"Burner" cell phone deals?

Maybe I've been watching too many cop shows, and that's not really the right term. On TV, a "burner" is a cheap, untraceable cell phone that you buy for cash and throw in the garbage when the deal is done.

I want to buy a new car. Everyone says "just do it via email". Tried that. One Mazda dealer sends me a dozen emails a day asking for my business. Most dealers simply will not give a price without a phone number. I'm betting they'll call a dozen times a day if I give them my number.

I used to have service with Virgin Mobile. I see they will sell me a phone for $15 and $20 for 400 minutes. I don't know who the competition is, so I can't see if there's a cheaper option.

Thanks.

You've been watching "The Wire" again, haven't you?

I don't have any personal experience to draw from, sorry.

I used to use net10... $30 would buy me the crappiest referb bar phone they had with 100 min ($10 value) and a 300 min $30 card... I would add the 300min card when I ran out of my initial free 100 min or before the minutes expired... when I ran out of min I would buy another... each time they would give me a new number so I used an early version of google voice so I could just change the settings online, give people the google voice number and spend next to nothing on my phone.

If they are still around track phone was another, I think walmart has some sort of plan as well.

If you have a google account, you can just use google voice to relay the calls to your cell phone. Whenever I have to give someone a contact number that I don't completely trust, I give them my google voice number. I can block them easily with just a few clicks.

EvanR wrote: Most dealers simply will not give a price without a phone number. I'm betting they'll call a dozen times a day if I give them my number.

You do not need another cell phone. You need a free virtual phone number through Google Voice that will then ring into your current phone.
These 12 videos will do a better job of explaining than I can.

More detail on the wiki page

Doesn't Google Voice require that you give Google your actual cell phone number? What protections does Google have in place to prevent third parties from obtaining your actual cell phone number?

Don't do that, just sign up for Google voice. Completely free, you get a new number that forwards to your old one. When you're done with it, just shut it off and/or block the numbers that call you too much.

voice.google.com

No, you do not have to give your number to Google Voice (GV)
You can give GV your number, called porting but it is not required.
See this, video #12 to learn more on the option of porting.

Here is an example of typical usage scenario:
Applying for a job in a new city.
Want to give the impression of being a local guy, not an out of towner.
Set up a GV number with the area code of the desired city. When the prospective employer calls that GV number, GV sends the call to your out-of-town cell phone number. The employer is none the wiser.

Last time I played the dealer game, I just told them I was hard of hearing and email was better. Not a single Fiat dealership had issue with this.