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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
Looking for non-smartphone, flip maybe, to throw in he glove compartment against a possible need to call for help in the middle of East Cupcake somewhere. This phone would act similarly to a spare tire, might be years before it’s needed. So far what I’m seeing are phones as cheap as $20, but then I would have to keep buying additional minutes every 90 days or so to keep the phone active.
Anyone know of a buy-it-and-forget-it-unless-needed option?
a possible need to call for help in the middle of East Cupcake somewhere.
You may not have a cellular connection middle of East Cupcake somewhere and that’s where non-burner iPhone 14.. with free satellite connection (2 years for now) can help.
I’m not a phone expert but I don’t know of any cell phone that’s truly buy-it-and-forget-it. Even if you keep the phone turned off you’ll need to recharge the battery every so often. You might be able to run the phone off a usb port in your car, but I would check to make sure that works with your vehicle, and it requires that your car battery isn’t dead – which perhaps is a situation you’d want the phone for.
FWIW I have a Tracfone flip phone that works well, but I do need to buy time once a year to keep the service with the same phone number going. Tracfone has a variety of “time plans” that seem to change a fair amount, but when I bought my current phone a couple years ago (I’ve had tracfones for about 20 years) one year of unlimited minutes was $99 and at the time the only way to get one year was to also get unlimited minutes. My unused minutes do rollover. I need the phone for more than just a glovebox phone, though, so I just buy unlimited minutes.
There are many other providers that work similarly to Tracfone. Straight Talk, etc. are similar; find them with an internet search. They might have time plans that better meet your needs.
It’s very rare for my phone to not have cell service because of location. It’s literally been just once or twice and those were places I probably shouldn’t have even tried to get to with my vehicle! If you need anywhere service get a satellite phone or look into @Alex5723’s suggestion. But neither will be cheap.
If you do a search for “best cell phones for seniors” you’ll get a fair number of flip phone suggestions. Jitterbug comes to mind and there are others as well. You might try going to a Best Buy or Target. The former often has a cell phone department with some knowledgeable sales people who can guide you through a bunch of phones. Target is more hit or miss for salespeople but they often have a fair number of phones. Believe it or not my local WalMart has some pretty sharp folks working the tech departments, and they have a lot of phones.
As @Bob99 says Tracfones are available at WalMart or the Tracfone website and probably a lot of other places as well. I’ve bought them from the website, WalMart and Target over the last 20 years.
As far as location tracking, I think flip phones are less likely to keep broadcasting your location than a smartphone is, but I’m not sure. Keeping your phone turned off should help. Of course, as soon as you make a call, the phone knows where you are or at least where the cell tower nearest you is.
Why settle for a flip? get an Android phone and Tracphone provides internet for pretty much the $100.
You don’t have to ID yourself when you “buy” them at a retail store, but you will have to ID yourself to the carrier (i.e. name, address, DOB, etc.) to “activate” it and get a phone#. That’s an FCC requirement so there’s really no way around it.
You should also be aware that Phase 2 of the FCC’s E911 rules now require all cell phone carriers provide latitude and longitude coordinates (within 300m) to the PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) that receives a 911 cell phone call so EMS will be able to locate the caller. That means any phone you buy, even a simply flip phone, will be sending location info to the carrier while powered on.
Regardless of how you pay for the phone and time, and how much or little personal info you give out to make the purchase, don’t be surprised if you get unsolicited texts and/or phone calls. Robo calls will dial every possible phone number they can hoping to make a “hit”; a brute force method. But that can happen on land lines as well. If you get a cell phone – smart or not – you can enter in names and phone numbers of people you are willing to take calls or texts from. Look for “Contacts” on your phone in order to do this. Then when you get a call or text the name will show up and you can decide to answer or respond. If just a number shows up it likely will not be one of your contacts that you entered in (unless one of your contct’s phone number has been spoofed), and you can ignore it or look it up later to see if it’s someone you know.
Yes, once computer dialing apps came along, the spammers could light off the system and sit back until a vict…er, customer answers. Operators are standing by!
