[runtmms]

I have a question about billing options with the T-Mobile prepaid. My 78 year old father wants a smartphone. He wants to try the $30 plan - but there is no way he'd want to mess around with refills. He'd just want to give them a credit card number and have them bill it every month. Is that doable? Is it easy enough that I can recommend it to him? (It's what I do with Solavei, and I'd sign him up there but he really doesn't need an unlimited plan.)


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[darkoman4]

Absolutely, I just did it. I first ordered SIM through their site and set it up with daily plan, $3 per day, unlimited everything, just to check coverage, speed etc. You get it for free practically as the SIM is $ .99 and you get $3.5 credit. Once I was sure everything is right, I ordered another SIM ( $30 plan is for a new SIM only) and activated $30 plan, gave them my CC info and chose automatic option billing, once a month for $30 + tax. That's it, I don't have to do anything else, ever.

[PWC Realtor]

How does automatic payments work if you go over your voice minute allowance since the account would never have am excess balance to pull from?

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[darkoman4]

They will just charge you extra for what you used over or if you called international.

[boparunsxc]

If he has money in his account (different than a linked cc), he will be charged $0.10/min for domestic calls over his limit and whatever the rate is for international calls. If he does not have money in his account and has used all of his allotted minutes, he will not be able to make or receive calls (no VM either).

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[darkoman4]

If he has money in his account (different than a linked cc), he will be charged $0.10/min for domestic calls over his limit and whatever the rate is for international calls. If he does not have money in his account and has used all of his allotted minutes, he will not be able to make or receive calls (no VM either).

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Correct, when you set up your monthly payment, you can choose to add extra if you think 100 minutes is not enough, but even if you don't, you can always add extra as they will send you text messages very often if you are nearing your limit. In either case, any extra $ will be available to you for up to 90 days to use.

[runtmms]

Thanks for all the responses. It's been helpful.

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[Citizen Coyote]

A note of caution about using auto-pay with T-Mo's prepaid plans. I had it set up for auto-pay initially, thinking it would be a simple fire and forget kind of deal. No such luck. The day my renewal should have happened, the auto-pay did not happen and I got a text from T-Mo saying my data had expired. Strangely I could still make calls, but it took going online and manually refilling my account to get the data back on. I'm not sure why the auto-pay did not happen, as far as I can tell it didn't even try. I ended up putting in a chunk of change in my account and turning it off. That way I'm covered for the next payment, plus extra if I go over my minutes.

Just FYI, it might go fine with you but I would test it if you can.

[skidmark]

Thanks for the replies in this thread. This is exactly what I am going to try.

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[Bond32]

Absolutely, I just did it. I first ordered SIM through their site and set it up with daily plan, $3 per day, unlimited everything, just to check coverage, speed etc. You get it for free practically as the SIM is $ .99 and you get $3.5 credit. Once I was sure everything is right, I ordered another SIM ( $30 plan is for a new SIM only) and activated $30 plan, gave them my CC info and chose automatic option billing, once a month for $30 + tax. That's it, I don't have to do anything else, ever.

What is this $3 per day you speak of?? I've not heard of it. Is it throttled after any specific usage?

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[darkoman4]

What is this $3 per day you speak of?? I've not heard of it. Is it throttled after any specific usage?

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This option is good if you want to try out their network. If you go to their site you can choose daily plans. $1 for unlimited talk and text, $2 unlimited talk, text and 2G data, $3 unlimited talk, text and data, first 200 MB HSPA +.

What's good about this plan is you can switch back and forth from pay as you go minutes and text to this plan, you can do this as many times as you want depending if you need data for certain day or not.

[Bond32]

This option is good if you want to try out their network. If you go to their site you can choose daily plans. $1 for unlimited talk and text, $2 unlimited talk, text and 2G data, $3 unlimited talk, text and data, first 200 MB HSPA +.

What's good about this plan is you can switch back and forth from pay as you go minutes and text to this plan, you can do this as many times as you want depending if you need data for certain day or not.

That's good info, thanks. My concern is the 200 mb though. I use a lot more than that a day but for trial purposes it may not be a bad idea. My nexus will be in next week and I am doing exactly that, giving it a trial. I'm not in a hspa+ market so I don't expect lightning speeds but I would be okay with anything around 5 mbps.

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[runtmms]

I think if you're looking at the prepaid monthly options, at the bottom of the page there's a link to pay by the day options. I hadn't thought of it but that's a great way to test your T-Mobile coverage.

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[patruns]

If you set him up with auto pay, have it bill 2-3 days ahead of the expiration date, don't just except the default date. Otherwise, it might bill a day late on occasion and he will have no service at all until his card is charged again. I learned that the hard way...