Consumer Cellular ReviewNo-Contract Provider Takes its Own Medicine to Get BetterSearch This Site:
And it turns out that these easy-to-use plan are excellent for . . . DiscountsSeniors (AARP Discount)Consumer Cellular is the exclusive cell phone provider the AARP. If you are already a member you get a 5% discount on your phones and service and a 30% discount on accessories. In fact, if you sign up for the Consumer Cellular's $30 a month plan, then just the discount would pay for a year’s membership, making you eligible for other discounts as well (such as a big discount on a Nintendo Wii which may be of some interest to someone in your family).One other way they appeal to you with . . . AAA DiscountAAA members get a free earbud, and free roadside assistance calls with the AAA roadside assistance number PRE-PROGRAMMED into your phone. In addition, you get a 30% discount on select accessories, and a 45 day/45 minute warranty instead of standard 30 day/30 minute warranty.Good Sam RV ClubConsumer Cellular has a partnership with the Good Sam RV Club. Specific discounts are not listed, but do contact Consumer Cellular and request the discounts offered to either AARP or AAA members.Coverage from AT&TThere is a street-level coverage viewer available on Consumer Cellular's site, but when you look closer, you can see that the viewer is actually provided by AT&T and presumably, so is the actual coverage. The good news is that if you already know that AT&T has good coverage in your area, you're all set.The interesting thing is that though AT&T often gets low ratings in customer satisfaction, Oregon-based Consumer Cellular received the highest ratings overall in a recent survey. Standard No-Contract BillingYou get a standard paper bill every month rather than having to constantly buy airtime refill cards as you might with a prepaid phone. Because there's no contract, you can cancel at any time without any termination fees, and you can also change your plan at any time.Simple Rate PlansTheir rates plans cost either $10, $15, $20, $30, $40, $50 or $60 a month. No "29.99" a month plans from them.$10 a Month PlanIn Consumer Cellular ads you’ll see their rates advertised as being as low as $10 a month, and it’s true they do have such a plan. If you use your phone only for emergencies but want to make sure you have an active phone and don’t want the hassle of refilling your phone with airtime cards every couple of months as you would with a regular prepaid phone, then you can opt for their $10 a month service.For any actual calls you pay an additional 25 cents a minute. If you make a lot of calls you’ll end up paying quite a lot. But don’t worry, you can always change your plan and move up to plans that give a fixed set of minutes. Additional minutes still cost 25 cents each. So realistically, you probably need one of the other plans. $15 to $50 a month plansWhen you choose a $15, $20, $30, $40 or $50 a month plan, you get 100 to 1800 minutes a month with additional minutes costing 25 cents each.$60 a Month PlanWith the most expensive plan, you get 2400 minutes. Additional minutes cost 10 cents each rather than 25 cents with the other plans.There's a big advantage to having these simple plans, but there's also one cost. Cost of SimplicityNo Free Night and Weekend MinutesOne way that these plans are simplified is that there is one standard set of monthly minutes and one rate for additional minutes. There are no features like free night and weekend minutes. With other plans, even prepaid plans from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, you can get some form of night and weekend minutes free.With these other plans how much you get charged depends, for example, on how many days a month you use the phone. This can be good if you would like to make long cell phone calls in the evenings. Then you would get the cheapest plan that still had that feature which would be at least $30 a month or more. On the other hand, if you mainly want to simplify and control your cell phone costs then Consumer Cellular could be for you. So let's take a look at the . . . Phones – High Quality, Low PriceConsumer Cellular offers an attractive set of phone starting including a FREE basic flip phone going all the up to a Smartphone.Free No-Contract PhoneMotorola WX345 FreeYou can get a Motorola WX345 flip phone free when you sign up. The WX345 is supposed to be a basic phone, but it still includes an camera, mp3 music player and FM radio. You can even access the mobile web.Nokia 2720 $10Nokia 2720 for $10 has a megapixel camera (though the quality is more like a VGA camera). You can see a review of the AT&T version of this phone.Samsung A177 $30The Samsung A177 is a basic QWERTY keyboard phone for easy text messaging. If you want a faster web capability and a music player you could go with the . . .Nokia C3 $45The Nokia C3 has a larger and