"personal" Cellphone With No Monthly Plan Question

[pmacay]

Hello,

I'm hoping someone with a "Personal" phone with no monthly plan can help me out.

I've fought off getting a cellphone because, basically, I hate talking on the phone and I moved to Argentina to destress my life and not be staring at my palm all day long. However, the realities of not having a phone and the fact that all the locotorios are disappearing meant that I finally had to bite the bullet.

A friend of mine has a MovieStar phone with no plan, and he just goes online to their website and charges it up with pesos when he needs to. This seems ideal as I won't use the phone much. I went to the local "Personal" office and asked for their cheapest phone with no monthly plan. I'm embarrassed to say how bad my Spanish is after all the years I've lived here, but lets just say understanding explanations about how a phone plan works is beyond my comprehension. She said just to go to a kiosk and get a phone card in order to buy minutes. She showed me on the receipt where my new phone number is for the new phone I just purchased.

I go to a kiosk, show him my phone and ask for a card to buy minutes. He sells me something for 15 pesos and underlines some number on the card that I assumed was some kind of activation code.

I get home and open up the card I bought at the kiosk and it appears there's another phone chip inside the package. Am I supposed to put this phone chip in the phone every time I run out of minutes and buy a new card? How do I activate the phone with the new card minutes I just bought? The code he underlined on the package is the same amount of digits as a cellphone, staring with 11, my phone number doesn't change everytime I buy a new phone card? Does it?

I'm sorry if I'm totally lame, but I am, the last cellphone I had was in 2000 and they didn't even have texting then.

Thanks for any help!

Pete / a gringo here 14 years and loving it - even if I can't understand Spanish very well

 

[Girino]

FOURTEEN YEARS HERE and still no Spanish?! Dude, you gotta get out more!

 

[nlaruccia]

Can you take a photo and upload it so we can see the card? From what you've described it sounds like the number starting with 11 on the card is the number you're supposed to call to add credit. Without seeing the card you bought it's hard for us to guess. Try putting the chip you bought in the kiosk and calling the number and activating it. If that doesn't work go back to Personal or the kiosk and ask them.

 

[lucha54]

FOURTEEN YEARS HERE and still no Spanish?! Dude, you gotta get out more!

Well he's also still referencing his Palm Pilot so let's cut some slack.....

 

[Girino]

Well he's also still referencing his Palm Pilot so let's cut some slack.....

Is this Quantum Leap?

 

[French jurist]

As far as I understand, you bought a chip at Personal, and bought again a chip at the kiosco.

Less & less kioscos sell reload cards (they are simple plastic cards on which you scratch off a black strip to reveal a code: with the code you call the *152 or *151, I don't remember, and enter the code).
Kioscos let you do more and more now a "carga virtual", you give them your number (not in the format 15xxxx-xxxx but in the format 011-xxxx-xxxx) & the amount to load & that's it

 

[countingdays]

Strange that they gave you a chip each time, did they not ask for your personal details (name, passport etc.) to activate the line? Way back when I got mine I had to show my passport, we put the chip in while I was there, and then they gave me a card with credit to load later.

If you want to load credit from a personal card you:

Dial *151, wait until the recording stops and press 1, then wait again until the next recording stops and dial the numbers on the card (under the scratch off) followed by #.

Hope that works for you, otherwise yeah take a picture of the instructions! Kinda sounds like you bought two chips but no credit.

If they gave you the chip AND a card with credit for $15 that's awesome. They don't even sell the standard (call and text) $15 cards anymore... I think the minimum is $30. Hah maybe I should buy a new chip every time I want more credit.

 

[pmacay]

Hello,
Thanks for everyone's help with this, I thought it would be a simple answer if someone had the same setup as I did, it's always easy once you know the answer!
Someone offered me their skype to talk online and help me figure this out, THANKS dude!
Basically when I bought the phone, the girl at the desk inserted the chip from a little Personal package that included the chip with 10 pesos of phone credit, she then told me to go to a kiosk and get a phone card with minutes. When I did this, the dude thought I needed a sim / chip card package to activate the phone, so he sold me a whole new phone sim / chip for 15 pesos, with a new phone number. This is not what I needed. The person who helped me on skype (THANKS AGAIN!) said I just need to go to a kiosk and give them my phone number and the company I bought the phone with and ask for "carga virtual", and they can add the minutes immediately with a little credit card kind of device where they type the phone number and amount to credit. The kiosk gives you a receipt and you get a text from Personal verifying the amount added. There is no extra charge at the kiosk to do this, like when you add money to your Sube card. I then went to www.personal.com.ar and you can create an account there with your phone number to see your balance on the phone. Now I just need to figure out how many calls 30 pesos will get me, to see how often I need to add money to it. Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions!
Cheers!
Pete / the stupid gringo

 

[Rich One]

Hello,
Thanks for everyone's help with this, I thought it would be a simple answer if someone had the same setup as I did, it's always easy once you know the answer!
Someone offered me their skype to talk online and help me figure this out, THANKS dude!
Basically when I bought the phone, the girl at the desk inserted the chip from a little Personal package that included the chip with 10 pesos of phone credit, she then told me to go to a kiosk and get a phone card with minutes. When I did this, the dude thought I needed a sim / chip card package to activate the phone, so he sold me a whole new phone sim / chip for 15 pesos, with a new phone number. This is not what I needed. The person who helped me on skype (THANKS AGAIN!) said I just need to go to a kiosk and give them my phone number and the company I bought the phone with and ask for "carga virtual", and they can add the minutes immediately with a little credit card kind of device where they type the phone number and amount to credit. The kiosk gives you a receipt and you get a text from Personal verifying the amount added. There is no extra charge at the kiosk to do this, like when you add money to your Sube card. I then went to www.personal.com.ar and you can create an account there with your phone number to see your balance on the phone. Now I just need to figure out how many calls 30 pesos will get me, to see how often I need to add money to it. Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions!
Cheers!
Pete / the stupid gringo

Uhmm not many calls ! in movistar prepaid system a minute call is about $5 pesos..... So I would have 6 minutes for 30 pesos!!

 

[Ceviche]

Uhmm not many calls ! in movistar prepaid system a minute call is about $5 pesos..... So I would have 6 minutes for 30 pesos!!

i used pre paid system for almost 3 years until i realized last 4 month of my prepaid days that personal was eating on my balance by indirect ways every time i recharged and when ever i needed to make a important phone call i had no balance irrespective that i had just put 200 pesos, 2 days ago!

i went to personal office and they actually accepted that they stole all my balance.

since then i am on a 250 pesos a month personal black plan with 800 minutes anywhere in americas and unlimited data and text