Does your cell phone company charge for incoming calls and voice mail?
I looked at the back page of my bill and it says they charge airtime for incoming and outgoing calls as well as toll free, operated assisted and retrieving voice mail. I was under the impression that the only calls charged were the outgoing ones you make yourself. I will contact the company if I need to once I find out what other companies charge. Thanks, Jean.
Jean, It's my understanding that anytime you use the phone you are charged minutes. There are packages that will allow unlimited texting and I would think other things, but you have to pay extra for them. One of my cells has unlimited texting, the other one doesn't and if I even open a text on the one that doesn't I have to pay for reading it.
USCellular has an ad that they do not charge for incoming calls, but apparently I do not have that option (it costs more) since I get charged for everything. Fortunately, I don't use the phone that much so have gone over the monthly minutes only once.
We have Sprint family plan with a certain amount of "anytime" minutes. It seems that's "incoming & outgoing." We have unlimited minutes mobile to mobile (cell to cell w/in our plan, which is 5 phones), and unlimited night and weekends. No texting, "internet," or roaming fees. I added granddaughters when they were commuting, and they pay the $9.99 + taxes & fees for their phones. I told them I wouldn't pay for texting, and they don't want to pay for it; so that's good. If we go over the minutes, whichever phone seems to be the "abuser" pays extra. If I pay extra, we can have rollover minutes, but none of us wants to pay more:) Also, for $5 a month we could add a "GPS" like feature per phone. If my hb begins roaming and can keep a phone in his pocket, I'll add that. Probably more info than you want/need, but....
Jean, a lot of the plans do charge for air time, no matter if it is incoming or outgoing. The same for text messages. I got charged for someone SENDING me a text message! So, since it was my grandchildren, I ran down to Verizon and added $7.00 a month to my plan to include text messaging! They backdated it to include those messages from the grandkids, so I didn't have to pay extra. I'm so glad to have that feature, because sometimes I can't talk to someone, but can see what the news is that they are sending. We don't use it a lot, but it is a comfort now. I have the family plan (unlimited) as well because I have 5 phones on mine. My husband's phone has the "Chaperone" feature, and the rest of us can locate him at any time with it. (Now that he is "chair ridden" for the most part, it really isn't necessary, but if we take him somewhere, he continues to wear the phone on his waist as a safety measure). We can call each other at no charge 24/7 and I have unlimited night and weekends as well; no roaming fees; and we only went over our minutes one month - when Diane died.
Jean, I would see if another plan your phone company has might be less expensive in the long run.
AT&T charges for incoming as well as outgoing. When my two year committment ended last March, my daughter put me on her "family plan" and I was to have all the same things on my phone that she had. She has always paid extra for unlimited nights starting at 7PM instead of 9PM as well as unlimited weekends and had several thousand rollover minutes. I have always called my sister every nite after 7PM thinking there were no charges. Must to our surprise last month, the cell phone bill was $425, $350 of which was charged to my phone as overage!!!!
She immediately went down to talk to them. What happened was last March they put everything she had on my phone except for the unlimited nites starting at 7PM. I have been using the rollover minutes to call her and ran out in November, so I started being charged. AT&T went over all the calls line by line since last March, deleted most of the overages and gave us back a majority of the rollover minutes. It appears the person who signed me up on her account didn't tell her it would be an additional $6.00 a month to put me on the 7PM plan.
I always checked my bill every month line by line (as well as any other) to make sure it was correct. Cathie didn't take the time to do that - she does now though!!!!
You have to congratulate the cell phone companies for doing their part in fighting Alzheimer's disease. I realize it is expensive, but just think how bad eoad would actually be without the constant exposure to the digital radiation.... I got sick of my huge bills so I got Sprint's everything plan....$99/MO WITH unlimited minutes, texting, gps, internet, two waywalkie talkie, tv, radio, and best of all, no surprises when you go over the minutes. Before, I would worry about minutes constantly, and tried to avoid calls.....now, I can answer and call and never think twice....It made me more accessible and took away tons of stress...besides, I wear a bluetooth headset, and can answer hands free and keep working no matter what...
oh by the way, when you switch, be sure to use me as a reference so I can get the $25.00 rebate (which will be added to YOUR bill...hee hee
Jean - we have Verizon and have always been charged for outgoing and incoming calls plus voice mail. We have unlimited after 9pm. With cells phones it is the norm to be charged for any calls - period. The only free minutes are when you call Verizon.
I had at&t for years until I realized I just didn't use the phone that much. I switched to tracfone where I pay for what I use, and they deduct the prepaid minutes. I pay about $100 a year for my service and at least I know what I've got on the spot and can add minutes whenever. Anyone not addicted to the cellphone can benefit by pay as you go plans. At&t 's pay as you go, however, charges $1 every day you use the phone, so that $1.00 plus for the call, which you might only make one. for light phone users, tracfone beats them all. and when you buy a phone, which can be relatively inexpensive (like $14.) you can text, if desired, and many have cameras.