How to pay from outside U.S.

[mwg99]

I live in Canada, but need a local phone when I visit the U.S. for a couple weeks every year. So I bought a Verizon phone on a prepaid plan. No problem when I am in the U.S. and can pay cash at Verizong stores. But unless I have a huge balance, the account is set to expire a few weeks after I leave unless I add money. But Verizon will not accept payment on the website (or even in Verizon stores) from my credit cards because they are Canadian based. So the account dies, Verizon takes the balance as a "bonus" , and I have to open a new account with the same phone the next time I return to the U.S.

Is there a solution? (Around the world, Verizon is the only company I have ever encountered which will not accept a Visa card for payment, simply because it is not U.S. based.

Also to be noted, I have a Vodafone in New Zealand which only requires that I use the phone or top up the balance once a year to keep the account active.

Verizon comes off looking terribly parochial in a global age! 

[minnie2 · Accepted solution]

You can buy  a few prepaid cards and just load them into the phone as needed, also for $100.00 the phone would stay active for one year and you can just as more money as you need it but the cell would still be good for the one year.  

[mwg99]

Thanks for the suggestions, which might work except for one catch -- I probably don't use more than $30-$40 on this phone per year. Of course that would be a problem even if I could pay by Visa to keep it alive. 

[silver6055]

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mwg99 wrote:

Thanks for the suggestions, which might work except for one catch -- I probably don't use more than $30-$40 on this phone per year. Of course that would be a problem even if I could pay by Visa to keep it alive. 

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Not sure this would work, but it should!  Buy a cheap prepaid Visa card while in the states (many stores have them).  They take a few years to expire, and should appear as US-based cards on the Verizon website.  There is a small fee on the initial purchase which is a drawback.

BTW: although it doesn't help: Verizon isn't the only carrier that does this.  I had a hard time topping up my UK based accounts because of a lack of a UK credit card, in fact I am on the UK carrier that I use, mainly because their website does accept US credit cards!  (But when I was at one of their stores, they wouldn't accept my card, because it wasn't the UK standard Chip and PIn, and then charged me a surcharge for paying with cash....)

[Minniehaha]

Silver6055 mentioned buying a Visa Gift card  read the back of the card very careful some do not let you use the card for prepaid phones or pay for bills with it. have was given a  visa gift card and it cannot be used for prepaid cells.