A Review of Net10’s Prepaid Wireless Service
Net10 Review
A little over a month ago I made the decision to drop Verizon Wireless as my mobile carrier in favor of a combination of the no monthly fee Ooma VOIP system and my wireless through Net10.
Prior to the switch my wife and I had a family plan through Verizon and we were paying $60 per month, which was their cheapest monthly plan.
Post Verizon, we paid $200 for the Ooma VOIP (one-time charge with no monthly fee), and we’re paying $30 per month for two cell phones through Net10. We’ve cut our phone bills in half, and actually have better all around service now. I recently provided an Ooma review, and this post will cover the second part of monthly budget slimming plan, cell phone service through Net10.
What is Net10?
Net10 is a Tracfone brand. Tracfone operates off of other wireless carriers networks, such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, and phones can be either CDMA or GSM, based on the model that you purchase. LG, Motorola, and Nokia are some of the phone models available.
How does Net10 Work?
It’s pretty simple:
- You pay 10 cents per minute. Minutes are deducted from your total balance.
- Text messages sent and at first read when received are a deduction of half of a minute.
- Each minute of web access deducts a minute from your balance.
- You can buy airtime cards, usually in one month increments. For instance, you can buy 300 minutes and 60 service days for $30, or 10 cents per minute (hence the name).
- There is no monthly service fee.
- You can purchase more minutes directly through your phone or online.
What are the Benefits of Net10 Over Other Carriers?
- No contracts. Don’t like the service? Your loss of investment is extremely limited.
- You see your service date and minutes remaining right on your phone screen so you don’t have to worry about where you stand with either. No accidental overage charges.
- No daily airtime fees. This is where you can save money over other prepaid carriers. A lot of the other prepaid cell plans charge you $0.99 or more for each day you actually use the phone in addition to the per minute charges.
- The phones are cheap. They’re basically free because they come with free minutes and service.
- Want to pay for what you actually get a-la-carte? This is your chance! I had so many minutes that I never used and was paying for with previous cell carriers.
- Rollover! Unused minutes during your service dates are banked and rolled over.
What is Net10’s Performance Like?
So far, so good. I haven’t had one dropped call and the clarity is actually better than with my Verizon phone. I’m not sure what carrier network I’ve been operating off of, but I live in a densely populated area with a big Verizon contingent. I really have nothing to complain about with the phone or the service.
Any Downsides to Net10?
One downside thus far is that their customer service has not been good. I’ve called in twice and you can get to a real person quickly, but the two that I’ve talked to had no idea what they were doing. They had to ‘check with their supervisor’ and put me on hold multiple times. Thankfully, I don’t think I’ll have to use them much. The only reason I had to in the first place was because my wife’s phone was stolen and I had to have it deactivated. Also, the phones available are not the latest and greatest, if being trendy or an early mover is a motivator for you.
Who is Net10 Convenient For?
Anyone who can limit their minutes and total cost to less than that of a monthly plan through other major carriers.
Who is Net10 Not Convenient For?
If you live and die by your unlimited data plan from another carrier, you’re probably not going to see Net10 as a good deal in comparison. Net10 does have an unlimited plan, but if that’s what you want, you’re probably better off going elsewhere.
Final Thoughts on Net10
I really can’t be happier having switched from Verizon. It’s saving me about $30 per month ($360 per year), I feel like I’m much more in control of the minutes that I’m using, and the reliability of the airtime has been great. I give Net10 my full recommendation if your goals are in line with mine. They have a pretty good deal right now, where you can get a free phone and free shipping just by purchasing minutes.
Net10 & Phone Bill Cutting Discussion:
- How have you been able to cut your monthly cell phone bills?
- Do you have experience with Net10 or a comparable prepaid provider? Share your experience.
You may also find the following articles of interest:
My Review of the Budget Slimming Ooma VOIP System
How to Use Ooma and Net10 to Cut your Phone Bills in Half
That sounds like a pretty good deal. I’ve used Cingular’s pay-as-you-go, but it really didn’t save me any money with the daily air time charges. You highlight a clever way to cut monthly expenses.