One other thing about flip phones. Some of them have a second smaller screen on the outside of the phone that will display an incoming phone number or name. Some don’t, though, and the only way to see who’s calling is to open the phone. Unfortunately, some phones answer the call as soon as the phone is opened. But there should be an option to prevent that in the Settings (probably something like Call Settings or Answering Options), and to let you open the phone while its ringing so you can see who’s calling, and then press any key (or maybe a specific key) to actually answer the phone; simply close the phone if you don’t want to answer.
In typical driving, if you have a breakdown or accident, in the next half hour many cars will pass you and one or more of them will call 911. Leave your hood up and hang a piece of clothing out the window to indicate breakdown, and turn on emergency flashers.
For extra peace of mind, there is no continuing additional cost to keep a charged, deactivated, turned off cell phone with you. For this intended use, a used one is fine. I would get a brand name like Samsung since many cheap phones I have used seem to fail permanently when the battery is allowed to get low. A Samsung may fail in this way also so make sure to charge it whenever the battery is low, this could be as often as every other day. For better chance of connecting to towers I would get one new enough to have 4G, I believe the benefits of 5G would be minimal.
A breakdown is close enough to a real emergency that calling 911 I don’t think will get you in trouble. However I think it is likely the response you will get will be police, and their tow truck, not the private party you might choose. Tow charges if not covered are pretty expensive, easily $200.
A yearly card with few minutes (400) from Tracfone is around $100-$120, this will allow you to call other services and when calling 911 they will be able to call you back if disconnected and will more quickly see your full name, registered address and location. The other cheapest cellular services like Tello (coverage may not be good enough if T-Mobile coverage is poor in your area) are around around $10 a month or $120 a year. If this allows you to call AAA instead of Police it could easily pay for itself, however you may never need it.
Many people qualify for Government provided cellular phones, the warning with these other than the tracking and paperwork is that the phone must make a call or text every 30 days or they will deactivate it.
Sounds like a good idea, BUT the FAQs in your link say that with Live Voicemail turned on, the iPhone actually answers the call and “speaks” to the “caller” giving it instructions. That tells the “caller” they’ve called a working functioning phone, and there’s then every reason to think they’ll try calling that number again, and again, and again, and… hoping the phone’s owner has turned Live Voicemail off.
they’ll try calling that number again, and again, and again, and… hoping the phone’s owner has turned Live Voicemail off.
You just block the caller if its spam call.
That will also tell the spammer that they’ve called a live number. There is no ideal solution except possibly an enforceable law that is actually enforced. I’m just pointing out some of the possible things that can happen.
Just having the phone ring instead of having a recording saying that the number has been disconnected or is no longer in service lets the caller know they have a live number. Cellular providers will also usually intervene after a number of rings and attempt to route the call to voicemail. I never set mine up on any phone, so it would tell the caller “this wireless customer has not set up voicemail” and hang up.
I would block the unwanted numbers as well. I have that on my landline, where I have a few hundred numbers blocked, I think. I never give out the cell number, so it is relatively spam free.
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Our landline/ internet service is Verizon. Some time back they deployed a countermeasure to robocalls, not sure now of the details, but we were advised to let the landlines ring once, and if it’s computer dialed, it’s disconnected. Of course, that doesn’t pick up those desperadoes who have to dial manually to harass us, but it helps. In any case, we usually don’t answer the phones. If I recognize the caller or number, I answer, but there are no vinyl siding salesmen on my favored caller list.
Thanks to all who posted on this thread; as it turns out, the immediate need for a cell has passed, but that gives me a chance to cruise the field, armed with the info presented here. Will post back when I break down and buy something.
You wanted a burner phone I lust for a phone burner. One I can use to incinerate the phone at the other end of spam calls. Especially the Spokane WA one shown as 509-202-xxxx (i exed out the last 4)
If you find such, feel free to disseminate the details 
Getting mixed messages on Tracfone re customer service and also coverage, supposedly related to merging with Verizon. I want a basic phone, for making and receiving calls only, to have in the car should I need to call AAA.
Only since you mentioned Tracfone and Flip phone, I have been with them a few years now since their service is pre-paid and I just recently harvested 2 years of service from 2 Orbic Flip phones for $40. They each come with 1 year of service and 1200min/1200txt/1.2G data. This is directly from Tracfone (via Ebay). (I saw someone else is selling one for $30 not related to Tracfone)
I’ve had a flip phone from Consumer Cellular for the last 15 years to use much the same as you want to. The cost started out at $10 ($12.59 with taxes, etc.) per month. These days I pay $15 + taxes per month. I don’t have any Internet but I can do texts if I want to. The $15 gives me 250 minutes a month which is more than enough for me.