nicer display to go with its more advanced capabilities such as a 2.0 megapixel camera and mp3 music player. What else could you want? Maybe a . . .Touchscreen Samsung A697 $60The Samsung A697 touchscreen phone substitutes a 3-inch touchscreen display with a virtual QWERTY keyboard instead of a physical keyboard.Motorola Brava Smartphone $165The Motorola Bravo smartphone is an Android 2.2 phone with a 3.7 inch (that's big) touchscreen, WiFi and GPS.Doro PhoneEasy 410 Senior Cell Phone $25The Doro PhoneEasy 410 offers an easy to use phone with large buttons in a stylish package. The $25 price is a bargain for these kinds of phones.GuaranteeYou can use your phone for up to 30 minutes or 30 days (45 days and minutes for AARP members) and still send it all back and get a refund for everything except the . . .Activation Fee: $35There is a non-refundable $35 activation fee. So it’ll cost you at most $35 to try out the service.In addition to the basic rate plans, you can add-on packages for text messages and web surfing. Connect! PackagesText Messaging and Web Surfing Add-onsText messages normally cost 10 cents each to send or receive, though you can also decline to activate text messages if you’re sure you don’t want them.Do you think you will send more than a text message a day? Perhaps you receive them from (just as an example) a teenage relative? Then you may want to get a Connect! package. The Connect! Lite package offers 100 text message and 4 MB of data for $2.50 a month. This amounts to about 2.5 cents a text message and lets you check the web briefly 2-4 times a week. Larger packages add more messages and data going all the way up to the Connect! Complete package that offers 2000 text messages and 200 MB of data for $20 a month. Realistically, you’re either the kind of person who checks the web a lot from their phone, which means you could try the $20 a month package to see if it works for you, or you can wait until you’re in front of your computer. It’s also not clear whether you can only check the websites they let you check such as USA Today and CNN or whether you can check any website you want. The megabyte allowance is difficult since you have no way of knowing how many you’ve used or how many bytes it takes to view a particular webpage. In any case, you can probably forget about checking any YouTube videos. Once you go over your allotment, it costs 1 cent per kilobyte, which can add up pretty fast, and after receiving your bill you might be making a call to . . . . Free Customer ServiceDial 611You can make free customer service calls from your Consumer Cellular phone by dialing 611. You can get help with managing your account or with how to use certain features. You will not be charged any usage minutes for these calls. Note however, you cannot use this number for directory assistance.If you're NOT calling from your Consumer Cellular phone, you can dial their toll-free number. They offer both live customer support as well as other resources such as list of frequently answered questions and tutorial videos. Toll-Free Support Phone Number 1-888-345-5509You can reach Customer Support at 1-888-345-5509 from 5 am to 6 pm Pacific Time on weekdays and 6 am to 5pm PT on weekends. Check Your UsageThere is a separate phone number that's in your contacts to check your usage. When you call that number you are asked to enter the last four digits of your social security number before they tell you how many minutes you've used and how many you have left. This call is also free.Making a Test CallYou can call 888-460-8781 to test if your Consumer Cellular phone is working properly. This is a free call so you won't be charged any minutes.Given the high customer satisfaction rating, chances are you'll have few problems. International CallingThere are two kinds of international calls you can make with Consumer Cellular, one kind which you should try to avoid, and the other kind you should DEFINITELY avoid.Calls from the US to other countriesFor calls from the US to other countries you are charged your usual minutes plus an additional fee which varies depending on where you’re calling but seems to run at least 20 cents per minute extra. These rates are more expensive than what you would normally pay if you used a special service or calling card. So you would normally try to avoid these calls. (Don't Make) Calls Made from Outside the USCalls from outside the United States are charged exorbitant roaming rates of at least $1 to $3 a minute. Even worse, if someone calls you, you are charged even if you don’t answer the phone!So the motto with a Consumer Cellular phone when traveling abroad is to “Leave Home Without It!” Why Consumer Cellular Could Be For YouHere is an Ann Curry interview with senior cell phones. If you want
and then it may be for you. Learn more here . . .
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