I’ve been using Net10 for almost three years now, and my customer service experience has been great. My first phone malfunctioned about four months in, and they not only sent me a new one, but gave me 300 free minutes for my trouble.
I have a net10 phone and my wife has a Tracfone, I make a lot more calls for business and chose Net10 which suits me well; my wife got a Motorola with double minutes and she just chats to friends and family and sends sms’s so Tracfone works for her. We have been happy with both phones and neither give any trouble with coverage. We used to have a family plan which cost us about $70 more every month so I’m very happy to saving.
I have had tracfone every since tracfone came out, then switched to net10. My on complaint about net10 unlimited is the call waiting feature is blocked. After 6 different phones and 4 months dealing with this issue, the activation dept finally admitted that on the unlimited plan, those features are blocked. So be aware of that.
I have used Net10 for over a year, and we have one phone with time that is charged to my credit card, and one that we buy time cards for, just for emergencies. The problem is that the time stacked up on the phone we have to buy time cards for, and we have so much time on that phone now that we want to skip buying the time card for a couple of months, although we are forced to buy time once a month. Now we are told that no matter how much time we have on the phone we are buying time cards for, if we MISS buying ONE CARD, even if we have a tremendous amount of talk time piled up on that card, that Net10 just blocks us from using the time we have PAID for, and if we don’t buy another card in a month they just delete ALL THAT TIME that we PAID FOR. I am very upset over this, and it appears that Net10 has you in a trap where even if you paid for hundreds of dollars in time cards for your phone, and you don’t want to buy yet another card when you have so much time, they will just wipe out your time that you PAID FOR and you are out hundreds of dollars. And that when they are adding time on my other phone charging it to my credit card. My opinion is that it is not legal for them to just remove the time I have already paid for because I want to use some of that time before I buy yet more time, although I am letting them charge on my credit card for my other phone. I am open to suggestions as to how to deal with this situation while I am also open to considering another provider. The customer service was terrible, and I couldn’t even understand what they were saying half the time.
Cool. I have an extra phone from T-Mobile pre paid. I chose them because if you purchase $100 of minutes, it’s also 10 cents per minute, but the minutes don’t expire for 12 months.
The LG300 Net10 phone (which you have pictured) is the one for $30 that comes with $30 of phone time (so is “free”). It’s an ok phone but folks should know it does not have a camera or any extra fluff features at all, and the ear speaker does sound a bit muffled, as though someone is talking through a towel on the other end. However, those I talk to say they hear me fine. The new Motorola EM326 phone Net10 has DOES have a 1.3MP camera and other features (memory card, MP3, etc), so that might be worth exploring if you like to do more than just talk.
I might question the reliability and durability of these phones for long term use, and some folks have “radiation” concerns about these cheap prepaid phones as opposed to more shielded phones from the big providers (there are still ongoing tests about cell phones and radiation, etc, so no conclusions yet). So it’s up to you as to if this is of no concern to you or something to consider, especially if you stay on the phone a decent amount.
I haven’t weened myself from Verizon yet. I got my Net10 because I wanted to sell items on Craigs List and saw this as a safe way to make a phone number available to potential buyers of my items, without having to give out my “real” number. I’m not sure I could use this as my full time only phone, but for my purposes, it’s great for the money and I’d recommend it.
Davis,
Per your comments above Davis regarding how they can erase your time accumulated if you let buying a new card lapse: Right now, it’s legal for prepaid phone companies to do this.
I agree with you that there should be more reasonable limits on how long bought time lasts before you have to buy new cards to “recharge” the time you have left. However, unless folks take the time to write letters and emails to their elected officials in Washington (even the White House), then this won’t change. Ask for new consumer laws that forbid time limits on bought time. If enough people get on the band wagon, it will change.
One note though – the advantage for some people about prepaid phones are your ability to remain anonymous when using them. For most folks, their reasons are legit (if some might be sneaky), but there are concerns about this too, which has recently prompted the country of Greece to require all prepaid users to register their phones with accurate information about who owns them, etc. Once we demand that prepaid carries are better regulated, we might have to accept some of the loss of freedom/anonymity you get with these as well.
