Page Plus to no longer allow new Verizon prepaid handsets

Page Plus page which brought some bad news. According to user Kitty Wireless, the company plans to further limit its policy of allowing Verizon Wireless handsets on its network. It won’t be a complete ban — that would be terrible for business — but there is, or will be in the near future, a restriction on prepaid handsets. The pre-packaged handsets you buy at retailers like Target will no longer be eligible for activation if they have not previously been activated with Verizon’s prepaid service. Restrictive as it may be, the policy does make sense, as it is consistent with Verizon’s own policy. A little over two years ago, I dropped my Verizon handset into a cup of water. Thankfully, after doing the Verizon activation guide I had a handset laying around. I called Verizon to activate it, but they informed me that they could not. It was a packaged prepaid phone, and they have a policy that packaged prepaid phones must be activated on Verizon’s prepaid service for six months before it can be activated on postpaid. That saddened me, but them’s the breaks. This new Page Plus policy appears to enforce the policy similarly. The only new restriction is that they will not allow brand new, previously unactivated Verizon packaged prepaid handsets. They will not disconnect devices currently running on the network. In fact, for the time being they have no real way of verifying whether the phone has or has not been activated on Verizon prepaid, so there’s a loophole. Verizon does plan, according to Page Plus rep Dan Pohlman, to provide Page Plus with a way to verify whether a phone is eligible or not. This new restriction does hurt a lot, but it’s simply in line with Verizon’s own policy. As we’ve seen over the past few years with prepaid companies going after prepaid phone traffickers, carriers do not take kindly to people taking advantage of their subsidized prepaid handsets. The package you buy at Target is subsidized — the phone would normally cost more than what you’re paying. If Verizon can’t recoup the subsidy with the minutes you purchase, it loses on the deal. If it took constant losses because people took these subsidized phones and activated them with MVNOs, then they’d probably stop selling the subsidized packaged in the first place. Again, this isn’t a major change, but it’s something to note for current and prospective Page Plus customers.]]>

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12 Comments

  1. som on February 23, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    If we have a phone from verizon and I stopped using it. Can i use it as my pageplus phone



  2. Gojo Rijas on March 3, 2010 at 1:59 am

    Verizon seems to be greedy and because they want to charge customers huge amounts for data packages on a two year contract they seemed to not like the fact many people were porting from other contract and prepaid carriers to Page Plus and many Verizon customers were porting to Page Plus instead of them. Verizon is unfairly trying to control the market by not allowing Page Plus to activate Blackberry, Treo, And HTC phones. I can understand the prepaid packaged phones that they sell in Wal-Mart and In Target but, come on Verizon with all the mega billions you make each year don’t you think it would be healthy to offer a little guy like Page Plus to have their market share. It may come to litigation if Verizon continues to bully Page Plus just because they have come out of the shadows since last August with their agressive unlimited plan to answer the sorry Boost Unlimited service for $50 a month. Verizon gets paid either way because Page Plus uses their network and is gaining money for Verizon as an MVNO with every activation Page Plus does. Verizon also has straight talk on the other side making them money so, Verizon is no victim only the poor MVNO Page Plus which was offering great service on a nice variety of Verizon handsets unlike straight talk with their feeble generic phone line up that makes you feel like you are holding a Virgin Mobile handset being used on the Verizon Network. Verizon bought the LTE structure for 9 billion dollars at auction last year to create their 4G network also paid way in the double digit billions for Alltel but, cannot stand for Page Plus to activate used blackberry phones so, customers are forced to swing the Verizon doors and pay the exhorbitant forced data charges Verizon requires to activate any Blackberry, Smartphone, and now all the multimedia phones like the ENV 3 or Env Touch, Samsung Rogue etc. Shame on you Verizon Wireless. Whatever happened to free enterprise in America?



  3. mike freeman on March 4, 2010 at 1:24 am

    Gojo, the smartphone/Blackberry ban is strictly a PAGE PLUS DECISION and has nothing to do with Verizon. Too many dealers didn’t know how to load plans right with these phones, customers would have problems with the billing, customer service would get flooded with complaints.
    Page Plus reports that thte Palm Treo and Blackberries were causing a dispropotionate loss of returned credits and customer service resources so they were banned.
    The ban was poorly executed with no real advance warning. Dealers were caught off guard and many lost thousands of dollars on now useless phones.
    They claim this ban is “until further notice”. Other Verizon mvnos have Blackberry plans so it may be possbile for PPC to get one in the future and of course they would have to allow at least Blackberries again
    But until then, the Smartphone and prepaid phone bans are in effect.
    There are many other Verizon mvnos that can take Verizon smartphones banned on Page Plus like Mingo wireless.
    Nobody can take prepaid ones though.



