As a community service, I wanted to let even the people on home.repair
know more about MintMobile. And of course I'm also posting to
comp.mobile.android, where I've learned a lot about cellphones.


1) MintMobile doesn't have monthly billing. They have 3 months, 6
months, and yearly, and it's a cheaper the longer in advance you pay, a
lot more than the amount you lose on interest in the bank, even when
interest rates were higher.

My year is expiring in 5 days and they sent me a reminder, AND they
added that since I use so little data, I might want to get the cheaper
plan. Not many vendors of anything do that.

I'm paying $240 a year and the cheapest plan, that they are suggesting
is $180. When I signed up 2 years ago, less data was included in my
plan, but last January or so they increased the data for maybe every
plan so that now the cheaper plan has almost as much data as mine first
did.


2) Of course, my password for their webpage didn't work, even though I
never changed it. This happens with a lot of webpages. They're
changing it without asking me, right, to increase "security"??

What I do then is follow their procedure but change it to whatever it
had been, so I don't have to update my notes.

But look at their ridiculous rules: "Please enter a password at least 8
characters long, containing at least 1 uppercase letter, 1 lowercase
letter, 1 number, and 1 special character."

And they live up to their own standards. This was the ridiculous
temporary password: g_*tgsBV7*


3) they also have Wifi Talk and Text, which they promote for places with
bad cellular service, but maybe you can use it anywhere there is wifi
and thus not use up your data. Is that right? They don't say a word
about whether it is free or not. Is it typically free? And it's only
for some models of phone. I don't see how they can keep their list
current. And I don't see on my phone how to turn it on. Maybe that
means I haven't got it?


4) Another interesting thing about them: I was trying to make whatsapp
calls to two foreign countries, one where my nephew is living, and
afaict, you can't use whatsapp unless you've already put the number in
your contact list. I hadn't done that and I'm 99% sure that some of the
5 calls I ended up just dialing. (They wouldn't be listed as calls at
all if I'd used Whatsapp, right?) I wondered who paid for them, and by
golly their webpage has a list.

I made 3 calls totaling 9 minutes at 2.5c a minute to one, and 2 calls
totaling 3 minutes at 1.5c a minute, and yet they charged me 0.00 for
each of them. Huh? I thought they had no way to charge me until I
was reminded today they have a Wallet where you deposit $5, 10 in
advance to pay for extra data AND international phone calls. But I've
never put any money in. So maybe they gave me the calls for free
anyhow, only 27 cents' worth, but I would have expected a text or email
saying that, and urging me to put money in the Wallet. Or insisting for
next time.

But I'd be glad to pay. The rates are certainly low enough.


On the yearly plan I'm on there is a $17.75 Recovery Fee and 3.46 per
year in fed, state, and local taxes**. I guess it's worth $18 to
recover from that prostate procedure I had. Or what is the Recovery
Fee? It went up in 2019 from $10.25 in 2018. The taxes went up from
$2.68.

**I read 18 months ago that the Baltimore County budget was suggesting a
$3.50/month tax on cell phones, and I wondered how they would find me to
tax me. But maybe they will. Maybe they have, unless 3.46 is just a
federal tax**. The proposal is per phone line, so if you have a spouse
and two children, that's $168/year. So some say people would be taxed
for having more kids. (Really, if the service only is 20/month, $3.50 is
a 17% tax. This might have not been regressive when only rich people
had cell phones but now there are iiac more cellphones than real
phones.) OTOH, Baltimore County has lost $5 million a year in taxes on
landlines. OT3H, with 800,000 people and what, at least 400,000 cell
phones, at $3.50, they'd take in over 12 million. Wait, my estimate is
way low: it says 700,00 cell phones and 83,000 prepaid phones would
yield $30 million. 783,000 cell phones for a litle more than 800,000
people. Even if they use different standards for who lives in Balt.
County, that's amazing.)

**I read that in 2013, the fed tax was 5.8%. That alone would be $16
in tax but mine is only $3.46. So is the $16 tax embedded in the 240
charge, or whose tax is $3.46? Maybe no one's, they're just keeping it?