I’m doing the same but net10 + MagicJack. Those 30 bucks a month really stack up. We’ve been indoctrinated with the cell phone use. At first it appears to be difficult to drop the cell phone, but really much of the time we are at our office or home. If you are using voip the cell phone might just not be that important. And if you need your cell phone, 10 cents a minute, is a bargain.
Net10 realy is a bargain,
its not only the 10cents a min but also 5cents a text
The phone is sent to you.. talk about convienient.\
I buy my vouchers on the site.. http://www.net10.com.
over all its easy, its cheap and makes my life an absolute pleasure.
keep it up
Big Net10 fan. It’s so great to be able to pay as you go and not get a bill with all sorts of funky charges added to it every month.
Good clean signal, no dropped calls and no complaints.
Awesome.
Atlanta Guy,
Thanks for your comments, which were very interesting.
Net10 clearly states that unused minutes during your service dates are banked and rolled over. This is misleading, and if you have 2,000 minutes on your phone and do NOT want to buy another time card, which seems insane to me to spend more on a phone just used for emergencies and which does NOT need more minutes, IF you don’t buy another card they just steal the minutes, lol. This does really irk me, so I went on a trip and used the phone with all the time on it, talked a lot on the phone both on the trip and when I came back home, and now I am down to 70 minutes and will be using that time before the FORCED DATE of buying another card, and they won’t be getting anything else on that phone so far as buying more time cards and their little scheme that “you keep paying no matter how much time you have or you lose the money spent on 2,000 minutes of time presently on your phone”. I will continue to use the phone for which they charge time on my credit card while I explore better possibilities. There has to be a better deal than being forced to buy regular cards no matter how much time you have accumulated that they will steal without hesitation. I don’t like that way of doing business, which they used to call “highway robbery” when a setup caused you to lose money.
What you fail to mention, which is extremely important to people, is the lack of portability from Net10 or Tracfone. Forget about porting a phone number from Net10 or Tracfone to a mainstream carrier should you decide you need a more complete service package down the road. This is a major disadvantage to anyone in business, or who wishes to keep ONE phone number. Beware.
Simple..wow I thought UK plans can be complicated. Ill read again lol..Ok I do see and yeh nice and cheap, can only go so far with all this this must be rock rock bottom prices to call people.
Pete
Laura,
I found some contact info on Howardforums that should get you some intelligent people who can and will actually help you…
Call Elston at 800-626-4883 x6107
or
call the Executive Resolution Department at 800-876-5753 (8am – 7pm EST)
Good Luck!
My new favourite feature about Net10 is the international rates and services.
The International call only cost 15cents per minute to over 100 countries.
If your family in international countries sign up with Net10 they can pay local rates to phone you.
That is worth every penny.
Thanks Net10
NET10s price is right! They make it super easy to sign up and get started. The costs are so minimal compared to larger “rate plan” companies. No doubt the lack of contract, fees, and overages are a much appreciated convenience. Check out this video which hilariously illustrates the idea: http://www.celldefense.com
This is the second month that Net10 took payment from my credit card for 250 minutes, and did not put the minutes on my phone.
Last month I had to call and was on the phone an hour trying to get the time I had paid for through my credit card put on my phone. Finally they added the time.
Now, this month, once again I got their notice that they had been paid from my credit card, and that the 250 minutes would be added.
The time has never appeared on my phone. I have written them numerous e-mails informing them that the time is NOT on my phone, and I get numerous form letters from them saying their records show it WAS added. I don’t need this stress. I have called my credit card company and informed them that this will be handled as a dispute and complaint toward Net10 until they credit my account with a payment they obtained for time I never received. This is outrageous.
@ Davis – Hmm… I have never had any problems whatsoever with minutes. I usually purchase online and it’s added within minutes.
