Prepaid Cell Phones

[IggyWH]

My parents now are both retired (60 and 55) and they've been doing a lot of traveling and seeing the country, something they couldn't do years ago because of kids and financial reasons. They don't own a cell phone though so I'd like to buy them a prepaid phone for them to take along with them, if for nothing else than emergency reasons. I have a couple questions :

1)Anyone suggest what they feel is the best to get? Something small to fit in my mothers purse would probably be best, but they are getting old though so something that's also loud.

2)My parents, and pretty much my whole family, lives in Pittsburgh. If I buy a phone out here in Cali, it'll have aa Cali area code to the phone number, won't it? Is there a way I can purchase a phone from here that will still give them a local to Pittsburgh area code, so if someone else in my family calls the phone, it won't be long distance?

3)Is this just a dumb idea all together? They've never owned a cell phone and don't even want one, but I'm sure they'd use it if they had one. It's so rare that you even see payphones anymore, let alone ones that work, that it just seems smart to have one just incase.

[TheBlueMonster]

Pre-paid cell phones are for drug dealers. My source? The Wire. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Quicksilvre]

I think it's safe to assume Iggy's parents do not sell drugs.

My sister and mother have used TracPhone for a solid two years now. (I've never made enough calls to justify getting one myself.) I'll ask them about it, but as far as I know they're pretty pleased with it.

[IggyWH]

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's safe to assume Iggy's parents do not sell drugs.

My sister and mother have used TracPhone for a solid two years now. (I've never made enough calls to justify getting one myself.) I'll ask them about it, but as far as I know they're pretty pleased with it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Everything I look at has expiration dates of less than 90 days on the minutes purchased. That seems pretty damn [censored] if you ask me. It would be pretty useless for me to get them a phone if this is the case for all phones.

[Sooga]

Haha, the ones they used on 'The Wire' were Tracfones, and that's what I have too.

I love mine. The coverage/reception is excellent, and the rates are pretty good. I used to pay $40/mo or whatever for some Cingular plan, and I'd only talk on the phone maybe an hour, tops. After I realized that I was a moron and was just pissing money away, I got a Tracfone.

You can see their rates here . You would probably want to get the 400min/365day plan for your parents, since I don't imagine they'll be using it as a primary phone, and will mainly need it for emergencies and such. That works out to like, $8/ month, which sure beats pretty much any other plan.

[Sooga]

[ QUOTE ]

Everything I look at has expiration dates of less than 90 days on the minutes purchased. That seems pretty damn [censored] if you ask me. It would be pretty useless for me to get them a phone if this is the case for all phones.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well Tracfone minutes don't really 'expire'. The minutes carry over. So say you buy 200 minutes now, and the 'expiration date' is 90 days from now, or like mid-October. Say by the time that rolls around, you have 100 minutes left. If you buy another 200 minutes, you'll have another 90 days added on (so end of Dec or so), and then you'll have 300 minutes. It's not too bad at all. I only end up spending about $40 (200 min) every 2 or 3 months.

[kemystery]

http://www.jitterbug.com/