Now that I have Fios and my land line phones go out when the power does, this little phone has one more use. This may be the way to go Slowpoke and worth looking into. I’ve found CC to be easy to deal with and geared more toward older folks like me. No, I don’t work for them.
Not exactly sure what you mean by this sentence.
Instead of using the Orbic Flip phones, I took the service and transferred it to my Bring Your Own smart phone.
Have you had good results with Tracfone? Any change for the better or the worse in the last year or so?
Service has been excellent. I’ve been using Tracfone for the last few years and I have never had a problem calling or receiving a call. Even with the transition due to the Verizon purchase, there has been no change in my service.
Because it is so cheap, the Tracfone relies a lot on self-service, in other words, customer support is not great according to some people, and that may be why you hear some negative reviews. I have not ever had to contact support, so I can’t report on that.
I get great Verizon coverage where I live, and that is the default carrier if you buy a phone through them.
Reviving this old thread hoping that members here can offer further advice. I’ve found that there are not many options for no-contract phones, but one that keeps coming up is Nokia 2760, a basic flip phone, network is Tracfone. Getting mixed messages on Tracfone re customer service and also coverage, supposedly related to merging with Verizon.
I want a basic phone, for making and receiving calls only, to have in the car should I need to call AAA. I don’t want another monthly bill for something I may never use. If any Woody members go this route, would appreciate their feedback.
@Slowpoke47, we’ve been with Tracfone for about a decade now and never had a problem. The process of transferring service from a previous phone to a new phone has been simplified dramatically: whereas previously it would take multiple calls to activate a SIM card, now it’s all done automatically on the phone itself, no calling tech support or customer service needed.
We have a prepaid one-year plan that provides phone calls, texting, and certain amounts of GB for data (Internet). We’ve never gone over the limits, the unused amounts carry over, and we have more texts built up than we know what to do with.
I don’t know how prices and plans go with new Tracfone customers, maybe we’re grandfathered in, but I suspect that the ease of switching to a new smartphone may have something to do with the service’s becoming part of Verizon.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
Does anyone know how long this device will hold a charge if it is not used?
https://tracfoneusermanual.net/nokia-2760-flip-n139dl-review/#battery
..the Kai operating system allows the phone to conserve battery – making it long-lasting with a talk time of up to 7 hours. From a single charge, the phone can last up to 18 days standby time…
You could also leave it plugged in to your cigarette lighter with a USB adapter and not ever have to worry about it. Or just plug it in when you need it.
You could…just plug it in when you need it.
Per what @PL1 wrote above, you could indeed just do that on a periodic basis, say every two weeks or so. Plugging the phone into the charger provided with it without turning it on will tell you the current battery charge level, and will subsequently allow the phone to charge all the way up to 100% if you like.
At two visits to the local Walmart, a month ago and yesterday, encountered store personnel who were scornful of as well as unknowledgeable about tracfone.
Nothing new about that, as I’ve seen the same in a few WalMarts in my area as well. The in-store folks just don’t seem to be at all familiar with Tracfone, and one person even tried to talk me out of buying an airtime card for Tracfone (which I needed at the time) and to instead get a phone from one of the legacy carriers represented in the store! I said “NO”, of course.
If you indeed decide to get the phone, it’s simply a matter of getting the card in the TF display in WalMart and going to the electronics desk to “redeem” the card for the actual phone for $19 plus tax.
Having had TF service for a great number of years, I can say that TF is probably the best overall choice for getting a phone for the reason you’ve stated…as a hopefully-never-used but always available roadside emergency resource.
BTW, if you DO indeed get the phone and successfully activate it, congratulations. The ONLY subsequent fee after your initial activation of the phone and the money spent to add the initial air time to the phone will be an annual fee of $49 to extend your airtime by one year. This is only available via their website, not at any retail partner. As long as your service stays active, you’ll never lose your airtime minutes.
One caveat, though: With TF, if your airtime balance reaches zero minutes (and stays there for I don’t know how much time) or your service expiration date is exceeded by I’m not sure just how much time (how many days/months), you will lose your TF service, but can get it back by reactivating it. BUT after doing so, you may very well wind up with a different phone number.