Watch out net phone is troubeled company. While I agree, perpaid service is the way to go, I recommend to all of you out there to find a good company. Net10 seems cheap, I used it for 6 month, and just today I bought from wal-mart a card to add minutes and although I added them and shows on phone’screen, yet the telephone didn’t work because it was failing to recognize the new minutes. When I called to fix the issue. I had to call 4 times, about 3 hours total the problem isn’t fixed. The connection was terrible with service personal in Manila. Wal-mart refused to return the card because it is already scrached, so I lost my money and trashed the telephone. I think Net10 should be invastigated, it is ripp off
Bami, I have explored other phones, and Net 10 is as good as it gets if you don’t want to get bills from providers and have to address mistakes they made, which takes for ever on the phone. I have been through all that, and it was a nightmare. With Net 10 you just buy the time and forget it. The only thing I don’t like about Net 10 is that you are forced to buy time when you don’t really need it, but I solved that by buying enough time to last a year. Recently I bought a phone and some time from AT&T, and believe me, you don’t want to do THAT. No matter how much time you buy on their Go Phone they STILL charge you an extra dollar a day for using the phone, which is $30 a month in addition to the minutes you use and what you paid for the phone and the minutes.
Can you use the camera if you have run out of minutes?
How do you transfer the photos to your laptop?
@ Geiger – So long as you have the right cord, you should be able to hook up any camera phone to your computer. You can also send photos from your phone to your email address.
Can you transfer the sim card to another unlocked phone? I like the concept but really want a phone with full Qwerty and their choices are limited. Looks like they only have one Qwerty.
Well, buyers should always beware, and I complained about Net 10 because my time was not going on the phone and I had to call them to have it applied; however, now that I have experienced AT&T and their methods, all I can say is BUYER BEWARE OF AT&T!
Since my experience with AT&T I value Net10.
AT&T has what I consider to be a real scam, because when I asked the rep about extra charges he told me there were NO extra charges other than just the charge per minute. Then I discovered immediately that every day that you either make a call or get a call (I wonder about those wrong numbers I was charged for if I didn’t MAKE a call that day, and wouldn’t doubt if AT&T had people who called to just run up the charge). Look at it this way. You are charged a dollar a day just to use your own phone. That is $30 a month. They push the “family plan” so if you have two phones for two family members, and they are used daily, that amounts to $60.00 a month. And, of course, you have that charge for your calls, per minute. So, Net10 does not use any of those sly tricks to cost you additional money, and the service is good. Count your blessings if you don’t have AT&T.
I just recemtly purchased a net10 fone for myself a few days before christmas, it was the full qwerty samsung. i love the fone but i didnt want to change the number from my old cell phone provider. so dumb old me goes and fills out the online form to transfer my number, and was told 7 bussines days. an hour or so after completing the online form, some lady from the phillipeans (skuze my spelling, idk how to spell philleapeans) and says it will be done within 7 business days. come 7 business days, after im in new york on vacation visitng my mom, still no number, WTF! i calls the incompetent customer service and am told 48-72 hours, come 48- 72 hours call customer service again and told the same thing, and this will continue for another week and a half, witha total of like 2 and a half weeks, so now were going, from 7 bussiness days to 2 and a half weeks. finally at my moms office we call customer service (and btw, this is a few days after new years, the one day were i would have gone mad with my minutes and called everyone, also this is the last day of my vacation, and the last time i will see my mom for a good 3 months,) and we hade to call customer service like 4 times trying to get a competent person. and eventuall, since 4 is the new 3 ( u know, 3 the lucky number lol) we get a competent employee. and after these almost 3 long weeks, i just decide F-it ill just get a new number, their obviously not smart enough to transfer a number. so after my mom gets on the phone and tells the guy and the whole company off, like they deserve, i get my new number and 30 free minutes ( wow a whole 3 buks worth of service, im Soooo, gratful) i ask if theyl ever transfer my number now thats its been set to a new number, and once again, im told yea, thats totally possible we’ll get right on it. its been a few weeks, and so far nuttin, o well. o yea, dont send or receive pic messages, their like 25c for 1. also id like to thnk my mommy $ activating my fone for me, thanks mama!!!!
