I'm another $100 / 1000 minute a year customer, satisfied for 3 1/2 years. This was my first year of not using all 1000 minutes. Reading here has made me realize I could have gotten another full year of service with my remaining minutes, for only $10 (or is it $30). I just dropped voice service on my ATT DSL line, and am considering another T-Mobile phone, so I could keep one in the car, and one in the house.

9/4/2008:

Loving T-mobile's pay as you go plan. I'm using a Motorola V195s which is a basic phone with loud ringers, bright screen, easy to use keypad, and picked it up on t-mobile.com for $29.99.

This deal came with a $10 airtime card, and a bonus $25 refill card and free shipping.

After activating the phone, I began receiving spam from 401. These spam texts are Gemini and Aries horoscope text messages and for the life of me I was unable to find out how to stop them. Sending STOP, CANCEL, END, etc didn' work.

So what I did, was go to MENU, MESSAGES, (clicked the Menu button), then went to INBOX SETUP, TEXT MSG SETUP, SERVICE CENTER NO., and deleted the last number of the listed number. This effectively disables messaging from being sent/received by my phone.

I found this tip out at mobiledia dot com, and it has worked for me so far.

The voice quality is slighty muffled compared to my Verizon's Chocolate 2, but for the price of the phone it's very usable.

I suggest that anyone considering a T-mobile prepaid, or any other prepaid phone, to pick up a package at a local retailer or online and use it for a week to see if it will fit your lifestyle and sync with your expectations.

Worst case scenario is that your out $40 bucks ($30 phone + $10 airtime).

I'M HAPPY TO HAVE SWITCHED!

Good luck to others - you'll be happy you saved some money.

Worst customer service department I've had to deal with in 50 years!

I gave up my att contract for tmobile to go,and also I had a 20% discount. A 50 dollar card will last me 4 months.Tmobile to go is the best,if you dont talk much,a 100 dollar gets you 1000 minutes,thats alot of minutes t use as you wish,and take your time with them,up to a year.that is why I like tmobile to go.

Some here have said try beating 12.50 a month...my Virgin mobile phone is about 5.83 a month...for 27 minutes plus I can earn up to 75 FREE minutes a month by watching 1 minute ads on their website. Oh yeah, the phone was FREE also by ordering it in their website! Killer deal! For me, $65 dollars for the year. Sign up for automatic $15 top ups on their website, choose .20 per minute pay as you go. And you're good!

Great service,strong signal in most of metro Detroit,You can save money by buying the $100 refill card it includes 1000 minutes and minutes don`t expire for one year,you can buy the $100 refill at www.callingmart.com for a discount it is only $93 and you can use coupon code ca3p-1207 or 12offtmo1031 for additional discounts,you will end up paying $90.21 for the $100 card.

i love T-Mobile.ive been with them since 2004.back in 2004 i was on prepaid because i was too young to get into a plan so once i turned 18 i went into a T-mobile store and got into a 1 year contract with T-mobile.i'm happy with them.by the way you could use any t-mobile phone with prepaid.honestly i think T-Mobile should boost there signal strenth because wwhen i'm in a stair well i get no service.or when i'm even in a elevator there's still no reception.Verizon is the best cell phone company but i would never switch T-mobile to go with them.with Verizon you get service everywere.

The service used to be fine but lately I have been having a very hard time getting soeone on the phone that can help.

Your Refill Cards are a complete hassle !!
I have yet to get one that works the first time - I'm always assured by the person I buy it from that it's activated, then end up driving back to the store to get my money back after repeated trys. I always end up having to reload the card from a credit card. Waste of time !!

I have a question about the pay by the day plan...
with this plan can you pay with a refill card?

my parents are making me pay for my own phone, so i need refill cards.

so if anyone knows anything about thats please tell me asap, i need a phone.

thanks.

i have had this service for a couple of year and i really like it

although the service is fine, certain shops demand $100 for registration. what a cheet!

This company has the worse customer service I have ever seen. If you need to speak with a manager to resolve an issue they never call you back. They also promised my service would be activated within 24 hrs, yet 7 days later I still have no service. Don't waste your time with them.

