Prepaid Cell Phones

With prepaid cell phones you buy your minutes before you actually use them. Basically, you buy credit to use a provider’s network so you can avoid a contract and the recurring bills that come with a contract plan. They are often referred to as a “pay-as-you-go” plans.

With most wireless service providers, you can add credit, or minutes and service time, to your prepaid phone account at any time. This can usually be done by purchasing a prepaid card in a retail store, adding minutes online or using your credit card to buy the additional credit directly through your cell phone provider. In most cases you buy an allotment of minutes that has a service date that expires. If you don’t buy more minutes before this date you will lose any remaining minutes and your account will lapse, but with most service providers if you add more minutes your unused minutes will carryover. Continue reading

Guidelines To Reduce Cell Phone Bill Shock

If you’ve ever experienced cell phone bill shock from excessive overage fees you’ll appreciate the new guidelines aimed at helping people avoid the fear of opening their monthly bill. The government had been threatening to enact cell phone bill regulations to reduce bill shock after hearing too many stories of families paying well over $1,000 for a monthly cell phone bill, so the cell phone industry with the FCC and the Consumers Union instead worked together to adopt guidelines to reduce the likelihood of this bill shock.

The guidelines won’t eliminate overage charges, but they will provide users alerts when they are nearing and when they have exceeded plan limits for the month. While many wireless service providers have ways to track usage during the month, having kids who use their cell phone a lot or having an out of the ordinary month can leave people with a giant cell phone bill they didn’t expect. Those with cell phone family plans seem to be particularly vulnerable when it comes to bill shock because they just don’t realize how much their kids are using their phone.

The guidelines will take effect in two stages, so it won’t be instant relief for those waiting for this. Continue reading