[Mr. Prop-B-Gone]

I've used Tracfone since 2009 and it has worked fine. I buy the 1 year card, which retails for $99. If you renew before the year expires any unused minutes roll over. Unlike my kids, I do not spend my life on the phone, so I always have minutes to roll over.

The only issue I had was that Tracfone did not have a large screen smart phone. That changed a year ago last November when they offered the Alcatel Pop Icon 5 inch screen with fast a quad processor, 2 gigs built in storage, and a slot for a 32 gig SD card, along with Bluetooth, and WiFi. It has 2 cameras, the best being the rear camera which is 5 megapixels. Takes good pictures and video in good light, fair pictures in low light but low light video is not good. Battery life on standby is almost a week. Charge time is about 2 hours. We turn off the data when we are not using data to minimize data use. And, since we all go from wifi network to wifi network, once you are signed into a network the phone remembers the password and automatically hooks up to it the next time you are in range.

I found the phone new on eBay for $129.99 including a 1 year airtime card. If you deduct the cost of the airtime, you are paying $31 for a really good phone!

The phone has lifetime triple minutes, so the 1 year card provides 1200 minutes of talk, 1200 texts, and 1.2 gigs of 3G internet, which is fast enough for my needs. (newer phones will run 4G on Tracfone) It will run anything from the Google Play Store. Comes with plenty of Aps, like Google Maps GPS, a compass, an FM radio, etc.

I bought 2 phones; one for myself and one for my wife. Since over the years I had accumulated a balance of 3600 minutes, that balance went to my phone and the 2 airtime cards went on my wife's. Since there were 2 cards, the minutes were good for 2 years. We won't have to renew until next November.

So, for $260 we got 2 large screen smart phones and, for us, 2 years of service. Can't beat that! We have friends who spend more than that every month!

But wait, there's more! If your phone is connected to a wifi network, your calls, texts, and internet use are free! And, if you are of the older persuasion, there is a setting that puts a limited number of larger icons on the home screen, with the rest easily accessed from the second home screen. Or, you can use the smaller icons like other phones.

Oh, yeah, it also makes phone calls! It has a speakerphone that works well, as well as caller ID that you can link to pictures of your friends.

Didn't check, but I'll bet you can still find these phones on eBay.

Tracfone runs on the Verizon system, and works fine here in the Lakes Region. We have a second home in Stuart Florida and it works fine there, too. The only place we have ever had a problem was in Andover, NH and parts of Franklin, NH.

One last thing. If you already have a smartphone that will run on the Verizon network, you can use that phone on Tracfone. iPhones and Android Phones will work, but they must be compatible with Verizon.