Beware! Count your minutes and what you're being charged. I went to a store and bought the $100 for 1000 minutes plan, which expires after a year. The SIM card came free and I put it into my own PDA and it works fine. I had my Net10 phone number ported over within a day. The T-mobile plan was supposed to be 10 cents a minute, no matter what, no B.S., according the guy in the store, T-mobile's website, and the paperwork they gave me. I made a few calls and saw I was being charged 11 cents a minute, and also being charged whenever somebody DIDN'T answer the phone. So I called customer service who were friendly and helpful but when pressed for answer to WHY I was being over charged, finally admitted: "I don't know." She handed the problem to "the only person in this call center who has access to fix pre-paid accounts" and told me it would be handled within the hour. Six hours later I was still being overcharged, so I called customer service again, and the problem was finally fixed because I kept pressing and pressing, asking the customer service rep for her rep ID and a ticket number for my problem and just being diligent. They fixed it in the end, and it's working okay now but I don't feel I can trust this company now and am disappointed. I only switched to T-mobile because NET10 was doing something equally sneaky with my minutes and I can't use their SIMs in my own phones. I was hoping for no more dishonest bullshit and that's what I was faced with right-off-the-bat from T-mobile. I'll say this however, their customer service is way better than NET10 and the fact I can use their SIM in my own phone without having to buy one of theirs is a big plus. And 1000 minutes for $100 expiring in a year is a great deal. JUST MAKE SURE YOU'RE ACTUALLY GETTING THAT DEAL. DO SOME MATH THE FIRST DAY YOU USE YOUR PHONE AND CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE RIGHT AWAY AND BE VIGILANT.

Every time I turn around it is time for me to reload. I can talk to someone for 3 minutes and $4 dollars will be gone off the phone. It was only intended for emergencies. I am not your typical telephone person. I just hate talking on the things, so for me to keep spending $10 dollars a week is crazy. I have to have a phone to ensure that my children can reach me at all times, but T mobile has me reluctant to pick up the phone because I know I will lose $4 dollars for one call.

I have had T-Mobile Prepaid for about 3 years and have liked it. However, I recently had a breech of security on my service. Someone changed my PIN without my knowledge and used my minutes. They did this without having my phone in their possession. T-Mobile sent me a text msg but by the time I got the msg it was too late to do anything about it. No one can tell me how that happened. I'm still using T-Mobile but I am concerned this may happen again.

I was a T-Mobile Prepaid customer for a year. It was great. I had service everywhere, including the subway (I live in Boston) and rural New Hampshire. The only problem was a total lack of mobile web.

11/5/08

I read the reviews before I got my mom, who was coming for a visit from abroad for about 2 months, a plan. I did notice that several people were claiming that T-mobile was "stealing" minutes but the majority of reviews were positive and my previous experience having a regular phone plan with T-mobile several years ago was good.
I got my mom a $50 card with 400 minutes thinking that this should be enough. The minutes were gone in less than a week. I was a bit surprised but I figured: ok, she talked on the phone a lot.
I went to the store to refill the minutes and the store clerk suggested that I get FlexPay My Faves plan, so she can call for free her favorite 5. I got 600 whenever minutes, free nights and weekends and Faves for $49.99 (plus taxes and surcharges, etc. - $66.71 all together). I figured that this should hold my mom.
A few days later (including a weekend), i checked the balance and to my shock saw that 143 whenever minutes have been used up. Plus there were 39 My faves "free minutes", all together: 182 minutes. Now, my phones has a registry and according to this registry there were 107 minutes used total. The majority of calls were to the Faves.
I called the customer service the first time around 11 pm ET. I have to echo others reviewers: it was the WORST customer service experience that I remember, even worse than Time Warner (and I hate those people with passion, but at least they are not trying to cheat you). For some bizarre reason, somebody at t-mobile came up with an idea that if you say the customer's name after every two words, that will somehow be pleasing to the customer - believe me, it is EXTREMELY annoying, especially when your complaint is not being addressed in any reasonable, making at least remote sense, way. By the time the customer service rep started telling me that my phone can not be used with My Faves (after their own store suggested this plan and set it up in the store), I lost patience and asked for a supervisor. The supervisor, of course, was "on another call." I was promised a call back within 30 minutes. I asked the rep what should I do if I don't receive this call. After assuring me that i WILL get a call, she said that I can call back and say that she is a liar.
As you can guess, I did NOT receive any calls within an hour. I called back and immediately asked for a supervisor, explaining briefly what happened. She rep asked me to give her 5 minutes to try to resolve my problem. I gave up, although it was already after midnight and I have to get up around 7 am. However, when she started reading my contract back to me, I almost lost it. Her supervisor was also "on another call." I told both reps that I will join other people online who talk about stolen minutes and customer service quality and will be writing to the BBB but I do need to get the problem resolved.
At 2 am (and I did explain to the first rep that i was on the East Coast), I received a call from the first rep's supervisor. She did make an attempt to explain what happened to my minutes: it was "due to engineering problems" that my minutes were not correctly credited to the Faves. Her explanation for more than 60 minutes discrepancy between the total number of minutes registered by my phone and T-mobile calculations was even worse - but at least she tried. She said that the calls are rounded up to the next minute (which would require at least 60 calls to accrue the extra 60 minutes. I didn't have any strength to fight at that point (around 2.30 am). She told me that 50 minutes would be credited back because they were supposed to be My Faves minutes and she gave me another 50 minutes for my pain and suffering(my words, not hers).
I couldn't deal with this issue anymore for a few days and I did get a land line, so my mom now makes most of her calls from that line.
Today I decided to review the minutes usage to make sure i actually got the credit and to make sure that nothing fishy is going on. The data I found on their site was for the first two days. I called customer service to find out if I can get this info some place else. I was told that i can NOT until the end of my billing cycle.
As I promised T-mobile, I AM spreading the word on the net. I will be writing to the BBB when I get more time and I am seriously considering writing to the DA to see if they can open an investigation into what appears to be blatant and brazen consumer fraud.

