Well ... I'm Back In Debt

[Petunia 100]

Right...I just dont understand why the end user allows this to happen? People vote with their money every single day. People want this for whatever reason...I still cannot figure it out and havent had anyone give a rational explanation as to why its a good thing.

Because you have to pay for the phone up front, all at once. Lots of people either can't scrape it up or can't do simple math. Or maybe both.

[pflyers85]

Because you have to pay for the phone up front, all at once. Lots of people either can't scrape it up or can't do simple math. Or maybe both.

Not necessarily. You could go into Best Buy and buy an unlocked phone for $750 and get 12 months interest free financing. Personally I would only purchase a phone I have saved cash for but there are ways to finance unlocked phones without having to be locked in with a carrier contract.

[msomnipotent]

I just bought a $179 Motorola G4 from Best Buy for my daughter. Put in the SIM card from her old phone, followed the steps on the Verizon website and her new phone works. She still has our same plan and our bill is still the same.

We did buy a different Motorola at first and had to return it as two different Verizon stores and online could not get it to activate. Not sure why. Motorola states it was unlocked and able to work on all carriers. Lost $35 to Best Buy because of their restocking fee when returning the phone. And I did complain!!

But my point is you don't have to pay the monthly fees. You have to buy a phone that is unlocked and pay outright.

I also have a G4 because it was the cheapest cash phone on the market when I needed one. I give it a meh. It is cheap for a reason, but it does what I need it to do, except have the ability to block calls. I would have called the corporate office about that $35 fee. They sold you a defective phone. It isn't like you decided you wanted a different color. I'm pretty sure I would have been escorted out of there.

[~bs]

Not necessarily. You could go into Best Buy and buy an unlocked phone for $750 and get 12 months interest free financing. Personally I would only purchase a phone I have saved cash for but there are ways to finance unlocked phones without having to be locked in with a carrier contract.

I think the way most of those contracts are calculated is interest free financing. They just spread the cost of the phone over the contract with perhaps a $100 subsidy. They stopped doing the "free phone" thing because the cost of the higher end phones got crazy. They're basically mini computers now.

The upside of doing the contract thing is that if you don't mind keeping your phone for longer than the contract period, your bill is much reduced.

Nowadays contracts themselves are going the way of the dinosaur. I think only Verizon and at&t may still have contracts, and probably looking to get rid of them.

[Gailete]

Because I needed to do a two-step authorization for selling on Amazon and had to have a cell phone involved somehow. I finally buckled down and got one. We still have our land line which is the phone we will use and that runs us ~$50/month. I consulted with a friend of mine that had just gone through having to get a new cellphone himself plus the guy that was working for him. I took his recommendation.

I got a no-contract Tracfone and bought a card that gives me 180 minutes/180 texts/180MB data on a 90-day plan. Total cost including a Smart phone that I haven't hardly been able to figure it all out yet? $60. The phone is mine and my minutes, etc. carry over if the phone has been active so even if I don't use them all in the 90 days, when I buy a new service plan card for 90 days I'll have more of everything. Currently that card costs $20 and I noticed when I was at CVS yesterday I notice that they have the cards I need. I wonder if they will let me use my bonus bucks to get them? So, if I make minimal use of it, the yearly cost for using MY phone is $80. I have no intention of having this phone surgically attached to my fingers and eyeballs like some people seem to have, but I do want to have it for thrift shopping to check prices. If I us it for my business, what little cost it is, is tax deductible.

I sat and listened for years to all the commercials telling you how cheap their phones and plans were and I thought the cost was horrific and don't understand how some families seem to have a cell phone for all members at the tune of several hundred $$$$$/month! And insist that they HAVE to have them. As another poster mentioned, as little as 15 years ago, only some people had cell phones and then suddenly it seemed like overnight everyone just HAD to have one.

[Shewillbemine]

I have never seen a single carrier/plan that insists you pay incrementally.

[rob62521]

Depending on what kind of phone you feel you have to have and how much you feel you need in data and minutes, Consumer Cellular is pretty decent. It is actually AT &T. You can buy a phone outright or have them send you SIM card to go in a phone. My husband only wanted a flip phone and a new one with them was $25. He was thrilled. I got a Samsung, new, for under $130. We aren't big phone users or data users, but we pay $53 a month...$43 for my plan and $10 for my husband to be added onto the plan. If you use more, they put you automatically into the next higher plan and you can then call and have it changed back. If you are 50 or older and have an AARP card, you can get your bill decreased about 10 percent.

