What should I do for cheap phone service?

[jessie1025]

Ok ladies...I have a question...it has become apparent to me that gettin a prepaid cell phone with a local number for my honey is the cheapest route. He is in a federal prison in PA and I'm in IA. My question is....which company is cheapest?? And do any allow him to call me collect ON THE CELL PHONE? Or do I need to pay for the prepaid phone AND he has to still buy pre-paid minutes??

[SadTodd]

Originally Posted by jessie1025

Ok ladies...I have a question...it has become apparent to me that gettin a prepaid cell phone with a local number for my honey is the cheapest route. He is in a federal prison in PA and I'm in IA. My question is....which company is cheapest?? And do any allow him to call me collect ON THE CELL PHONE? Or do I need to pay for the prepaid phone AND he has to still buy pre-paid minutes??

Well, I'm not a lady, but hopefully I can answer a few questions, since I just went through this myself.

I don't think it matters much which pre-paid cell phone company you go with. There doesn't seem to be a big difference in price between them. Pick one that has good cell reception where you live. I went with Virgin Mobile because it uses the Sprint network, and I have always had good luck with Sprint. I have also heard that Verizon is good.

This is a two step process:

First, go to Walmart or Target and pick out a cheap phone (mine was on sale for $15), and pick up a pre-paid phone card (mine was $30 for 400 minutes or 7.5 cents a minute). When you go to activate it on their website, just enter the zip code for the prison where your husband is, and it will assign you a phone number that is local to there.

Second, contact the company that does the phones for the prison where your husband is, and pre-pay some money on the phone number that you just received. (you shouldn't have to pre-pay very much. Local calls are usually really cheap). VERY IMPORTANT!!! Make them tell you how much the local call is going to cost you! When I set mine up, the guy (from Correctional Billing Services) tried to set me up at the expensive long distance rate ($3.00 connect charge, plus $.45 per minute) instead of the cheap local rate ($1.50 connect charge, and no per minute charge). When I called him on it, he acted all apologetic and fixed it to the correct rate. I have a feeling that they catch alot of people who don't know any better with that scam.

Doing it this way, your husband does NOT need to buy pre-paid minutes. He just calls the number (using the "call collect" option), and it takes the money from your pre-paid account.

Doing this, my phone calls went from more than $11.77 for a 15 minute call, to $1.69 for 15 minutes (plus the 7.5 cents per minute for the cell phone).

I think he MIGHT be able to buy pre-paid minutes instead of you pre-paying with the prison phone company... but when we tried this, they charged him the expensive long distance rate instead of the cheap local rate (even though it was to a local number) so we stuck with pre-paying.

Also, another advantage - a week after I set this up, they transferred my boyfriend to another facility in another state. It took me less than 3 minutes to get a new phone number assigned to my pre-paid cell phone (with Virgin Mobile its an option on their website and costs nothing). Another quick visit to the website for the phone company that services the new facility (to deposit some $$ for the new phone #), and I was up and running. Dropped the cost of a 15 minute call from more than $18 to less than $4, and took me less than 10 minutes total.

These prison phone companies are a bunch of crooks. Don't give them any more money than you have to.

Btw, has anybody else noticed the ridiculous "tax" that they charge for these phone calls? Correctional Billing Services charges a $2.02 "tax" on a $9.75 call and $.19 on a $1.50 call. How is that even legal??

Todd

[Msbirds]

Originally Posted by SadTodd

Well, I'm not a lady, but hopefully I can answer a few questions, since I just went through this myself.

I don't think it matters much which pre-paid cell phone company you go with. There doesn't seem to be a big difference in price between them. Pick one that has good cell reception where you live. I went with Virgin Mobile because it uses the Sprint network, and I have always had good luck with Sprint. I have also heard that Verizon is good.

This is a two step process:

First, go to Walmart or Target and pick out a cheap phone (mine was on sale for $15), and pick up a pre-paid phone card (mine was $30 for 400 minutes or 7.5 cents a minute). When you go to activate it on their website, just enter the zip code for the prison where your husband is, and it will assign you a phone number that is local to there.

Second, contact the company that does the phones for the prison where your husband is, and pre-pay some money on the phone number that you just received. (you shouldn't have to pre-pay very much. Local calls are usually really cheap). VERY IMPORTANT!!! Make them tell you how much the local call is going to cost you! When I set mine up, the guy (from Correctional Billing Services) tried to set me up at the expensive long distance rate ($3.00 connect charge, plus $.45 per minute) instead of the cheap local rate ($1.50 connect charge, and no per minute charge). When I called him on it, he acted all apologetic and fixed it to the correct rate. I have a feeling that they catch alot of people who don't know any better with that scam.

Doing it this way, your husband does NOT need to buy pre-paid minutes. He just calls the number (using the "call collect" option), and it takes the money from your pre-paid account.

Doing this, my phone calls went from more than $11.77 for a 15 minute call, to $1.69 for 15 minutes (plus the 7.5 cents per minute for the cell phone).

I think he MIGHT be able to buy pre-paid minutes instead of you pre-paying with the prison phone company... but when we tried this, they charged him the expensive long distance rate instead of the cheap local rate (even though it was to a local number) so we stuck with pre-paying.

Also, another advantage - a week after I set this up, they transferred my boyfriend to another facility in another state. It took me less than 3 minutes to get a new phone number assigned to my pre-paid cell phone (with Virgin Mobile its an option on their website and costs nothing). Another quick visit to the website for the phone company that services the new facility (to deposit some $$ for the new phone #), and I was up and running. Dropped the cost of a 15 minute call from more than $18 to less than $4, and took me less than 10 minutes total.

These prison phone companies are a bunch of crooks. Don't give them any more money than you have to.

Btw, has anybody else noticed the ridiculous "tax" that they charge for these phone calls? Correctional Billing Services charges a $2.02 "tax" on a $9.75 call and $.19 on a $1.50 call. How is that even legal??

Todd

You can take this route todd explained or you can also get a service with skype or Vonage and get a local number. In my experience with correctional billing (Tnetix)
we learned that if he puts the money on the phone it is about .30 cents cheaper for us then when i put it on.

[jessie1025]

thanks guys! How do I find out which phone company provides to the prison to buy my man pre paid minutes??? he usually just buys em.....hmm.

[mi.vida]

I WENT THROUGH EAR2EAR IT IS A FLAT FEE OF 1.50 PER CALL AND SHE WILL SET YOU UP WITH A LOCAL NUMBER CHECK OUT THE WEB SITE EAR2EAR.COM.i HAVE BEEN USING THEM FOR FIVE NOMTHS NOW AND NO PROBLEMS AT ALL.

[cyrsu]

wow, I hope i get 1.50 a call, I was paying 100.00 a month for calling everyday.
now it jumped to 5.00 , so that would be 180 a month. I got the magic jack with his area code and I tried to get his pre fix but only got the first number.

[jessie1025]

Hey guys....I found a good site! Its only charging him 6 cents a min and I pay 20 a month. Whew! Problem solved!

[c&cg]

I pay $10 a month. I added a phone to my family plan with a local # to the prison. Thats all I pay.