I just bought my samsung sim from att, its a prepaid phone. this phone is amazing text,call,voice mail,and msn.
its almost like its a regular cell phone from att, and you also get roll over minutes which means you won't lose your unused minutes unlike other prepaid phones from different companys. I love this phone like a brother that i never had.

Prepaid plan is a great deal but also the epitome of " you get what you pay for" do not expect any help from customer service if you have phone or coverage issues. Price is great when buying 1000 minutes but issues with coverage and customer service (or lack of)

i'm just a kid, and if anyone else is you know that you don't ever get service anywhere near school. at least that is the way it is for me. i need better service. and i am trying to find a new company. if your a kid and want to use your phone at school, don't get t-mobile.

it alright. the pay-by-the-day works good cause all of my friends are t-mobile. it gets annoying having to refill. would be better if it offered unlimted texting for prepaid besides for the sidekick.

Been with T-Mobile's pre-paid calling plan for about a year and a half and am still using the "low tech" Samsumg C-225 phone that I originally bought. The phone itself is exactly what I need and I could care less about bells and whistles. The $100/1000 minute plan fits my calling habits to a tee, give or take a month or two. I can always go to Wal-Mart and pick up another refill card for $86-90 then I'm back in business for another year within minutes. On my year anniversary I nearly forgot to "refill" and my phone was disabled for a day or two with remaining credit minutes, I didn't want to lose them or the phone number so I called T-Mobile customer service and told them my dilemma. They told me to buy a $10 refill card and call them back when I had it in hand. Once I did they reactivated my account and rolled over my remaining minutes. Now THAT'S service! My wife's Verizon contract will be ending this December and she's been so impressed with my phone and T-Mobile service she's going to do the same as I and save a couple hundred a year. We live in a rural area of Western Pennsylvania in a valley and T-Mobile's signal is about 40-50% with no dropped calls or issues whatsoever. I've traveled up and down the East coast and never encountered lack of service. I wish I could say the same for Verizon. A recent trip to Orlando rendered my wife's Verizon phone useless for the week, but my trusty ole' Samsung & T-Mobile worked like a charm everywhere we went. as long as I keep getting this kind of service and value, I will never switch to any other carrier.

I love t-mobile but i found out that net 10 is much cheaper as in that it's 5 cents a text instead of 10.

I use T-mobile from year 2001 from the day I wanted to have a cell phone. I never went to another service providor except moving from $19.99/m plan to $29.99/mo plan to prepaid plan. Prepaid is the best I had ever. I spend about $100 a year which is better than $400/year I used to pay.

