Most people first hear about burner phones – cheap prepaid mobiles intended for temporary use – probably while watching a crime drama. But the truth is, it has a lot of useful features you hadn’t thought of. This is for you to reveal what a burner phone really is and why you might need it too.
What is a Burner Phone?
A burner phone is an inexpensive prepaid phone that users often purchase for temporary use and can discard at any time. It can also be simply understood as a second number or a one-time number, usually loaded with credit for a fixed period of time (once, a day, a month), allowing the user to dispose of it whenever they want without having to worry about ongoing contractual issues.
In terms of the design of the burner phones themselves, cheap ones that look like early 21st century models are more popular with users, while those with 4G, entertainment, photography and touchscreens instead seem to be “productivity surplus”.
Why You Need a Burner Phone?
Leaving aside the illegal actions with burner phones, there are many practical reasons why you may need it as well. For instance, you can use a burner phone to stay in touch with customers, expand your business, protect privacy, and more:
Divert spam away from your main phone
Are you tired of getting all kinds of junk mail every day, but you can’t turn off the alerts for fear of missing those important ones? Once marketers have got your private phone number, they will send you piles of advertisements from time to time. Worse still, your number may be constantly proliferated and recorded by more brands.
A burner phone may help you with this. When you need to provide your phone number to sign up for a service or a brand membership, you can give them your one-time cell phone number. There’s no need to constantly prepare for your possibly important messages so that you just need to flip through it in your spare time to see if there is anything you are interested in.
If you are a salesperson, in turn, a burner phone can be very beneficial. You can use this virtual number to send marketing messages to your customers without having to worry about tricky complaints or gripes from them after you’ve sent them. Moreover, your private life won’t be badly affected by your job stuff since your life has been perfectly separated with your job.
Visit another country without roaming fees
When you go abroad, roaming charges can be ridiculously high if you keep using your own cell phone number. At times like this, a device with a local carrier number for short-time use can save you a lot of money and inconvenience. Also, the quality of calls from local numbers can be more stable and high.
No more worrying about losing your phone when you’re outdoors
Don’t want to take the expensive main phone to do outdoor sports, but worry that you can’t call for help in case of emergency? In addition to smartwatches with sim cards, burner phones can also help you solve this headache very well, even at a lower cost. Whether you are hiking, boating or climbing, you don’t have to be afraid of losing important data due to dropping your main phone.
Protect yourself from being tracked by your online friends
You may be part of the online dating crowd, but you don’t want to expose your real information to your family or friends. If you give your real number away, you are likely to be tracked down or harassed by some unscrupulous cyber scammers.
A burner number can provide an opportunity for you to test your online friends. If you find out that they have any bad intentions to approach you or you want to actively cut off contact with them, you can just ditch your prepaid phone number without worrying about the consequences.
Do not Want to buy a physical burner phone?
Turn your phone into a burner phone with CoverMe.
Where to Get a Burner Phone with Low Cost?
After reading the above, have you started to be interested in burner phones? So where can you get a burner phone without spending a lot?
Repurpose your old phone
If you have an old phone that is sitting around, then this is a great place to start. Reboot it and see if it still works. If it does, congratulations, you’ve saved the cost of buying a new device. All you have to do is to get an adapted SIM card for it according to your usage needs. Generally speaking, sim packages are usually available for 7 days, one month, three months, six months, etc.
Buy a burner phone
If you can’t find an old phone, you can try to buy a new burner phone. As mentioned above, most burner phones look similar to early 21st century phones, and it only requires the most basic call and texting functions. Therefore, it is far cheaper than the smartphone you have in your hand. Shopping at Amazon is a good choice, and its hot models range from $20-$50.
Download an app that provides you with a second number
There is another easier way for you to obtain a burner phone, that is to get a second number. A phone is just a device to make a number function, but you can try to find an app that can create a new number. This is perhaps the cheapest and most convenient option for most folks who want a burner phone number. For example, with CoverMe’s plan, you can choose a number to suit your needs and when the subscription expires, you can either renew it and keep using it, or just choose a new number.
Bottom Line
- Burner phones can sometimes be your communication helper and social problem solver.
- There are three common ways to get a burner phone – use an old phone, buy a new one, and download an app that provides a virtual number.