Switching from Verizon postpaid to PagePlus prepaid.

George wrote:

> Statistically it is likely that a significant portion of their customers
> do forfeit money to them. Often people have other things to do aside
> from tracking the next time to refill their phone account. Logically
> that income is part of their business model.

Nope. If a customer does forget to add money their phone stops working
and they call PagePlus who restores the previous balance. Technically
this costs PagePlus more income because of the cost of providing live
support. This happened to me. They were very nice about it.

Now I'm more careful. I program a reminder into my phone for a few days
prior to the expiration date, and now I use
"http://www.rememberthemilk.com" for this and other reminders.

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Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <4ac9f7b8$0$1635$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
> SMS <scharf.steven.DeleteThis@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> George wrote:
>>
>>> Statistically it is likely that a significant portion of their customers
>>> do forfeit money to them. Often people have other things to do aside
>>> from tracking the next time to refill their phone account. Logically
>>> that income is part of their business model.
>> Nope. If a customer does forget to add money their phone stops working
>> and they call PagePlus who restores the previous balance.
>
> Nope.
>
> Just give it a try, and you'll see.

Maybe its special treatment reserved for fanboys or just a nice story?

This message is not archived

On Oct 4, 9:16 am, "mgr...@trib.com" <mgr... DeleteThis @trib.com> wrote:
> Hey all
>
> Just wondering if anyone here has any thoughts about PagePlus Prepaid
> good or bad. I currently have a Family Share Plan with Verizon and
> myself and mom never come close to using all of our minutes (might use
> 10 or 20% percent at the most). I had in the past looked at some other
> prepaid services like Tracfon and Verizon In-Pulse, but did not find
> them to be very good values. I would like to know how often you have
> buy new minutes and do any remaining minutes roll over. Also do I need
> to buy a new phone from PagePlus or can just use the Motorola RAZR V3c
> and Motorola T730 we presently use?
>
> Thanks
> Michael

Thanks for everyone's replies

I will look in to this after my mom returns from her vacation. I will
need to find out if she really uses her phone while his at my step-
sister in-laws in Muskogee, OK, as the coverage map I found at the
PagePlus website shows it being in a roaming area. Also I need to
check, as I was told by friend that he thought that they charged a
monthly service fee regardless of whether you use your phone or not.
As long, as the fee is too much I should be able to save several
hundred dollars a year with PagePlus.

Michael

At 05 Oct 2009 20:10:54 -0400 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> > >>> Statistically it is likely that a significant portion of their
customers
> > >>> do forfeit money to them. Often people have other things to do
aside
> > >>> from tracking the next time to refill their phone account.
Logically
> > >>> that income is part of their business model.
> > >> Nope. If a customer does forget to add money their phone stops
working
> > >> and they call PagePlus who restores the previous balance.
> > >
> > > Nope.
> > >
> > > Just give it a try, and you'll see.
> >
> > Maybe its special treatment reserved for fanboys or just a nice story?
>
> I think maybe it happened to him once, a long time ago, and he's hung
> onto that as "it always happens that way for everyone".
>
> It doesn't, especially now, and idiots letting their $80 die on the vine
> because they're too stupid to read a calendar or be bothered with it is
> a huge part of PP's revenue model.
>
> If it weren't, they'd use their generosity and "minutes never expire!"
> as a marketing tool go gain EVEN MORE subscribers.

Agreed.

I let one of my balances expire a few months ago (out of stupidity- I
forgot to re-edit the calendar alarm entry on my smartphone after the last
refill.) They restored half of it and warned me it was a one-time
courtesy.

The rep even asked me if I was sure I wanted to "waste" my one-time restore
this time, since the lost balance was only $25, and they'd only restore
$12.50 of it.

This message is not archived

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article <4ac9f7b8$0$1635$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
> SMS <scharf.steven.DeleteThis@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> George wrote:
>>
>>> Statistically it is likely that a significant portion of their customers
>>> do forfeit money to them. Often people have other things to do aside
>>> from tracking the next time to refill their phone account. Logically
>>> that income is part of their business model.
>> Nope. If a customer does forget to add money their phone stops working
>> and they call PagePlus who restores the previous balance.
>
> Nope.
>
> Just give it a try, and you'll see.

