Why waste money using pre-paid phhone services?

Several prepaid carriers also offer monthly plans that aren't much more expensive than postpaid plans. For instance, with Virgin Mobile you can get 600 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends from 7pm to 7am for only $60/mo. The other great advantage is that there is never a contract or a credit check. So, if you have bad credit or just hate being bound by a contract (or are between the ages of 13-17) then prepaid is a great option for you.

Here is India for very budget minded middle class people Pre-paid cards serves as a effective tool to keep a check on their telephone bills...moreover we dont have that type of discounts in our post paid services

I agree , when we got our first phone we figured that the pre paid was the best way to go figuring we were not going to use it all that much and it would be to easy to use it if we had a service provider . It turned out we didn't use our phone enough and ended up losing almost all our minutes as they are only good for so long and then you have to purchase more pre paid even though you didn't use the other one's . I was ticked off as I didn't realize they came with an expiry date on them and we wasted all that money for nothing . Now we have a service provider so we have all our weekends free and after 6 at night and a much nicer looking phone :)

For people like my mother in law, prepaid is the best way for them. She likes to go over her minutes each month and then ends up with a super huge bill. On her prepaid phone she gets free nights and weekends. Of course her minutes do expire each month but at least she doesn't have a super huge bill at the end of the month.

I think that the pre-paid cell phones are around for those who dont have the discipline enough to budget for this type of luxury. I consider a cell phone a luxury. I remember when they were hugh and hardly anyone had one except, maybe a wealthy or business person. Today its like cable, you gotta have it! I myself like to have options so i have a plan. I use nextel as my service but am now intrested in the iphones. I will see how well they do in the next year while i wait for my plan to run out. I choose nextel for the two way radio. Soon when everyone has the patten to use two way radio's and link them to all phones, i guess i will be back to shopping according to price. Right now i shop according to options. Yes folks i do have a pretty big bill with nextel, sometimes i just want to go with a lesser plan, but most of my friends are on the two way, and that is where i save money. But in order to send pictures and text message, well that is where the bill rises. I do keep it to about $100 bucks. My mom and dad use pre-paid, they think its the best thing out. But for them it suits there needs. And since my dad not the best bill payer in the world, it keeps him limited and there is no way he can dig himself in a ditch. Bottom line, if your not discipline enough to use a plan than you pay the cost!