  4. janet on March 21, 2010 at 2:53 pm

    pageplus is no good. they are not honest and will cheat you out of your momey. they charge bogus fees even when you have an unlimited account. you can’t prepay your bill unless you have a pageplus phone but their dealers are selling phone that aren’t pageplus phones and pageplus knows it. they charge you double and keep your money when your bill a day early.



  5. gavin on April 8, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    why would they do that if they let palm and blackberrys come back they would have more money and everything would be great for the company and the customers



  6. Arthir on April 13, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    Anyone have any recommendations on who to switch to from PagePlus? Are there other verizon 3rd party carriers to choose from?



  7. sportysport on April 19, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    Does anyone know when PagePlus will stop banning the blackberry tour? just bought it off craigslist 200 down the toilet uggh damn greedy verizon!



  8. mike freeman on April 20, 2010 at 5:24 am

    There are other Verizon mvnos that allow Blackberries like Lucky /My Way Wireless and others. Most have postpaid coverage and cost a tad more then Page Plus but a carrier that allows your phone at a slightly higher cost is worth a dozen carriers that are cheaper but won’t allow your phone at all.
    Page Plus lifted their Palm/HTC ban. That leaves open the possibility of their Blackberry ban being lifted too.



  9. Medicalissuemommy on July 3, 2010 at 9:34 am

    I am disgusted with Page plus. Most who already have a plan with page plus when purchasiTng a new phone check page plus website in order to see if there are any new restrictions to use of handsets. I called buy sat on hold for over an hr just to be hung up on as soon as I got hold of customer service. That should have been a clue for me to check it out further. I have a daughter with medical issues and use my cell phone frequently when we are out to call her drs. in order to provide her with the best care I can. We couldn’t afford to go through verizon and other sites for unlimited service or even the talk n text 1200 plan from pageplus. My cell phone’s screen and pad was going out so we wanted a new phone. We saw a deal at Target this week paid $80 for a verizon prepaid b/c we had been told in the past by page plus that prepaid could be used. Upon calling to port over our existing number we find out that the phone can not be used. They told us that prepaids were no longer usable and the announcement was made in January. I told them that if the company made that announcement in January it wasn’t listed anywhere on their website in the News tab or anything. So now we are out $80 for a new phone and my minutes are suppose to renew automatically on the 2nd of each month(even when I haven’t used all of my minutes or text from the previous month) and I’m still without cell phone service today. I was hung up on 2x’s yesterday after sitting on hold for over an hr each time. Last night I sat on hold for hr and 20 minutes only to finally get through to customer service and I hear laughter and a click. When I called back the vm prompt at the beginning stated our office is now closed please call back during normal business hours. We are switching services. I’d rather pay extra for a company that actually knows the meaning of customer service and has an auto pay minute system that actually renews minutes when it is suppose to.



  10. mike freeman on July 16, 2010 at 5:00 am

    Page Plus customer service has been and will continue to be in the toilet as long as they keep getting more customers then they want. Their decision to raise prices has probably majorly cooled interest in them and their phone bans have hurt them. Kicking people off of unlimited doesn’t help matters either.
    There is a rumor circulating that Verizon will eliminate ALL byod for ALL Verizon mvnos including Page Plus. Whether this is true or not is unknown at this time. But if it is, PPC is effectively over.



  11. Corey Trevor on August 3, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    I was considering switching to Page Plus, but after dealing with Customer Service today I am rethinking that. I would call their Customer Service line, it rings a few times, then just dead air. I had to call on average a dozen times before I’d actually be connected with the automated system that would allow me to reach an operator. I have neither the time nor the minutes to waste to place close to 30 calls in order to get through… that is seriously inexcusable.



  12. Shirley Thompson on June 20, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    I have been with 360/Alltel/Verizon for 14yrs. I must get something cheaper.I am looking at unlimited prepaid. Anyone out there had a good experience to share. I prefer service on the Verizon towers.