I read somewhere that prepaid cell phones are untraceable, is this true, whereas contract phones are not.?

Question

Basically I read where someone had supposedly committed a crime, robbery or something, and during standoff used ther prepaid cell phone to communicate back and forth with police, and somehow the robber slipped out a back door, but the police couldn't trace his phone because it was prepaid. All they had were his phone number.

Answer 1

well, they're not traceable as far as the phone calls made or as the text messages sent specifically, but i think the cellular networks keeps a log on the messages and phonecalls made by a certain number (i don't know this for a fact though). but i've heard sure that your location can be tracked via which cellular tower your phone's picking up signal from while you're communicating to someone (e.g. making calls / sending messages). and that's pretty much the thing as far as cellular phone tracking goes.

hope that hepls..

Answer 2

Urban legion. The incoming call could be traced to the tower originating it no different than any other phone as it is still an RF radio transmitter no mater on what service, prepaid or not. The actual phones location is then found via triangulation with some very simple equipment. The kind of thing we do on hidden transmitter hunts on the Ham bands. I wrote a paper in collage many years ago, about a non-detectable source of UHF radiation that is still near impossible to locate, but won't go in to that here.

Answer 3

My stepfather had the gophone a while ago and the phone was nice and what not, but the service was pretty shitty (sometimes a quality of AT&T though not always) and it was really expensive. The tracfone is great service, great price, but like you said, the features are less than brag-able, sometimes its like you have a phone from the 90s. However, my grandmother had her tracfone for over a year no problems. If you want the whole camera multimedia, do att, if you just need a phone period, get the tracfone. I would like to add NEVER GET VIRGIN MOBILE! Horrible customer service, HORRIBLE pricing, if you accidentally open your text messenger when you add $20 your 200 min for $20 defaults to 18c/min, 5c/text. Also, their promotions can fall through and they will not do anything about it (I tried a code and it said it would work when I submitted my order, I never got the extra minutes, they said not their problem). the automated service is offensive. Also, if you change plans midway through a minute plan, all the minutes you had are gone, even if you mean to change it for the next month, andthey will not remove a thing. Sorry, I just hated having them, put a hole in my pocket.

Answer 4

Not true. The cell phone locations can be traced using the last transmission tower through which the phone was accesed.

This can be done to any cell phone, providing the tracing is carried out during a call.

Answer 5

I have a prepaid cell phone and I know if I were to call 911 it makes it so that it can be located (I guess with some sort of gps) so I think they can be traced, but they have no way of knowing who owns the phone so it really does no good to trace it.

Answer 6

Pre-paid is just buying minutes ahead of time, instead of getting billed at the end of the month. Other than that, it's a cell phone and can be tracked like the other people who answered this question described.