[Gailete]

I'm still going through my instruction booklet about the phone. Hard going as it is written with medium blue ink at about a 2-3 font size. I have to use a magnifying glass. But I think I understand how to answer it now. I keep getting a call from a number I don't recognize and don't really want to have my phone minutes waste on their calls!

My first day with my phone on I got several phone calls including one from a pharmacy in town, not my own. Not sure how that happens other than a misdial, but this same number calling and they never leave a message is weird.

[Captain Save]

Here's another .. Google Fi .. you pay for what you use

https://fi.google.com/about/plan/

Only downside is you need to have a nexus phone or Google Pixel

[msomnipotent]

I'm still going through my instruction booklet about the phone. Hard going as it is written with medium blue ink at about a 2-3 font size. I have to use a magnifying glass. But I think I understand how to answer it now. I keep getting a call from a number I don't recognize and don't really want to have my phone minutes waste on their calls!

My first day with my phone on I got several phone calls including one from a pharmacy in town, not my own. Not sure how that happens other than a misdial, but this same number calling and they never leave a message is weird.

Can you block numbers? We still get calls for people that used to have our current numbers, and we have had our phones for at least 2 years now. My phone is so cheap that it can't even block calls. I have to set it up to go straight to voicemail, so I didn't bother to set up my voicemail. At least they can't leave messages and waste my time.

[annibe11e]

I have Republic Wireless and I love it! My phone was $180, a Moto G. I'm on a month-to-month plan with unlimited talk and test plus 1GB of data. $25/mo. I get about $13 off my bill every month with data buyback.

My son has a Moto E that was $150. He has talk, text, Wi-fi data only. $10/mo.

If my phone goes out, I do have to buy a new one, but so far so good.

[Gailete]

Can you block numbers? We still get calls for people that used to have our current numbers, and we have had our phones for at least 2 years now. My phone is so cheap that it can't even block calls. I have to set it up to go straight to voicemail, so I didn't bother to set up my voicemail. At least they can't leave messages and waste my time.

I'm not sure about blocking. I think I know how to answer it now. I accidently set it to lock and so it seems like every time the phone lights up I have to unlock it before I can do anything. It was one of those things that I did while it was supposedly helping me set up my phone. I don't have a clue about blocking calls or anything like that or if I can leave voice mails. This is a long learning curve for me especially with the instruction book has fonts smaller than most ants which is ridiculous, so it is taking me a while to get through it with the magnifying glass.

What ever happened to easy and logical instructions. Like it is a phone so the first thing it should tell you is how to make a phone call and then how to answer a phone call. Not some of the silly stuff that they thought should be first.

[~bs]

My first day with my phone on I got several phone calls including one from a pharmacy in town, not my own. Not sure how that happens other than a misdial, but this same number calling and they never leave a message is weird.

It's possible you got a recycled phone number, so I would expect to get random calls from people for a while... you could try requesting your phone carrier to give you a "new" number.

[Gailete]

Funny, my landline phone tht I have had since around 94 was a recycled number of a guy I knew that had died. Used to be our next door neighbor. I got calls for him for a couple of years.

[Eagle]

Dropped my cell in the lake over the weekend so had to get a replacement. They pretty much won't let you pay cash for a phone and insist on adding incremental payments to your monthly bill to pay for the phone over a two year period. Would have much rather written them a check and kept monthly payments the same, but they claim this is the way to go, warranty is included, etc., etc.

It's confusing and not worth haggling with them, but it just kind of chaps me anytime I have to take on a higher or additional monthly bill of any type.

P.S. ..... You don't realize how dependent you are on these darned devices until you are without one for a while. How did we get this way? Seemed like we got by fine for a whole lot of years without a cell phone.

The last three phones we've not purchased from our carrier. I bought my last phone from Apple. The other two phones for my wife we bought from Amazon. I don't like buying phones from AT&T who is our carrier.

Also, we get them to wave the activation fee every time.