in response to the user Davis who said:
I have used Net10 for over a year, and we have one phone with time that is charged to my credit card, and one that we buy time cards for, just for emergencies. The problem is that the time stacked up on the phone we have to buy time cards for, and we have so much time on that phone now that we want to skip buying the time card for a couple of months, although we are forced to buy time once a month. Now we are told that no matter how much time we have on the phone we are buying time cards for, if we MISS buying ONE CARD, even if we have a tremendous amount of talk time piled up on that card, that Net10 just blocks us from using the time we have PAID for, and if we don’t buy another card in a month they just delete ALL THAT TIME that we PAID FOR. I am very upset over this, and it appears that Net10 has you in a trap where even if you paid for hundreds of dollars in time cards for your phone, and you don’t want to buy yet another card when you have so much time, they will just wipe out your time that you PAID FOR and you are out hundreds of dollars. And that when they are adding time on my other phone charging it to my credit card. My opinion is that it is not legal for them to just remove the time I have already paid for because I want to use some of that time before I buy yet more time, although I am letting them charge on my credit card for my other phone. I am open to suggestions as to how to deal with this situation while I am also open to considering another provider. The customer service was terrible, and I couldn’t even understand what they were saying half the time.
——————————————————————–
It is true a person must buy a card if the user uses up his/her minutes or if the user’s service days are up. however with net10 not only does your minutes rollover but so does your service days. ie.. if you bye a 300 minute card it you get 300 minutes + 60 days to use those minutes. if you run out of minutes you can’t talk, if you run out of serice days then you must buy a card even if you have minutes on your phone. most people will use 300 minutes before 60 days so if your not using your phone that much then you need to switch providers. if your using the minutes but find when your buying your card that your service agreement days are not rolling over then there is something wrong with your phone.
Net10 and newer single rate Tracfones uses the AT&T GSM network
Net10 gives you more minutes than tracfone but less days in which to use those minutes.
here is a list of the “providers” for Tracfone inc which is owned by a América Móvil.
Safelink- is just for emergency use
Tracfone- if you use very little minutes this is for you.
Net10- used for the light talker type
Straight Talk- 1000 minutes & 1000 text/month with 30MB of web access. $45 “plan” lets the user have unlimited talk & text & web access works off the verizon network. (no roll over minutes)
Net10 Unlimited-Similar to the Straight talk $45/month plan Net10 unlimited is $50/month & works off the AT&T network. (no need for rollover minutes)
George, thank you for those nice comments. That information was very interesting.
I won’t reiterate all my comments about Net10 and AT&T, but suffice it to say that Net10 has AT&T beat by a country mile. I solved my “having to buy time on a regular basis” problem with Net10 by buying enough time that no time purchase is due for a year. This is ideal since Net10 provides great coverage and all my calls are successful with no “dead zones”. Now I have good service without having to buy time for a year, and NO extra charges.
With the AT&T fiasco, we solved that problem, too, and since we bought a year’s time before we were aware that they have the audacity to charge an extra dollar a day if you USE the phone that day, we just use that phone rarely, and mainly keep it for an emergency. When the time is used on the AT&T phone, we will discard it. That service is worthless in my opinion.
I will stay with Net10. It is the best. No bills, no mistakes incurred by a billing system, no hassle, and no hidden extra charges. I read not long ago that Net10 now is good for International calls, too, and the charges are all reasonable for any calls.
tracfone (verizon) seems to be better for me.
I purchased one for “emergency’s”.
Motorola 375g on sale $19.99 then paid $99.00 plus tax
and got double minutes for the phone w/one year airtime. I wound up with 1000 minutes w/promotions.
I still have 970 minutes left after 11 months.
I beleive Tracfone has a plan for unlimited usage @$45 month.
I think Net10 is absolutely wonderful. I have been using the Net10 Unlimited plan and it is seriously just the greatest thing. I have unlimited minutes, texting, and web browsing and the phone is great! I got a LG600G which is a great flip camera phone. There is no contract and just great service!
Picked up a NET10 Unlimited plan and phone at my local Target a couple days ago. I found out about it online and decided to check it out. The plan offers me unlimited everything for just $50/mo. I got the Samsung R401G which is an absolutely astounding prepaid phone. The QWERTY keyboard is extremely convenient and makes texting rather easy. Reception is great, I have not dropped a single call since I activated service. Thanks NET10 for a great plan that is both affordable, efficient, and non-binding since there is no contract!
I’m considering Net10 for my next phone but does anyone know the diffrence beteen the 50 and 100 minute unlmited bundle.I mean, why the 50 or 100 if it’s unlmited????