I have tried it and I did see. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> If it weren't, they'd use their generosity and "minutes never expire!"
> as a marketing tool go gain EVEN MORE subscribers.

All prepaid carriers have minimums. PagePlus's minimum of $10 every 120
days is about the lowest (T-Mobile, if you become "Gold" by spending
$100, allows you to subsequently add only $10 per year).

No MVNO can afford to keep accounts active that have no activity and are
not re-upped periodically.

PagePlus is very accommodating should you miss re-upping your account as
long as it doesn't become a habit, and as long as you don't miss the
re-upping by a long period of time. In my case I called as soon as the
phone stopped working, which was a couple of days after the 120 days
were up. If you rarely use the phone, and miss the re-upping by weeks or
months they are probably less accommodating.

To think that their business models is based on people forgetting to
re-up their accounts is ludicrous. The cost of them providing the
minutes represented by the lost balances is very small.

In article <37815aae-19a5-4d77-bcdf-7fa984b9bde5
@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com> on Mon, 5 Oct 2009 22:47:48 -0700 (PDT),
mgrahm.RemoveThis@tribcsp.com wrote:

> Also I need to
> check, as I was told by friend that he thought that they charged a
> monthly service fee regardless of whether you use your phone or not.
> As long, as the fee is too much I should be able to save several
> hundred dollars a year with PagePlus.


The monthly service fee is 50¢, charged on the 25th of each month.

--
Seth Goodman

This message is not archived

SMS wrote:
> Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> If it weren't, they'd use their generosity and "minutes never expire!"
>> as a marketing tool go gain EVEN MORE subscribers.
>
> All prepaid carriers have minimums. PagePlus's minimum of $10 every 120
> days is about the lowest (T-Mobile, if you become "Gold" by spending
> $100, allows you to subsequently add only $10 per year).
>
> No MVNO can afford to keep accounts active that have no activity and are
> not re-upped periodically.
>
> PagePlus is very accommodating should you miss re-upping your account as
> long as it doesn't become a habit, and as long as you don't miss the
> re-upping by a long period of time. In my case I called as soon as the
> phone stopped working, which was a couple of days after the 120 days
> were up. If you rarely use the phone, and miss the re-upping by weeks or
> months they are probably less accommodating.
>
> To think that their business models is based on people forgetting to
> re-up their accounts is ludicrous. The cost of them providing the
> minutes represented by the lost balances is very small.
>
Apparently you don't realize it but you have turned into an "oxford".

It is totally ridiculous to suggest that part of the income model for
any prepaid operation isn't forfeited money.

George wrote:

> Apparently you don't realize it but you have turned into an "oxford".

Hardly.

> It is totally ridiculous to suggest that part of the income model for
> any prepaid operation isn't forfeited money.

Of course you are perfectly aware that I never suggested any such thing.

What is untrue is what Elmo said, that the forfeited money is a "huge
part of PP's revenue model," when in fact it is a very small part of it.

If they wanted to make forfeited money a huge part of their revenue
model they could do so. They could change the duration of each value
card like most MVNOs do, so the lower value cards would have shorter
expirations, since 120 days for a $10 card is very long. They could
remove automatic re-upping from their accounts so people would have no
way of automatically preventing loss of their balance.

You're turning a situation that affects very few users, for very little
money, into some sort of a conspiracy.

For those interested in ensuring that their accounts don't expire,
rather than spending their time making up stories, here's what you do:

1. Log into your PagePlus account and set up an automatic monthly $10
refill to begin the day before your expiration date.

2. If you refill manually prior to that date than reset the automatic
refill to the new expiration date.

3. If the automatic refill does kick in, and you don't want monthly
refills, go in and reset the next refill to the new 120 day expiration date.

Yes, it would be really nice if they let you set automatic refills to
occur when your balance drops below $1 or when you are a couple of days
away from the 120 day expiration, but at least the option for automatic
monthly renewals is a fail-safe.