They air this annoying message reminding you to refill whenever you're down to like 2 bucks. I check my balance everyday and I asked them to take it off and they refused. Pretty dumb customer service.

CUSTOMER SERVICE is bad ! I called the activation line and it was tranfering me (I guess) I heard music playing for a while, then it was slient. Then it disconnected me. Bad customer service.

As for customer service, no stars or a minus,, they seem to try but the broken English and failure to understand what your saying,, gets real old,,they just don't get it !!! it is almost identical to my experience with Dell customer service people, they seem to just be able to read their computer screen and not be able to think or solve problems,they just keep repeating the same thing over and over, It all started when they shut my phone off, when I called my number was not recognized as a number in their system,,,I got a different # off web and explained,, so they transfered me to same place again, still couldn't thru ,called back, hold,, they tried to do the same thing again,DUH! people the number is no good,,,,finally got some one who listened,,, my phone number was not in their system,,the sim card number was not either,resolving is useless on phone,,gave up and went to T Mobile store,,,rep spent about 1-1/2 hrs on phone trying to explain them my phone number was OK and I had the original sim card holder, I think they were telling him it was counterfit or ??, all were ligit as they had just texted me at the number on the last refill and it was still on my phone,,,then they said then it was shut off a month earlier,, then there was calls made after it was shut off, then it was reported stolen 3 weeks after it was shut off,and more calls made,,,finally they just gave me a new number and of course my $70 time was gone. now I had $12 time ,,,they just couldn't understand because all my info was apparently gone,and I guess they figured I was lying,I finally got a supervisor who offered $1.20,,,then $10,,,then 20,,then 30 and finally decieded to give me my $70 which he did not do,,,that night I called again and had to go thru same sick routine,,,I ended up again demanding they give me my credit,, NOW !!!,,,they finally did,,,,,I have found the best way to to deal with these people is first jut their full name, employee number and to be firm and aggressive and just keep asking for their supervisor or some who has authority to handle the problem,,total time wasted was about 5 hrs,,,,I was considering a regular plan but now I doubt it,,,the stock symbol for this company is DT which is DEUTSCHE TELE AG ADS,,,,T Mobile is the US operation

account balance goes from $8 to $0 in one day and you can't check your own account history. Callers are unable to leave voicemail, and you don't get notified. Not even that you've missed a call. Customer service is NOT the same on the prepaid plans as on the monthly pay plans. T-Mobile really does not want people to use this plan.

I was content with T mobile. Sept. 1/08 suddenly lost signal in my area (20 miles away); now my number has been de-activated with 900+ min. and 7 month bal. What happened? I've spent 2 hrs. trying to get help and so far it is a waste of time and energy.Out of 5 reps. one almost solved the problem, then i was disconnected!

I tried to purchase minutes with a credit card online over 5 times! Each time they said that it did not go through because they called my home phone and they did not work. Each time I sat with my phone beside me for hours and no luck. I ended up going to target and buying a refill card but that was a painfull process

Most people say T-mobile has horrible customer service. Well if you are patient then it won't seem so horrible. They try do everything they can to help you. With T-mobile you can have a lot more minutes then other prepaid services.

Enjoy using T-M's prepaid with only a few major difficulties.
1) Where I live, Marin County, CA, coverage is sparse.
2) Cannot block spam calls which are received even if reported to the do-not-call list.
3) Customer service, although very polite frequently leave much to be desired, and really don't know the facts. For instance, I had invested $95 and put in $10 more to cross the $100 mark, and lo and behold my cost per minute increased to I think it was 20¢/minute. Had to go through 3 people before it was set straight. (They insisted I would now get the $10 rate, not the $100 rate)
4) Not using Sidekick, hence no internet access.
5) A few months ago attempted to learn about FlexPlan, but no one had info! perhaps better now, I'll check one of these days, because it allows internet which I would primarily use for overseas phone calls.
6) No T-M phone office within many miles and all selling their service here knows almost zero.
Now what's good about it:
1) Previously had ATT postpaid and with the limited number of calls the cost was 20¢/min. It's now 10¢ and expires in a year from last payment.
2) I frequently leave the country for a month and ATT has no vacation policy for postpaid. T-M does allow 1 vacation leave a year for up to 90 days -- and will not be charged the monthly during that time.
3) Voice connections are almost always clear and strong.

