Prepaid phones can help postpaid customers

Imagine this scenario: You’re toting around your cell phone, walking around a pool. Some wise guy decides to get a laugh at your expense and shoves you in — wallet, phone, keys, and all. While the wallet and keys will eventually dry, your cell phone might not recover. Sure you can stick it in a bag of rice, but even then recovery is not guaranteed. So what do you do then? Postpaid phones are expensive, especially if you don’t have an upgrade available. As Consumerist notes, a prepaid phone might be your best bet.

They relate the story of Brandi, a T-Mobile customer who broke her phone. She faced the same dilemma: take only a small subsidy on an expensive phone, or…well, she didn’t know what else to do. After reading some information online (perhaps on this very site), she bought a prepaid package at her local retailer. Smart girl, that Brandi. She just popped her old SIM into the new prepaid phone and voila! Working phone.

Unfortunately, this isn’t going to work with just any carrier. Because T-Mobile uses a SIM card, it works fine there. However, I had a similar experience with Verizon. After my phone vibrated off my nightstand and into a cup of water below, I was out of a phone. I stuck it in rice, which eventually worked, but in the interim I wanted to activate the Verizon prepaid phone I had sitting around. I tried online and it didn’t work. I then called customer service, where I was informed that in order to activate a prepaid phone on a postpaid line, the prepaid phone must have been in use for six months. In other words, they don’t want you buying a cheap, subsidized prepaid phone and not repaying it by buying minutes.

Still, for many carriers this is an option. T-Mobile for sure, as we’ve seen here, and I’d bet that it works with AT&T too. You might want to check with the other carriers to see if they have a policy regarding prepaid phones on postpaid accounts. You don’t want to be stuck with a phone you can’t activate.

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