Prepaid Cell Phones: Are They Really More Convenient?

Last Christmas, I decided to buy my neice a pre-paid cell phone from Virgin Mobile. She had just turned eighteen and did not have the credit to purchase a normal cell phone with the deposit, so I thought that 'Pay as you go' wireless was a simple solution. She was ecstatic when she opened the phone, and immediately activated it.

Apparently, nearly all of the wireless providers have come out with pre-paid cell phones that are sold in such retail stores as Wal-Mart and Target. In fact, you can usually buy the minutes at your local grocery store. The concept advertises no contract, no obligation, and more convenience. I thought that it might even be cheaper, and considered switching over myself. Cell phone technology is changing so rapidly that I felt confined by my year-long contract with T-Mobile. 

As it turns out, I'm glad I stayed with my contract.

In February, my neice called me in tears, devastated by her pre-paid phone. Apparently, she had accidently called someone when the phone was in her backpack (the numbers depressed at random, I suppose) and she wasted $10 worth of minutes. Following her plan, minutes cost $0.25 for the first ten minutes of the day, and $0.10 for every minute thereafter. Essentially, she had wasted about 120 minutes of talking time. When she called the company and explained the situation, they refused to refund her minutes.

Enraged, I called the 800 number she gave me and asked to speak with the manager. I explained the situation again, and was given the same answer. "We cannot refund those minutes."

Over the next month, my neice used $100 worth of minutes, and when we checked her cell phone use, she discovered that she'd only actually talked around three hundred and fifty minutes. Even if she'd been charged $0.25/minute, she should have been able to talk for 400 minutes. Not to mention, she was getting calls for three different people on a daily basis, which makes me believe that they are constantly recycling their numbers.