I have used this service for 4-5 years now. Overall I am very pleased. I only use my cellphone a few times a day, but I use it as much as I need to, and never feel like I couldn't talk as long as I wanted to. Coverage is not as good as Verizon, but is adequate. I refill with $100 cards, which give me 1000 minutes, which lasts me about half a year. Perhaps $16/month including all fees, etc. Data is unavailable apart from a small amount thru t-zones. This is far better value than monthly for me. I'm a physician and earn big bugs, but I'm just too cheap to get a monthly plan with all those fees added on. I just cannot understand why most people don't use t-mobile prepaid.

Well, after reading all these reviews regarding cheating on prepaid minutes, I went to the Better Business Bureau website. T-Mobile has a rating of F, with over 23000 complaints in the last 3 years - and the vast majority are unresolved.

By comparison Virgin Mobile has about 1100 complaints over the same period and about 800 are resolved in some form. BBB gives Virgin a rating of 'unsatisfactory' I was ready to purchase a T-mobile prepaid phone and changed my mind. Thanks for this format

T-mobile services is great :) they have plenty of prepaid plans that is great. I have the sidekick plan and i love it i can text all day for just a buck a day and i can use the net.. get this you will love it.. if you like to text....a lot

T-Mobile was absolutely frustrating to try to have a customer service assoc. answer questions about simple service problems. I also checked my account online to see fees that noone could explain. It seemed as though their own employees did not know the company's plans. I was placed on hold and passed from person to person for 1 solid hour before I gave up, hung up and cancelled the service. I have been with Verizon(prepaid)ever since and been VERY satisfied with every aspect of service! The plans are very reasonable and no hidden fees!

Don't try porting your number. It is H-E-L-L!!! I called at least a dozen times and talked to guys with strong accents and they cannot even understand basic numbers. One time I have to repeat the same number 3 times before he can understand. Friendly, yes, but absolutely incompetent. When they tried to transfer me to the porting agent, I got cut off. I decided to forget porting and just accept my fate.

Some of these negative comments are hilarious. Every company is going to charge you a full minute for a fractional part of a minute!

I've been using t-mobile for 4 years, and the customer service for the pre-paid is amazingly good. The pricing structure is very fair, and I love the way the use-by date jumps to a year after you've spent $100.

I wouldn't even think of using another carrier and strongly recommend them. I've had two numbers and 2 phones (Nokia and Samsung) and everything has gone fine.

t-mo prepaid is ok.truth:all companies suck i say go for sprint in NY( not sure if they have prepaid) but sprint service has improved alot

MINUS 5 STARS for security and customer service,,,,Was ok until they shut it off,,3 hr later and a trip the branch found my number,pin,sim number didn't exist..the branch spent over 1 1/2 hr on phone and finally got me a new number,,, $60 of time gone they finaly gave it to me,,,,3 WEEKS LATER !!!! ""BINGO"" no service no number no password,,,,instant replay,, constant lies about me changing number reporting stolen,turning off,, but then making calls after it was turned off,,,$62 in time gone,,,,,,people in the branch were great after 1 1/2 hrs and they just gave me a new # and some time,, customer service morons are real thick headed, THEY JUST DON"T UNDERSTAND,, if their system fails and your number/pasword gets hacked twice in 3 weeks you haven't done it that they have a problem,,,,I got the phone for emergency (can't trust them anymore) and traveling and hardley ever use it,, when the time is gone so am I

I've had T-Mobile prepaid service for about 2 years and I love their service. I have service no matter where I am. Traveling remote places in Texas, New Mexico, CA, FL and even Cozumel, MX. I buy 1000 min for $100 and it last all year. My back up phone is Virgin Mobile. I use auto pay $15 every 3 months ($60 year). Nice to have a back up, but Virgin uses Sprint and the service is spotty.

