Pay as you go cell phones in the US?
 

For a few years I kept a pay as you go cell phone account open with Virgin Mobile USA so that I had a phone when I went to the States. The last time I went home though, I found that my account/phone number had been hijacked somehow and the company didn't want to help at all.

I am going home again in November and I want to get a new pay as you go phone. I don't want a proper contract because I am only ever in the States for a couple weeks of the year at most.

Would anybody have any suggestions on a good pay as you go company that is easy to get and top up?

tmobile google for t to go

expires within the year so you gotta top up every year to keep the nr online or at target

With Virgin you had to top up every 3 months which was a bit of a pain when not living there. Another reason I was pissed that they wouldn't help me with the hijacked account was that I had about $150 of credit there from having to top up a certain amount every three months to keep it going.

t to go isnt that bad

you can skype the phone and get voicemail and every yr one card isnt too bad, make sure you top up with $100 otherwise it expires in 3 months too

every t store sells them, ebay too, they have some deals 100 mins new nr 9.95 or so and you get to redirect the nr, first call you can tell them I want the nr in the NY area for instance

that sucks when they don't want to help you

Bought me a Cingular before it turned into AT&T

Hassle free you pay like .10 $ a minute, just you have to recharge the credit on phone every 6months minimum or so otherwise the number gets deactivated I guess, still works well with my US trips schedule.

It's also still way cheaper than what I pay here!

Net10 works for me.. I have their topup phone it works everywhere www.net10.com

oh: you cant call outside the US with tmobile, most pay as you go dont have that as far as I know

I wouldn't need to. Another reason I want a US based phone is that here in the UK I have a voice over IP phone with an American number local to my parents. So, when I am gone my husband could use that phone to call my US cell phone and keep in touch for free (on his end). I would only use this phone within the US and on US numbers.

Net10 does... they give you some odd number to call you press 1 then wait a second and type the international number.

hmm k roaming too? as in can I use that phone # in Europe?

its not something I really want since costs are huge, I called from my regular dutch cell once from the phx forum to Holland for 15 mins was like $75

You could try http://www.tracfone.com/

I've used them for years and have been happy. Says they don't charge more for international calls. :)

Thanks for all the help I am going to check them all out this weekend and figure out which looks the best but Tmobile sounds good.

When I go back to USA I use T-Mobile 2 go for local calls and Skype for international.

NET-10 is 10c per minute US and 15c per minute international.

Buy T-mobile prepaid package and top up cards, the easiest thing espcially if you have GSM phone in UK.