I use iwirelesshome.com that can be purchased through any Kroger grocery store (King Soopers, etc.) and with the linking of your loyalty card, every time you spend $100 at the grocery store, they give you 20 free minutes.
I have a $20/month plan for unlimited texting and my minutes are more than covered by my “freebies” so that is actually the cheapest plan I have found, so far, for what I need.
Thanks for your review of Net10, though. It was very informative.
If you don’t live and die by the phone than Net 10 is definitely for you. It’s great for those of us who can actually put the phone down and function on other levels. I have been a customer for 3 years with never a dropped call and great customer service. I have saved so much money and aggravation that I had with the other services. It’s a small investment for what you get back.
Christine, I couldn’t agree with you more! I could write a book about the insane billing problems I had with several different providers. It reached the point that I dreaded getting their statements because they were ALWAYS wrong, and I had to prove they were wrong month after month. That hassle is not worth the service they provided, which was NO better than what I get with Net-10 which has NO hassles. Now I pay for my phone time, I enjoy my phone, I never miss a call and my phone never fails me. I don’t have the stress of some incompetent service provider always getting the billing wrong! Thank you, Net 10!!!
I had been with Verizon for years, and when my contract ended recently, I had decided that I would try Net10. They transferred my old number when I activated my new phone and it only took about an hour til things were working fine and I had my new phone and my old number. I made the mistake of not turning off my phone after activation, then turning it back on again, so thought it wasn’t working. Called customer service, and they were quick to ask me if I had done that and when I did, all was working fine. I have only had my Net10 phone and service for a couple of weeks, but so far I am very satisfied. I do send a few pic. messages and recieve them, and they do cost more than just a word text, so don’t flip out when more time is deducted for them.
Not a lot of bells and whistles, but I am a “country gal” so don’t need them anyway. Goodbye Verizon, I doubt I will be back.
I have the Net10 cdma phone and it works everywhere. I use it a lot will in Canada and am only charged 1.5 min per minute talked , which in the long run , is a whole lot cheaper than other carriers.
Irina,
The bundles are for buying ringtones etc. and (I think) making international calls.
AtlantaGuy, that’s a great idea to get a prepaid phone for selling things on Craigslist!
Matt, texts cost 3 cents (or .3 units) on the T401g, the model with the Qwerty keyboard. The phone does cost a little more though.
Net 10 sounds cool and all, but my prepaid cell phone heart belongs to Straight Talk. I love the ST $45 unlimited use plan and the ST Verizon network is fast and so dependable versus what I used to have with my previous carrier. A friend is trying to tempt me to Net10, but the ease and savings I have with Straight Talk really will keep me there. Even their customer service is pretty awesome and knowledge-able and I have yet to have a real problem they can’t solve. The prepaid market is vast and wide and while Net10 seems like a great company, Straight Talk’s ease really gives it a mark ahead of everyone.
I just signed up with Net10 recently and I am really loving the service. I did my research concerning the prepaid market and Net10 had the best value for the money. I was able to purchase a brand new Samsung phone and a month’s minutes and still save over what I would be paying with my previous carrier. So far so good with Net 10 and it doesn’t get any easier than Best Buy for the inital purchase and I can actually recharge my phone directly from it. The calling network is pretty solid and no overage fees or contracts make it a great choice. I’ve heard the same out-sourcing customer service issues, but I’ve had nothing but a good experience and would recommend Net10 to friends.
College Girl, I couldn’t agree with you more. After I got paying time organized by buying enough time that would last a year before necessity for adding time. I no longer had to worry about buying time and whether it was added to my phone time. Now it is smooth sailing, and no worry. I have never had problems with people calling me, my phone is always reliable with Net 10, and I have no problem calling others. I like reliability, and what I didn’t like was calling the billing department EVERY MONTH when I used two other services because they billed my phone incorrectly. It was really a nightmare. I’m happy with my Net 10 and I like the honesty. Oh, and I tried AT&T and quit even using it, because not only do you pay for time used, but an extra $1.00 a day if you get a call or make a call any day, lol, and to ME that is a major ripoff.
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