One other very important note: If you ever do use the phone to call AAA from the side of the road, they’ll automatically add that phone number to your membership profile after your first call to them for roadside assistance. That will enable them to get your call answered faster if you happen to have to call them from the side of the road in the future. Also, their tow truck driver will have it in order to reach you to let you know how long until they get there or if they have a hard time finding you for some reason. AAA’s system will also send you automated text messages to give you the driver’s initial ETA as well. This is all based upon my own personal experiences with AAA roadside services over the years in a couple of different areas of the country.
I use Tracfone service for pretty much the same reason you intend and it’s great!
However, In my case I turn my Moto e6 ON when I leave in my vehicle and power it OFF when I return.
It has a 3000 mAh battery and I don’t recharge it until the low battery alert goes off (it’s set for 15%) which happens every 6-7 months.)
Also, as pointed out by @Bob99, Tracfone’s $49 for +1 year of service is super!
I’ve been buying their $15 30-day plan (500 mins, 500 texts & 500 MB) + the $49 1-year service extension each year when I need to renew and, because they roll-over any unused minutes, texts & data, my account now has 6485 mins, 8265 texts & 5.72 GB.
Just FYI, at the end of the year when you go to renew your service for another year, you must purchase more airtime in order to get the +1 year service option in the cart when you checkout.
Bear in mind, my phone is a Moto e6, not a Nokia 2760 Flip, and it’s ON the whole time I’m away from home using my vehicle; which can be 2-4 hours.
The real calculation for how long your battery might last is to use the typical self-discharge rate for Li-ion batteries of 1.5 – 2% per month.
Using the 2% max self-discharge rate and the 1450 mAh size battery the Nokia uses.
2% × 1450 mAh = 29 mAh lost/mth
1450 mAh ÷ 29 mAh = 50 mths (or just over 4 years)
Very Important: don’t let a Li-ion battery discharge much lower than 5%. The actual cutoff is 2.5 volts where a “protection circuit” built into the battery itself opens and it can no longer be recharged!
3 Months AGO: ETA: This is for RENEWALS, not new plans.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TracFone/comments/192nd4v/tracfone_1_year_0_minute_365_access_days_4999/
I always just add a data card for $10/1gb and get the option on checkout to add 365 days for $49. Did it just last week, in fact.
It’s been a long while (I’d estimate at least 5 years but probably more) since you could add the 365 days for $49 without having to buy another plan with it. And it’s been hidden in an add on option in the shopping cart for just as long. You used to be able to delete the extra plan in your cart and still get the 365 day extension, but I haven’t been able to do that in a few years.
I believe if you have ever switched to a BYOP sim rather than having a tracfone phone/sim, you may not get this option to add 365 days for $49 in the shopping cart anymore.
As @PL1 pointed out, the $49 +1 year service only applies to renewals (it adds 365 days to existing plans) and only shows up (as a Special Offer) once you’ve added something to your cart.
Here’s my Tracfone cart after I selected the $10 1GB data card and the +1 year option is one of the Special Offers that shows up that I can add to my purchase.
Notice there’s no Remove option for the $10 plan meaning it’s no longer possible to use the “trick” described on Howard Forums to only buy +1 year!
Where I live- RI, US- a plan for 1 year with 400 minutes costs $99.99 whether from WalMart or the TF site.
Here’s how I’d suggest you proceed.
Purchase a Tracfone Nokia 2760 Flip phone with their Basic $19 (90 days/60 mins) plan.
Once the phone has been activated and is working, wait a few days and then add the $10 1GB plan and the $49 +1 year of service.
Then, once a year, renew you existing plan with another $10 1GB (or more talk time if needed) and add the $49 +1 year option.
I always just add a data card for $10/1gb and get the option on checkout to add 365 days for $49. Did it just last week, in fact.
Thanks for pointing this out! I’ll do that the next time I renew since I don’t “really” need more talk mins.
Well, if you want to get a real deal, buy the two pack I mentioned above from Tracfone through Ebay for $40. Each flip phone comes with 1 year and 1200/1200/1.2Gig, so a 2 year extension. You simply activate each phone with “keep your number” and all of the buckets carryover. Then you just transfer back to your preferred phone. I just did this a few weeks ago following these instructions.
