Nominations for world's most complicated prepaid contract
 

Not such a good idea

Prepaid "contract?"

I suspect that most terms of service rise to the level of a legal obligation of some kind.
So 'contract' is not far from the truth.

Mexican, Carlos Slim may be so wealthy because his telephone company "Telcel" probably has the most complicated telephone contracts in the world.

I doubt that many mexicans fully understand their own Telcel contracts because the clauses always have restrictions on further restrictions, on additional restrictions. This makes it almost impossible to compare different tariffs because no one can ever fully understand the consequences of all the different restrictions.

I suspect that most mexicans choose their tariffs with their hearts rather than their heads. I think they choose the tariff that they feel with their heart is the best, but without being completely certain.

Here's an example of what I mean. In most of the world, a topup is a topup. If you don't make a new topup within a certain period of time, your contract ends and you lose your telephone number. This concept is simple. But topups are not always so simple in Mexico!

For example, Telcel has an "Amigo Optimo" tariff that has three different topup periods: "Period 1", "Period 2" and "Period 3". What does this mean? How does this work? Well, even if you don't speak spanish, take a look at Telcel's explanation using eleven "topup diagrams" at the bottom of this page:

telcel.com/portal/personas/amigo/detalles/recarga_amigo.html?mid=1114

Sigh...worse than just complicated terms with America Movil operations...there's an ongoing class action lawsuit against Carlos Slim's Straight Talk/Walmart monthly prepaid venture in the USA that claims "unlimited data" claims are false, etc. The plaintiffs are claiming they got throttled and/or data service cut off at random data usage levels. America Movil has agreements with all 4 major carriers in the US (some GSM and others CDMA). Fortunately I use MVNO's that are not currently owned by Carlos Slim.

More concerned with a prepaid provider having good coverage where I need it, reasonable prices, understandable service plans, and decent customer service.

Think in general prepaid contracts (in the USA MVNO's typically use the phrases "Terms of Service" to describe the legalese, and "Plans" to describe pricing and services included) are rather complicated and are subject to frequent change.

Fortunately stiff prepaid MVNO competition in the USA has helped lower the price per minute on calls...although prepaid data service tends to be more expensive than postpaid offerings on a per gigabyte basis.