Noob questions on the $30 TMO plan

Sundell

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Planning on getting a N4 and (probably) the $30 TMO plan. 2 noob questions if you dont mind....

1.) Do you get a monthly phone bill? Im a longtime ATT customer and every month i get a bill in the mail and send them a check.

2.) Since its only 100 minutes of talktime, what happens if you go over? What are the per minute charges? cant find anything on the TMO site for this.

Thanks
 

klau25

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Dec 15, 2009
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I think for question 1, you just need to set up auto pay every month. or just keep buying prepaid cards.

I ran out if min last night, they didn't let me make any more calls, had to add $10. I'm going to straight talk next month. 100 min just isn't enough, I tried to use talkatone, but the sound quality just isn't good enough. app also crashes once in awhile. gf lives in another, and 90% of the time I'm talking to her, so this is kinda important for me.

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klau25

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I tried both. same thing. It's just not reliable enough and too much hassle. plus tmo coverage is too spotty. I'll be doing straight talk att. I'll be getting 3 months from Walmart, so it comes out to about 42 a month, plus I get 5% cb from discover so for $10 more, I don't have to worry about coverage or minutes are worth it for me.

Try GrooveIP

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limdoug

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Planning on getting a N4 and (probably) the $30 TMO plan. 2 noob questions if you dont mind....

1.) Do you get a monthly phone bill? Im a longtime ATT customer and every month i get a bill in the mail and send them a check.

2.) Since its only 100 minutes of talktime, what happens if you go over? What are the per minute charges? cant find anything on the TMO site for this.

Thanks

1) No, you don't get a bill. It's a prepaid account so you have to add money in there first to get it to work.
2) If you go over and don't have any money in the account, it won't let you make a call or if you are on a call, it will cut the conversation off. If you have extra money in your account, it will decrement at a rate of 10 cents per minute.
 

klau25

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the regular online 5% purchase is, but Walmart is one of their shop discover partner. If you log into you discover online account, and use their shop discover link to Walmart's site to make your purchase, you will always get 5% cashback.

@klau25

I have a discover card too isnt the 5% cash back offer over January 1?



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Mike Dupp

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I've been on the $30 plan for almost a year now with a WP7. I am generally happy with it but it is a bit of a change from postpaid accounts. Here's what I have learned:

Not only is there no monthly bill mailed to you, there is no detailed billing period. When you log onto mytmobile.com, you get the number of minutes and MB of data used so far that month, and that's it. No detailed breakdown of the calls you have made and no mention of texts at all. Just 2 boxes with minutes used and data used. And when the current month is up and you renew for another 30 days, everything is wiped out and reset to zero. No historical details are available. If you want to know how many minutes you used 2 months ago, you are out of luck.

Autopay is flaky. The plan is a strict 30 day plan, not a calendar month plan, so your renew date is almost always different. My plan renews in the first week of the month, but never the same day. My plan renews between the 3rd and 6th generally. When you set up autopay, you have to select a date to pay from a drop down menu. But it doesn't let you choose specific days, like the 1st or fourth day of the month. It makes you pick days before renewal. When I used autopay, I chose Pay One day before Renewal. The second month of autopay, it flaked on me. I got a text the day before saying my CC had been billed. At midnight, I got another text saying my 30 days were up and I needed to refill my account. Apparently, there is a lag involved when using Autopay. It took them until 8am the next day for my automatic payment to be released and become available. I wasn't able to make or receive phone calls or texts between midnight and 8am. I got rid of Autopay after that.

You can add money to your account with a debit or credit card at any time and in any amount over $10. You don't have to add money in multiples of $30. You can add $30.10 or $88.50, it doesn't matter. After getting rid of autopay, I started adding $62.00 at a time. That covered 2 months of renewals and an extra 20 minutes worth of calls if i ever went over 100 minutes in a month. I never came close to going over.

You get a warning text every month 3 days before your renewal. If you don't want to keep extra money in your account, it is a handy reminder.

There are no monthly fees or taxes on the plan. If you have $30 in your account, it just takes the $30. They do charge me the NJ sales tax of 7% when I add money to my account. So if I add $30, my CC gets billed $32.10. I never use them but I assume they also charge a sales tax when you buy the prepaid refill cards from T-Mobile or some other reseller.