1) Activate phone #1. If you already have a Tracfone account and service and you want to extend it, activate the phone on the existing account and choose Keep My Number. The service term and minutes will combine and phone #1 will have your phone number. Your existing phone will be inactivated.
2) In the same Tracfone account, activate phone #2 and choose Keep My Number. It will combine the two service plans and phone #2 will have your number and 2 years of service.
3) Want to use the plan on your own phone? Move the service back to your original Tracfone phone if you have one. (JUST COPY/PASTE OLD SIM #.)
Here are my current buckets:
Try with the global calling card and see if it is removable.
Nope! The $5 (+1000 text) and $10 (+500 mins) cards also aren’t removable.
Seems Tracfone got wise to that little trick and made sure you can’t use it anymore!
I’m not talking about texts or minutes here. Did you try the $10 Global Calling card?
Last try, the Global Calling Card is a different add-on. It’s not a $5 text or $10 minutes card. It is “as low as” .01/minute Long Distance all over the world. If you tried THAT add-on, then fine. I stand corrected and sorry for belaboring the point. 
OK, I just had someone test it on Howard Forums and it is still working.
OP here- looks like my quest for an anonymous burner phone has been reasonably successful. Bought a Nokia 2760 Flip and 90-day phone card at the local Walmart for cash. Couple of stumbles with activation on Tracfone site- chatbot was zero help, agent was somewhat helpful, but the best resource is the user manual directly from Nokia, should have thought to get that sooner.
Successfully made and received calls as well as a text from Tracfone that supplied the phone number. This puppy has much more versatility than I need- camera, internet access, other apps, etc., don’t expect to use any of those. As for privacy, of course Verizon will know which tower(s) were used during calls, but no other tracking likely- phone will be shut down while living in the glove compartment and not online when/if in use. No personal ID info revealed during this process, other than email address to Tracfone.
Going forward I’ll be familiarizing myself with operations and keeping notes on my calendar to buy more airtime as needed and to keep the battery charged. Best scenario would be that I never need it.
phone will be shut down while living in the glove compartment and not online when/if in use.
You’ll actually take in inside when you exist the vehicle, right?
From the Lithium-ion battery wiki
Degradation is strongly temperature-dependent: degradation at room temperature is minimal but increases for batteries stored or used in high temperature (usually > 35 °C) or low temperature (usually < 5 °C) environments.
FYI: 35°C = 95°F and 5°C = 41°F
Looks like I can add minutes on the phone using a phone card from my “friendly” local Walmart, bought with cash, without going online.
VERY true!!
You can either update it directly from the phone using the built-in texting feature by texting 611611 with a certain code word (I forgot just what it is, sorry) or by calling 611 directly from the phone and following the prompts after their automated system answers the phone. Specific instructions to help you are, I believe, on the back of the card.
BTW, you said earlier that you got a 90 day card from WalMart. Since there are a couple of different 90 day cards, I have a question: How many minutes came with the card? I’m asking because one of the 90 day cards has 60 minutes of airtime on it and the other has 750 (IIRC) minutes of airtime.
Although you might think that 60 minutes is plenty (since you won’t use it unless you have a breakdown and need a tow), you may very well find that those 60 minutes disappear in a flash. EVERY time you make a call that gets connected, you’re charged one minute of airtime (unless you call 611) no matter how short the call. Even if you get connected and the phone dumps the call due to loss of a signal two or three seconds after it’s connected. Also, if you have a call that lasts a minute and 4 or 5 seconds, you’re dinged for two minutes of airtime. As mentioned above, when I’ve called 611 to redeem airtime, I haven’t been dinged for the call’s time.
I’ve been with Tracfone for going on 25 years, so I know a thing or two about their service.
Just a note, Tracfone’s website has occasionally stumbled for me using Firefox. Edge has always worked.
TF’s website has always worked well for me using FF as long as I remember to set the block list for tracking to level 1 for blocking online trackers and set the cookies to accept first party cookies/reject all cross site cookies. If I don’t do both of those, then the Google-based captcha doesn’t show up and if it does show up it doesn’t work.
I hope this helps!
Never have had to resort to using Edge or, before that, Internet Explorer for TF’s website.
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