I got a recently purchased a cell phone off of ebay. It's a Samsung T401G and it's pretty slick. It's got a slide out qwerty keyboard. It's a Net 10 branded phone, which is what I wanted. I wanted a prepaid phone and they had one of the best rates. 10 cents a minute and 5 cent (3 cent with my phone) text messages.

My phone arrived yesterday. The listing said it was a new phone. When I opened it I broke a seal on the package. Apparently it wasn't the original seal however. I was suppose to get 300 minutes and 60 days of service free with the phones activation, but my account was never credited with it. After spending 15 minutes with Net 10's customer support I learned why I never got my minutes. The person I talked to at Net 10 said that sometime back in 2008 my phone was activated. She also said that there were still minutes on the phone, although I wouldn't be able to see them until I added service days to the phone.

The phone's seller is sending me a minutes card equivalent to what I was suppose to get when I activated the phone. So once that arrives I should be good. In the future I might be more careful buying electronics, although this wasn't one of those "too good to be true" deals.