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Old 02-11-2021, 05:21 AM
 
10,746 posts, read 25,919,786 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary2014 View Post
Kim this will not work. With a pay as you go phone, you must add at least $100 a year to keep the phone active. If you fail to do so the phone number is deactivated and you loose the credit and the phone number.
It will work. They don’t want to keep this phone active.... they want the ‘money’ off of it. Use the minutes, deactivate the phone and account and add her to another plan.
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Old 02-11-2021, 05:31 AM
 
10,746 posts, read 25,919,786 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Formerly Known As Twenty View Post
The reason for this is because she has far more than just minutes at this point in time and she rarely uses the phone as it's her travel/emergency only phone. If she was an consistently active user of her cell phone, it would make sense for her to use those hours (!) up, but she prefers her landline (and her desktop computer for computer needs. She has zero interest in a smart phone) and to be honest, the only person who she consistently talks to for any length of time is her daughter. Most phone calls are the usual chat for a bit or calls from the local school district, doctor's offices, or places with which she does business.

Furthermore, in this age of data and texting (which she does not do and has no interest in doing) which has largely supplanted actual phone calls, it's truly not worth what it would cost her/us to be added to a family member's account. The money that's sitting in her account goes far beyond mere pocket change. When I checked on Verizon's website, it does mention that refunds of money left in an account can be had, but it takes closure of the account in order to make that happen. That being said, pretty much everything needs to be done via a Verizon online account, which she does not have. (It could, however, be set up for her if need be.)

What she's no longer doing is adding money/minutes to her account, which is a start.
Then I suggest she start using the mobile phone instead of her landline.
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Old 02-11-2021, 05:46 AM
 
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OP,
I look at it as she would be getting an additional 28 months of using her phone for free as the $700 was the cost of having a phone for emergencies for the past 7 years. However, if they allow you to move her under someone else's plan and still allow her to move the credit as well that would be a better deal for you. Just be sure to keep her phone number and account active until the credit is moved over to another verizon plan. If they do it in the wrong sequence you might lose the credit in the process.

Do report back when it is done to let others know how it worked out. There may be others in the same situation who might find this information useful.
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Old 02-11-2021, 06:52 AM
 
Location: Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
4,087 posts, read 2,532,614 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary2014 View Post
OP,
I look at it as she would be getting an additional 28 months of using her phone for free as the $700 was the cost of having a phone for emergencies for the past 7 years. However, if they allow you to move her under someone else's plan and still allow her to move the credit as well that would be a better deal for you. Just be sure to keep her phone number and account active until the credit is moved over to another verizon plan. If they do it in the wrong sequence you might lose the credit in the process.

Do report back when it is done to let others know how it worked out. There may be others in the same situation who might find this information useful.
I shall. Thanks for the helpful guidance.
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Old 02-11-2021, 11:03 AM
 
Location: OH>IL>CO>CT
7,482 posts, read 13,512,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary2014 View Post
Kim this will not work. With a pay as you go phone, you must add at least $100 a year to keep the phone active. If you fail to do so the phone number is deactivated and you loose the credit and the phone number.
While that may be true of Verizon, my legacy (since 2007) T-Mobile PayAsYouGo plan accepts a minimum $10 (ten) a year to stay active. Like the OPs's senior citizen, I too only use about 30 minutes a year. Send no texts, and not a smartphone. Current balance is about $20. YMMV.
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Old 02-11-2021, 01:31 PM
 
1,679 posts, read 2,535,530 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reed303 View Post
While that may be true of Verizon, my legacy (since 2007) T-Mobile PayAsYouGo plan accepts a minimum $10 (ten) a year to stay active. Like the OPs's senior citizen, I too only use about 30 minutes a year. Send no texts, and not a smartphone. Current balance is about $20. YMMV.
Since I also had a Verizon pay as you go wireless phone plan, I responded to the OP as I am familiar with the Verizon terms and conditions. I am sure other carriers have their own terms and conditions.

For the first 13 years I only used a flip phone for emergencies, which is why I had almost $1000 credit after 10 years. The reason being that my hearing was getting so bad that I could not hear on a cell phone unless I was in my car, parked and the windows rolled up to cut out all outside background noise.

A game changer for me was when I got hearing aids. With a bluetooth app on my iphone 7 it restored my hearing to 96% of normal. The call goes directly thru to my hearing aids. I got my life back due to hearing aids and a smart phone.
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Old 02-11-2021, 05:49 PM
 
32,945 posts, read 12,233,166 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary2014 View Post
True, but, if you transfer the prepaid phone number over to a regular wireless account they did allow you to transfer the $ balance over as well. At least they did for me in 2014. (As long as the dollar amount was less than $1000). Once the $ amount hits $1000 the credit will disappear. So, I had to change the prepaid account over to a regular wireless account before the next renewal date took my balance over the $1000 limit.
They (Verizon) don’t do it from prepaid to ‘regular’/postpaid any longer (you may have been one of the last ones....they haven’t done that for years), but they are more than happy to roll the credit into a monthly prepaid plan.

