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.