Stolen cell phone - sigh

[Ptroiani]

After a month long battle with Verizon ( a 400 dollar charge for data last month and I have unlimited data), I put the phones in 'vacation' until the issue is resolved...

Last night I met my ex-wife at a truck stop (cue dramatic music) to exchange my 14 year old son ... week on, week off deal.... In the time it took to carry his bag from my car to a space three cars over, some lowlife was able to get my phone out of my car and be off with it.

The funny parts - The phone can't be used. Not only is it off, but to use anything except the calculator, there is a facial recognition program in order to unlock the phone. Not only that, but I sent a 'burn message' through the security program that I use for it via web, so when the phone is near free wifi, it will burn the data on the SD card.

Here is my question - anyone have experience with the month to month cell phones? I am looking to go that route, as the 300 dollar a month bills from contracts really are hateful. Let me know!

Paul

[_JP_]

Month to month, no. My first cell phone was one of those prepaid deals. Buy the minutes, enter the card number into the phone. It was cheaper that way, but I was always watching the minutes.

[OldSaw]

Mine fell off my belt at a truck stop in Ohio, last year, and the dirt bag that picked it up kept it. I had another driver call it a few times but no answer, even offered a reward, so I called my wife from a pay/credit card phone and she called Verizon to turn it off.

Anyway, I needed a new phone right away. So I drove to the nearest Best Buy and got a Boost Mobile phone. It was a chintzy piece of crap of a phone and the service only worked up to about 6 inches off the interstate. I was living at my cottage in northern Wisconsin at the time and had no service for miles around with Boost, despite the fact that there are towers a plenty and my old phone worked great in my living room.

So my experience was a very bad one.

[aceinyerface]

Sorry to hear. On the street, in the underground economy, a newish fancy phone is worth $100-$200, an older one is $50-$100.

Scumbags snatch and run, pick them out of purses, break into cars, grab them right out from under your nose from restaurant table tops, the total sucker move "let me borrow your phone" then run, etc... to get them. To them, a phone = $$$$.

The lesson for others to take from this is don't leave your phone anywhere you wouldn't leave a $100 bill.

[life2short1971]

I used the ATT ones for years. I just had to charge the time by going to a convenience store and getting $15-$200 worth of credit at a time. They would give me free airtime if I spent $50 at a time which turned into big savings because it rolled over .I didn't mind it a bit and the service was trouble-free. Look up GoPhone by ATT

[Hammertime1]

Verizon, was just in newspaper about their unlimited data plans not being so unlimited. I know when leaned on by the media the bills get reduced significantly. Sounds like one of those sneaky lot lizards.

[Malakas1981]

I hear tmobil has great month to month deals

[Mr-Scruffy]

Look into Page Plus Cellular. They use the Verizon network. The cards expire after 120 days. $10 for 100 minutes; $25 for 400 minutes; and 1 year for $80.
There is a 12 plan for $12 (250 minutes plus 250 texts plus 20 megs) expires after 30 days. I have used them for years w/o problems.

Just changed my phone to a Palm Pixi ($50 from Best Buy). I really despise Verizon and AT&T.

[StillShaving]

I have used cricket pay-as-you go as a secondary phone. IIRC they offer unlimited $1/day plan for voice only, $2/day plan for voice+messaging, $3/day plan for voice+messaging+internet. Where you pay only for the days you actually use the phone. The catch is that the prepaid dollars decay over time so even if you don't use the phone the pre-paid funds will eventually leak out, but at a slower rate than if you actually used the phone every day. Other pay-as-you-go plans are structured differently.

IMO cricket voice quality is marginal at best. It may very well be the handset and not cricket, but Verizon gave better voice quality. IMO none of the cellular phones voice provide very good quality, so I resist 2-year phone plans.

[buffdaddy]

Yeah that sucks. I had my GPS stolen twice out of my car (both my fault for not taking the winshield mount off duh!). But I feel your pain...You can always buy a used Verizon branded phone off ebay for cheap and just bring into a Verizon store and they'll activate for you. At least you won't have to sign up for another 2 year plan. You can just go off your old plan.

I've seen prepaid Verizon phones for as low as $25.00 with a couple hundred minutes installed out of the box at the local Fry's here in Chicago. I also know BB sells them as well. As far as the quality their usually just dumb phones with a few features. Only advice is to shop around ,maybe one of the local carriers like US Cellular has some deals? Sprint also has some decent deals on prepaid phones.

[smalltank]

If you are looking for month to month..no contract..Tmo and Verizon have the same deals..only limitation is the phone selection

[Gunney]

Ive used the old TracFones, but in all honesty you might be better off with smoke signals! The big Cellphone Giants know this... how do you think they get away with robbery!?

Also with some of those like TracFone, the minutes actually expire every 30 days... so if you have 10000minutes and you forget to buy another card, you then have 0. So every month you MUST add a time card...

[Slash McCoy]

I am using an iphone 4s on tmobile. I pay $50/month for unlimited data, voice, and text. Only the first 100MB is at 4g speeds, but I don't even notice because due to tmobile's nonstandard 3g/4g band, my iphone only sees the lower speed EDGE band. The not so bad side of that is that EDGE is not generally congested like the 3G bands sometimes are. Also I had to do some fiddling to get MMS working properly. tmobile does not officially support the iphone, but there is a large community of tmo iphonies out there that exchange tips n tricks. Anyway, the good thing is tmo does not charge extra for tethering. So I can set up a personal hotspot and use my iphone as a wireless modem for my laptop or another smartphone, where there is no available wifi connection, and connect to the iphone via cable, bluetooth, or wifi. And it's free. This is a month by month plan, no contract. For the price, I am quite happy. I will NEVER subscribe to another contract service again. The carrier just doesn't appreciate you as much when they got you committed to a 2 year agreement.