I had an unlimited talk and text for 1 day for $2.00 plan (only deducted when you use it) with Verizon for over 12 years. They originally were going to stop service for phones with only that signal (3G) on 12/31/19, and then they extended it to 12/31/20.

My yearly expiration date was in early December, so in November of 2020 I rolled over my credit balance (which was a bit under half of your just under 1k) into a prepaid monthly smartphone plan. They gave me the loyalty discount plus $5 per month off re my credit card (which they don’t charge because they owe me money), so I’m getting 5GB data and unlimited talk and text for $25 per month, and my credit balance won’t be bled out to near zero until April of 2022.

I think the OP’s relative could do essentially what I did, with one variable/unknown. That being...since she’s dealing with minutes rather than dollars, will they give her the full $100 credit for the years of minutes that she paid for but never used and then do some sort of pro rate for the ‘year of minutes that she was in the process of using’...or...will they assign some arbitrary value to the minutes (awhile doing the rollover) that amounts to less than what she paid for the minutes.

I have essentially the same plan with AT&T that I used to have with Verizon. AT&T will allow me to do the same type of rollover, and I’m going to make it so they’re both about to expire at the same time in April of 2022.
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Old 02-11-2021, 06:10 PM
 
32,945 posts, read 12,233,166 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by Formerly Known As Twenty View Post
The reason for this is because she has far more than just minutes at this point in time and she rarely uses the phone as it's her travel/emergency only phone. If she was an consistently active user of her cell phone, it would make sense for her to use those hours (!) up, but she prefers her landline (and her desktop computer for computer needs. She has zero interest in a smart phone) and to be honest, the only person who she consistently talks to for any length of time is her daughter. Most phone calls are the usual chat for a bit or calls from the local school district, doctor's offices, or places with which she does business.

Furthermore, in this age of data and texting (which she does not do and has no interest in doing) which has largely supplanted actual phone calls, it's truly not worth what it would cost her/us to be added to a family member's account. The money that's sitting in her account goes far beyond mere pocket change. When I checked on Verizon's website, it does mention that refunds of money left in an account can be had, but it takes closure of the account in order to make that happen. That being said, pretty much everything needs to be done via a Verizon online account, which she does not have. (It could, however, be set up for her if need be.)

What she's no longer doing is adding money/minutes to her account, which is a start.
Didn’t read this until after my last post.

Sounds as though what I did for myself isn’t’ the going to provides any satisfaction for your relative.
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Old 02-11-2021, 06:26 PM
 
32,945 posts, read 12,233,166 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Formerly Known As Twenty View Post
That's good to know! The account currently stands at $700. I'll find out when her renewal date is so we have a time frame within which we can plan what works best for her and her very basic cell phone needs.

My own account is a prepaid plan, but the other family member has a standard family plan. Adding her to his plan, then transferring her funds over to his account might be the way to go. It's the best recommendation the associate at Verizon could give us, too. What you did with your own account transfer seems very similar to my family member's situation.

The associate who assisted us had never seen a GoPhone plan as they no longer offer those at Verizon. Of course, they didn't recommend subsequently shutting off her phone account with Verizon, but that's what we'll likely do as there's no sense in permanently adding her on to either of our plans.
Not surprising.

My slightly different flavor also yearly rather than monthly Verizon prepaid plain had been grandfathered and not offered for over 5 years, and I think it’s been the same for any of the yearly plans they had for at least that long.

Quote:
**Just read your other post. The associate at Verizon did tell us that the money in her account could be transferred over to someone else's account, but it will take a few jumps through multiple hoops to make that happen. (Call to Verizon to add her number/funds, then an email with an authorization to be electronically signed by my family member, then a PIN....)

Thanks for all of the solid recommendations!


It took more ‘hoop jumping’ than I expected to get through the mechanization of converting my yearly ‘large’ credit balance Verizon prepaid account to their monthly prepaid smartphone plan, but they were thorough and competent, and everything came out well (accomplished via a long call). I’m quite satisfied.
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Old 02-11-2021, 06:37 PM
 
32,945 posts, read 12,233,166 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mary2014 View Post
OP,
I look at it as she would be getting an additional 28 months of using her phone for free as the $700 was the cost of having a phone for emergencies for the past 7 years. However, if they allow you to move her under someone else's plan and still allow her to move the credit as well that would be a better deal for you. Just be sure to keep her phone number and account active until the credit is moved over to another verizon plan. If they do it in the wrong sequence you might lose the credit in the process.

Do report back when it is done to let others know how it worked out. There may be others in the same situation who might find this information useful.
Definitely.

Some of their systems don’t ‘talk to each other’.

My phone rep...who I got on the line with while at a Verizon store.....had to manually enter me into the prepaid smartphone system and instruct the system that I had a $400+ existing credit balance with Verizon.
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