a phone, any phone, from anywhere, and put a sim card in it - from whatever carrier you want. Then you buy a prepaid card and charge up your minutes (pesos). Your pesos never expire. So if I put 200 on there and never used it for a year, it would still be there. Here in America, I can't find the same thing. Every prepaid I've looked at, they squash your minutes 30 days after you charge up. It's utter BS.

EDIT: same thing in singapore, korea, indonesia, and probably some other places I've had phones that I'm forgetting

 

Here in Australia I use Telstra pre paid. Since i dont use it mutch ive opted for dearer call pricing & my recharge of $20 gives a runout time of 12months. I would spend less than $50 a year on the mobile in calls.

 

That's the way to do it. Nobody needs those ripoff contracts paying hunreds of dollars a year. Ok, maybe if the phone is for business use but then you check all the available contracts and get the one with the best rental:callcost ratio to suit the exact business use it gets, not like these kids that just see a pretty new phone in the store and sign any contract agreeement that is handed to them.

 

Strantor, Tracphone used to allow the minutes to last a year, but only if you bought the $50 card.

 

Best prepaid non data plan in US is Tmobile. 1000 minutes for $100. Activation lasts 1 year. Thats 100 minutes a month, for $10 a month. And you can always buy more cards. Or again the best data plan is Tmo too with $50 for 2GB data unlimited phone, or $70 unlimited everything.

 

I currently use Net10. $30/2 months, 600 min (I always have a surplus). This works out to $180/year. I used to use T-Moble, but they are masters of the dirty tricks dept., with hidden fees they do not disclose. Using them the 1000 minutes dried up fast.

I am not a fan of phone companies, they tend to be pretty unethical.

 

I currently use Net10. $30/2 months, 600 min (I always have a surplus). This works out to $180/year. I used to use T-Moble, but they are masters of the dirty tricks dept., with hidden fees they do not disclose. Using them the 1000 minutes dried up fast.

I am not a fan of phone companies, they tend to be pretty unethical.

except for the tmo dirty tricks. That may come down to one or two people. Having dealt with many many many phone carriers I can tell you they aren't the worst.
The worst I've seen were
Aerial
ATT
Verizon
TMO
SPRINT