I teach in a school with 130 other teachers. So many of these warnings just fly through our school. You really cannot often tell whether they are true or not. This one seemed rather logical, but I have seen it before. You have a good heart to warn us all. Sammy

cool thread. I've been wondering how to reduce my cellphone bill (from Verizon). Tracfone's annual plan sounds great. Note that most markets now allow you to retain your phone number when you change carriers. Tracfone leases time on Cingular and Verizon networks, so quality of phone service will be that of Cingular or Verizon dependant upon which is being used at the time and in your area. If I'm not mistaken, Cingular is TDMA at 1900 MHz and Verizon is CDMA at 800MHz. So for your area, check on the phone (datasheet or FCC sticker) to see which network is being used. Some phones may be dual mode. Verizon probably has the overall best coverage in the US. Cingular merged with AT&T (no?) and their networks are merging (or merged already). Hmmm, also, to be fair, I think that you should calculate an 'effective' cost per minute depending upon the (traditional or pre-paid) plan you're using. Use the monthly bill total including all the fees, divided by the actual minutes used (traditional).

Hi, I'm one of those people who HATES phone solicitors, but actually had a job doing it more years ago than I care to remember. Back then, we called numbers in sequence. The boss picked a prefix from the area and we 'cold called' every number from 0001 to 9999, then started on the next prefix. After many years passed, I got tired of people calling, and found it hard to be short with them, even though they were a waste of my time. I heard Clark Howard's radio show about every money con job, including phone solicitors. He said on a show that when someone calls you, if you tell them clearly, "Take my number off your list, and never call me again", that they had to remove you from the list. If they did call you again and you could show that they did, you could take them to small claims court and win a couple of thousand dollars. That seemed to work. As soon as I recognized a solicitor, I stopped them and repeated that mantra. We got less and less calls. Another thing that's important is to not give your phone number to anyone unless YOU decide they need it. Assume that anyone who gets your number will call it and try to sell you something, AND sell it to anyone who will pay for it. When we purchased an appliance at a major retailer and were told it would come in a few days later, they wanted all our info. When we refused to give them our number, they really didn't like it. Of course, they wanted the number to hound us to buy an extended warranty. Not giving your number out prevents untold numbers of callers from getting it. Don't let your kids give out your info at the mall or online for any reason. We never signed up for a 'do not call' list. This list can be purchased by almost anyone for a nominal fee. Remember, if you need to know who not to call, you need those numbers. If I needed 'hot' phone numbers, this is the first place I'd get them, knowing that they're current, and the odds of getting in trouble for calling them are on my side. There is no magic to cell phone numbers. I hear people in public answer their phones and say, you know this is a cell phone, as if that makes any difference to the person calling. Do sign the privacy forms at your banking institutions so they're not allowed to sell your information. That should stay in house. I'm sure that sometimes, major companies leak phone numbers and other info, but in this case, many more calls are received as a result of our own actions than from other's leaks. We turned our land line phone off over a year ago, which we were receiving NO soliciting on and don't get any on our cell phones. We got two calls on our cell phones that were a result of our car being repaired by two different repair places. One was a warranty repair at a dealer. When sales people call you, they know the longer you're on the phone, the more likely they'll get the sale. The sooner you stop them, the better. Repeat after me, TAKE MY NUMBER OFF YOUR LIST AND NEVER CALL ME AGAIN. It gets easier every time you do it. It works. Give the 555-5555 number to those who say they need your number, but you know they don't. Linda Here is a link that might be useful: Clark Howard-Money Guy Extrordinaire

This was in the Milwaukee Sentinel today: Madison - The state Senate today unanimously voted to add cell phones to the state's "do not call" list and raise the maximum fine for violating that law from $100 to $1,000. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), said it would be the first major expansion of the "do not call" list maintained by the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection since it became law in January 2003. Last year, more than 1 million Wisconsin residential phone lines were covered by the list, Erpenbach added. Letting those with cell phones add them to the list and avoid telemarketers is a "popular public consumer service," and raising the maximum fine for each violation will deter telemarketers from ignoring the list, Erpenbach said. Erpenbach said he expects Republicans, who control the state Assembly, to also pass the measure before the Legislature's scheduled adjournment for the year in mid-March. Under state laws, telemarketers are charged fees that maintain the list.