It used to be that you had two options when getting set up with a cell phone and wireless service:

  • Be approved for a monthly plan, which required a one or two year contract. You might also be eligible for a free or discounted cell phone, depending on the terms and length of your contract
  • Buy expensive prepaid phone cards, and pay full price for a cell phone

Because my father was willing to set up a cell phone plan for me in his name back in the summer of 2004, I did not have to worry about dealing with prepaid, which I would have had to otherwise, as I had in the past. Yet another downside of having bad credit - not only do you deal with high interest and higher deposits on loans and such, you are also almost always denied for contract cell phone plans!

Recently my husband and I decided to call T-Mobile and see about paying off an owed balance on my account, one that we had let go in the fall in order to take care of some more pressing financial matters. But because we let the balance go so long, we had to pay it off and start anew with T-Mobile.

I fully expected to hear the spiel about being denied based on credit, but why not take advantage of our wonderful prepaid phone cards?

But I was wrong. Blissfully, totally wrong! T-Mobile has introduced a great new feature called T-Mobile FlexPay. T-Mobile Flex offers people the same monthly plans and benefits and features, but without contracts and obligations! With FlexPay, you can still pick your plan and add-ons, and still have them! The key difference is that your pay period is based on prepaid, rather than postpaid. This means that you pay for your month service ahead of time. For example, I am expecting a bill from T-Mobile within the next week. This bill will cover my services for March. I already paid for my February services when I signed up for them in the middle of January (I paid for January too, but it was pro-rated).

The purpose of T-Mobile FlexPay is to offer customers with shoddy credit the opportunity to enjoy the same plans, features and rates as contract customers, but without the risk of running up large bills that they might not be able to pay. That is why all services must be paid for at the start of the billing period, rather than at the end of one.

There is one downside to T-Mobile FlexPay, and that is that a lot of the shorthand numbers - those five digit codes you see mentioned on commercials and advertisements — are blocked from usage with T-Mobile FlexPay accounts. Again, this is to prevent unforeseen costs being added to one’s bill. It’s a downside for me because Twitter uses a five digit code for updates, as do many other online and offline companies, including Google and MSN. But, there are workarounds, with the use of international numbers, email addresses and applications that can be downloaded right to your cell phone!

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