• 150 prepaid wireless units, good for 1 year from time of activation
• Local calls use 1 unit a minute, long distance calls use 2 units per minute
• Nationwide service
• Long distance included
• Note: Airtime cards are non-returnable, non-refundable and non-replaceable.

• TracFone Prepaid Airtime Card, 40 Units for TracFone Phones
• TracFone Prepaid Airtime Card, 100 Units for TracFone Phones
• TracFone Prepaid Airtime Card, 200 Units, for all TracFone Phones
• TracFone Prepaid Airtime Card, 400 Units, for all TracFone Phones

Customer Rating:
Summary: DO NOT PURCHASE A TRACFONE......
Comment: DO NOT EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, PURCHASE A TRACFONE. It has the absolutely worst customer service that you can ever possibly imagine and calling areas that conveniently do not include some of the largest population areas so they can charge you more for "roaming." (Not to even mention that fact that "roaming" is a strange concept for a company that has no towers and only leases space. ) I purchase one two weeks ago and have spent over two hours on the phone just trying to activate the phone and add minutes. It still has not been accomplished. They keep passing me off to department after department, nearly non Enghils speaker after nearly non English speaker. Every one of them says that they are "truely sorry" and "understand my frustration" and then do not fix any problems except to pass me on to another department. DO NOT EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, PURCHASE A TRACFONE.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Works PERFECTLY!
Comment: I don't get all the negative reviews here, I have used a Motorola V170 for almost 3 years now and it works perfectly.

I have had no problems, other than not being able to figure things out, myself. The user manuals that come with the phones are meant for the phone model and some features are disabled/locked by Tracfone service.

Additionally, there is little to no documentation on their website as to how to operate features like voice mail or text messaging.

Otherwise, the phone works perfectly. Calls are crystal clear and people claim they can hear me perfectly on their phones. I've never had problems with service coverage, other than when we went camping I had no service as we were riding up a mountain but the bars returned at the camp site.

For anyone who doesn't do a lot of talking Tracfone is the cheapest and easiest way! For those who do a bit more, check out Net10.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Cell Phones for the Cheapskates
Comment: My wife has had her Tracfone for about a year now and we have been completely satisfied. We've had service and clear sound everywhere we've gone. The only issue we had at all was the setup. This was accomplished without too much difficulty, but the written instructions that came with the phone told us to use the Tracfone website to activate the phone. Only problem was the screens on the website didn't match the instructions and the website was a little bit buggy. We don't do lots of talking, and we resisted getting a cell phone for a long time because we couldn't justify the $30 or more per month contracts. For us, Tracfone has been the perfect solution.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: TracFone lets you avoid the crooks and their crooked contracts
Comment: I love TracFone. I've been using it for four years now, and it's great. It's ten cents a minute with the double-minute option and 400 minute cards.

I use my cell phone for quick calls to my wife from the grocery store and so that I can be contacted wherever I am, driving to work, etc. I use a land line for long calls.

I don't know why anybody would sign a contract with the crooked cell phone companies. They're just praying you accidentally roam or go over your minutes so they can gouge you.

If TracFone can give you ten cents a minute with no contract, the cell phone companies should never charge you more than ten cents a minute if you go over your time, but they do.

With a prepaid phone, there is no way you can be victimized by those crooks.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The best way to go for the strong silent type
Comment: I am a man of few words. I'm not afraid to be seen alone in public without a phone to my ear. My average phone call lasts less than 30 seconds. I can easily go days at a time without talking on the phone. The only sane use of text messaging I ever saw was in the movie "The Departed."

Had the phone companies not fallen down on their job of providing decent pay phone service I would never have gotten a cell phone. Finding a pay phone that worked and wasn't caked with vile human secretions became a challenge. (AT&T recently announced they are quitting the pay phone business because of lack of consumer demand. They did everything they could to kill the pay phone business. Don't you just love corporate spin?)

The tracfone is the imperfect solution. I have several hundred minutes on mine in case I ever need them. I have used my phone to call for emergency road service. I use it to let people know I'm running late, etc. I once used it to let a friend hear an interesting performance by street musicians. I've never used it to have a long boring pointless conversation like the ones I'm subjected to everywhere I go.

Tracfone customer service is indeed horrendous, but you only have to deal with them once a year if you buy the 1-year card. They always email you a special offer of 200 or so free minutes right around the renewal deadline. The cost per minute is pretty reasonable.

When I went online to load up another year of service, my free minutes didn't show up on the final screen where you "click to place your order." (a)

So I didn't click and called customer service instead. The purpose of my call was to ask if I should be concerned that my free minutes didn't show up on the order screen. My communication skills were not sufficient to convey this. I ended up refreshing my service with the phone rep.

It's a very laborious, tedious process to renew your service. The task finished, the rep simply hung up. No "Will there be anything else?", no "Thank you for using tracfone." The line just went dead.

You probably find more charming people on Death Row. It's service typical of a company that has no competition or doesn't expect to be around very long. Or maybe tracfone service is the cutting edge of service we can expect from more companies in the future.

Nonetheless, the ordeal is soon over and you can put cell phone service out of your mind for another year. Just remember to keep the dang thing charged!

Getting voice mail set up is more trying than complex DMV transactions or IRS filings. Retrieving those voice mail messages will cost you dearly in tracfone "units." I saw another review here in praise of tMobile. I hope they're better. Beware, however, of plans with minutes that expire!

(a) I later found out that the system takes your free minutes, even though they don't show up on your online order summary.

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