I activated my phone and it is supposed to send you a text message with your number and telling you that you phone is fully activated. After 20 hours i still haven't received that text. Ive tried to re-activate my phone but it still isnt working. The machine you talk to when activating says my phone number is 'a'

I just got a NOKIA 2760 2 days ago, and to tell you guys, IT'S AWESOME! You can't beat the service and plans. I don't really talk a lot but I got the Pay By The Day plan and it's 10x better than the Pay As You Go Plan because for $1 dollar a day, (Only on days you use your phone) you get: Unlimited Nationwide calling to any T-Mobile number, Unlimited Night Minutes starting at 7:00PM ending at 7:00AM and to call any other number it's at a low rate of $0.10 per minute. On Pay As You Go of course, You get GOLDREWARDS (15% more minutes after a purchase of $100 in minute refills). I had AT&T GOPHONE previously an then Virgin Mobile. Both of them sucked. Since I live in Chicago, there should at least be 2 bars or more for signal strength. When I was in my house, I wanted to make a test call to my house phone and on both of them, there was no signal at all in the house.
With my T-Mobile phone, in my house I always got 5 signal bars. So basically, the previous services I had (Virgin Mobile, AT&T GOPHONE) were expensive, and had horrible signal.
I am a very first custumer of T-Mobile and I'll never switch to any other service.

I am going through a terrible time with T-Mobile now, my husband lost his phone Sunday night. I called T-Mobile customer service after reading on the website about what to do about a lost or stolen prepaid phone. Call them tell , they will reserve the SIM card, set minutes to zero for 30 days. If you find the phone it will be restored or a new phone will be activated with the same number or a new number and your minutes that was on your account when your phone was reported lost.( No minutes were used, lost phone was never found.)

We had 1853 in minutes, a Gold Rewards customer, at the 10 cents a minute. So far after 5 calls to customer service we have 336 minutes,112.00 and calls are 33 cents a minute. I can't seem to get through to them about our minutes and about what they tell you they will do for you.

We have two phone, been with T-Mobile for 3 1/2 years, this is the first problem we have had and it could cost us almost 200.00 to do what they tell you to do and not be, honest on their part, to follow through on their own statement of responsibility.

I love t-Mobile.Had them for 2 years,no problems (yet).
I have the prepay and am very satisfied with this plan.
I also have the Verizon $1.00 a day prepay
plan and to me, i prefer t-mobiles plan
because its a lot cheaper and makes better sense over Verizons a $1.00 a day call plan.
That dollar uses up about 10 minutes of future talk time,which sucks.
The only complaint i have over t-mobile
is that their phones are not hearing aid compatible.I wear 2 hearing aids,which is why i also have a Verizon prepay plan.
Verizon has the best hearing aid phones and easy to use phone menus software.
As for service,i recommend going to a t-mobile store instead of calling them,that way,the stores employees will fix any problems and take the Heat from the customers.
Verizon is the most expensive cell phone carrier,so their service is the best,you cant expect the same service from a cheaper carrier,but if all gos will,t-mobile is still the best deal around.
From my surfing around on the web for prepay carriers,it seems that ALL carriers dont care too much for prepay customers.
verizin has a special dept just for its prepay customers.

As of today (1-1-2009) our minutes are restored and all is well. It has been a long road but the people at customer service was very nice and finally got it all fixed.
We will stay with T-Mobile as the service is great and hopefully no more lost phones.

I have a tmobile sidekick and its great...I text all the time use the internet and always use the instant messanger. the only thing that I wish was better about a prepaid sidekick is if you could get free tmobile to tmobile minutes and free night minutes..that stinks that you can't..I spent 300 dollars on this phone and get no free minutes

I have a sidekick2 and it is prepaid. I have had this phone for more than 3 years now. the prepaid service for sidekicks are reasonable unlimited texting,sendig and recieving e-mails, pictures, and unlimited access to the internet, phone calls are suppose to be 15 cent a minute but sometimes it seems they charge more. but since service is good i dont complain. i plan on trying there 1000 miutes this year.

After reading all the negative comments, I think I found out what the problem was; MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THAT CHARGES ARE BASED ON MINUTE BLOCK!!! If you make a call that takes 30 seconds long, you will still be charged ONE WHOLE MINUTE.

That is why it always look like you were overcharged.

Reading reviews will help you at some point, BUT reading the terms and conditions will help you a lot more.

I have no problem with T-Mobile so far. Yes the charges might be higher, but once you know the truth, and once you know what are your priorities when using mobile phone, then you'll know what best for you.