Cell phone service providers don’t tell the customer everything. They keep a lot hidden, such as the ability to haggle for more minutes, better features, etc. at the end of your service contract if you threaten to switch providers. Here’s another thing they don’t tell you: You can have the same plan as every other contract-cursed customer but without the contract and the overage fees.

What do you have to do? Fail the credit check or convince a T-Mobile representative over the phone to sign you up with a FlexPay account.

What’s a FlexPay account? Instead of paying at the end of every billing cycle, you pay at the beginning. Meaning you pay up front. Phone companies offer this option to people who don’t pass T-Mobile’s credit check, and it’s not one of T-Mobile’s prepaid plans in which you buy a phone and "refill" it with minutes.

The beauty of a FlexPay account t is the lack of a contract. You pay your bill up front and you get the service you paid for. You can’t accumulate any overage charges as you already paid your bill for the billing cycle. So what do you do if you need extra minutes but you’ve killed all your talk time?

A great FlexPay feature is the ability to tack on prepaid minutes that don’t expire. If you ever run out of minutes, you can buy a prepaid card which is usually only good for a T-Mobile prepaid account. You can also add money to your FlexAccount. If you don’t want to deal with prepaid cards, minutes will be charged to your FlexAccount as long as the money if your FlexAccount lasts. Currently, there is $5 in my FlexAccount, so if I ever run out of minutes, I will only be charged up to $5 for extra minutes. This is better than a contract-cursed account as those tend to charge an unlimited number of extra minutes only to surprise you with $200 in extra charges when the bill comes in the mail.

The one downside of a FlexPay account is that you don’t get the regular discount a contract-cursed account gets with new phones, but, if you’re friendly enough and ask very nicely. You could convince the T-Mobile representative to print you out any rebate forms, which usually make up a part of the phone discount. For example, I just bought the SideKick Slide and there was an instore $50 discount and a $50 mail in rebate. The rep gave me the $50 rebate, so at least I get part of the discount.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 9:40 pm under Cell phones, Opinion, Tips and advice.

Read more entries by Danny Mendez.
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