Any one use TRACPHONE

Just curious if anyone uses TracFone and if so, how safe is it really?

Yes It's a great burnner phone, just make sure you can buy the refill cards locally.

I never really considered there would be any safety issues with TracPhone other than how you activate the phone or pay for more minuets. If you call the TracPhone 800 number to pay for minutes or activate the phone then there are some privacy/identity vulnerabilities.

My ex-wife thought she was smart by buying a TracPhone, but she called the 800 number to activate the phone from our home phone. Of course it wasn't too hard to figure out some thing was up when her regular cell phone minutes usage tripled the first month I wasn't flying home on the weekend.

Besides the two issues previously mentioned, I always thought TracPhone charged a lot more for their minutes than the other options.

Other Safety Issues:
Don't text and Drive
Do not try to take a picture of your private parts and send it for verification will driving (Just ask Kate, it wasn't pretty).

What other safety concerns did you have?

It's straightforward, just have to remember to reload minutes as needed. I use my Tracfone for the hobby, and I don't really use that many minutes, mostly text, so it ends up costing me $20 every 3 months. I mainly use my phone in Florida and my service has been good. I've had sketchy service in Vegas in the past.

Yes, there is absolutely no way the TracFone can be traced to me. That is, unless LE has some kind of radio direction finder that will trace the phone signal,back to my car as I drive up.

Hell, if they want a old 72 year old guy that bad, they can have me.

Always pay cash. Never credit card.

Trac phone is fairly safe and is what I use for these activities. You can activate the phone online or call the 800 number from a phone not connected to yourself. If you do the online activation you will be asked for your name and address and other information. DO NOT give that info. It takes a little looking on the page to find it but there is a link to click to skip giving that information. The last time I activated one thru the 800 number they also asked for personal info. If I remember right I just stayed silent for an uncomfortable minute and the prompt came to skip that part.

So Trac phones are fairly private and as long as you don't do anything really terrible it is unlikely that the LE will go to much trouble to track down who bought the phone but it can be done. There was a murder case in Illinois (not Chicago) where a number associated with a Trac phone played a key role in the investigation and conviction. The police tracked the number to a Trac phone. The company cooperated and was able to tell the police where and when the phone was purchased. The police went to that store and used the surveillance video to find and identify the suspects buying the phone and the car they drove off in. This all happened fairly rapidly within a day or two of the murder though the police kept quiet on the information as they developed more evidence against the people and the actual arrests didn't take place for a few weeks.

Use tracfone for talk and text only. Do not download any apps, or use any data or you’ll open a can o worms

Is it the cheapest flip phone available? I used to use att go phone. 100 bucks a year was good enough for me and I only used it when I needed it.