US Mobile Plan WITH Statements
Posted by ShinsOfGlory@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 3 comments
I’m a US expat looking for an inexpensive US mobile plan that generates proper monthly billing statements, specifically to satisfy the Texas DPS residency requirement for a driver’s license (they accept mobile phone bills as utility bills).
I’ve looked at several options:
Tello – I have it, but their billing statements look unprofessional and I’m not confident DPS will accept them. The other issue I ran into was that when I signed up on Tello, I thought I could create a separate billing statement for my wife but they lumped them both on the same statement under both our names (X & Y Lastname). So it may work as a utility for one of us but not both of us.
Google Voice – I have a number but it doesn’t generate monthly bills.
Google Fi – Generates proper statements (can someone confirm?), but activation requires being physically in the US, and their overseas account management has been problematic in my experience. It seems like every customer service interaction is an interrogation where they try to get you to confess to living overseas so they can terminate your data plan.
Mint Mobile – Popular with expats, but appears to be prepaid with no monthly billing statements.
I don’t need to actually use the service (Tello works great), I just need a legitimate monthly billing statement with my name and a Texas address. What US mobile carriers generate proper monthly billing statements and would work for this purpose and can I activate while overseas?
If GoogleFi does generate statements, can I just sign up and not activate? I don't care about paying the monthly fees. If Google would allow me to sign up and never activate the plan while they generate billing statements, that would be the optimal plan. You would think I would be the perfect mobile customer. LOL.
Can I have Google (or any other inexpensive carrier) send physical SIMs (I need one for the wife too) to my brother who can activate them on some old junk phone and just put in a drawer for a few months?
I have Escapees mail service so I could have the SIMs sent to my Escapees address in TX and have them forward the SIMs to my brother.
If possible, I would prefer to avoid this hassle of shipping SIM cards and having people activate and sit on the phone for me but it's doable if that's what's required.
Eric848448@reddit
You don’t sound like a Texas resident to me.
x3medude@reddit
Fi: I had my dad activate for me. Had to give him my email and password. Went without a hitch. Can't confirm the invoice though
ShinsOfGlory@reddit (OP)
I actually got it working when I was overseas but not 100%.
It was during Covid so I presented it more like I was stuck overseas, not that I was living overseas so they didn't immediately start trying to shut down my account when I told them I was trying to activate outside of the US.
But the rep probably told me at least 5 separate times that GoogleFi was for US residents only and that if I didn't eventually activate in the US that eventually they might flag my account.
I had GoogleFi for about 3 years until I got tired of worrying that I would suddenly get cut off from online banking. I could never figure out how to send or receive multi-media messages and sometimes SMS would get a little wonky sending but, technically, I activated and was using GoogleFi overseas.
I fully activated Tello overseas though. Never had a problem.