That's pretty much all there is to it. If anyone has any other questions, just ask.
 

simba747

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How do I get the $30 Prepaid with the 100 minutes? I went to Walmart.com, but it says the phone must be purchased from walmart.com
"The $30 Unlimited Web & Text with 100 min talk plan works only with T-Mobile Phones purchased from a Walmart store or from Walmart.com." I cannot find the $30 plan on T-Mobile.com. Nexus 4 shipped this morning at 4:35AM I am using this link to get to T-Mob Monthly 4G Prepaid Plans | Compare Prepaid Data Plans | T-Mobile but I cannot find a way to add to my cart to buy this.

PS I ordered a micro-sim activation kit last night.
 

bboykin87

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How do I get the $30 Prepaid with the 100 minutes? I went to Walmart.com, but it says the phone must be purchased from walmart.com
"The $30 Unlimited Web & Text with 100 min talk plan works only with T-Mobile Phones purchased from a Walmart store or from Walmart.com." I cannot find the $30 plan on T-Mobile.com. Nexus 4 shipped this morning at 4:35AM I am using this link to get to T-Mob Monthly 4G Prepaid Plans | Compare Prepaid Data Plans | T-Mobile but I cannot find a way to add to my cart to buy this.

PS I ordered a micro-sim activation kit last night.

When you get your Sim there will be a web address you need to go to to activate the sim and you can select the plan there.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

Citizen Coyote

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How do I get the $30 Prepaid with the 100 minutes? I went to Walmart.com, but it says the phone must be purchased from walmart.com
"The $30 Unlimited Web & Text with 100 min talk plan works only with T-Mobile Phones purchased from a Walmart store or from Walmart.com." I cannot find the $30 plan on T-Mobile.com.

Once you have the SIM in hand, you can activate the $30 plan online (and online only, don't go in to a T-Mobile store). Ignore what WalMart's website says about it.
 

Scooter88

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I'm still a bit confused on one thing...

So lets say I purchase a $100 refill card

Will the $100 simply be added to my account for minutes or will $30 be deducted every month from the $100?
 

Sundell

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thanks for all the replies.

Can you have the $30 plan one month, and then select the $50 or $60 plan the next month, and go back and forth between the two...etc?
 

Citizen Coyote

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I'm still a bit confused on one thing...

So lets say I purchase a $100 refill card

Will the $100 simply be added to my account for minutes or will $30 be deducted every month from the $100?

My understanding is both. When your 30 days are up, it will draw from that for the next 30 days of service. If you go over 100 minutes in a 30 day period, it will also draw from that to cover the overage.
 

Mike Dupp

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Whenever you add money to your account, using a prepaid refill card or a credit/debit card, it all goes into one place that is used for everything.

If you use a $100 prepaid card to activate your new account, it will take out $30 and leave you with a balance of $70.00. If you stay under 100 minutes the first 30 days, that $70 balance will just sit there untouched until your 30 days are up. At the end of 30 days, T-Mobile goes into that $70 balance and takes another $30 and leaves you a new balance of $40. In another 30 days, it will take another $30, leaving you only $10 in your account. If you do not add any more money to your account while your balance is $10, those are the last 30 days your phone will work. At the end of the 30 days, it will try to take $30, see you only have $10 and the renewal will fail. You won't be able to use it again until you add another $20 to your account. Whenever you get around to adding the $20, a day, a week or a month later, that's when your next 30 day cycle begins.

It works the same way for overage minutes. If you have the same $70 balance after activation, but go over your 100 minutes in the first 10 days, it will deduct $0.10 from that $70 balance for every minute of phone calls you make in the last 20 days. If you make 15 minutes of calls in the last 20 days of the cycle, your balance will be $68.50 when your plan renews. It will take another $30 and leave you with a new balance of $38.50.
 

Mike Dupp

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thanks for all the replies.

Can you have the $30 plan one month, and then select the $50 or $60 plan the next month, and go back and forth between the two...etc?

I've never done that, but it seems like you can from the my.t-mobile.com page. I took a few quick screenshots:

This is the main logon page.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3S9T6rCZkD4bkxFOWJpdzYxYjA

If you click on the "Change plan or services" link, you get:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3S9T6rCZkD4Xy03MjBGbUlFbkU
 

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