My Motorola V220 just died 1 month out of warranty.  The local Cingular store said the only thing they could do is sell me a replacement phone for full inflated retail price until I'm eligible for an upgrade.  Has anyone tried using the boxed "go phones" from Walmart as a replacement?  I've never had one, but it seems as though you could just take out the prepaid sim card and replace it with your regular one.  If that won't work, my only other option is ebay.  

You could always buy an unlocked phone of eBay...

More than likely the phone has a subsidy lock on it which would not allow you to just switch SIM's. You would need to find someone to unlock the phone for you. If Moto is using the version that I think they are using the only people who can easily unlock this phone will be Cingular employees with access to the unlock codes.

Cingular blue or Cingular orange?

Yes, I belive you can. Just make sure they are GSM to GSM. Your sim chip is the key.

Disclamer: I have never done it, but I did buy a GO phone as a backup to my wife's RAZR.

It works!  I bought the same phone Cingular wanted $250 for in the go phone package for $50.  Put in the sim card, turn the phone on, and everything works perfect!

Quoted: My Motorola V220 just died 1 month out of warranty.  The local Cingular store said the only thing they could do is sell me a replacement phone for full inflated retail price until I'm eligible for an upgrade.  Has anyone tried using the boxed "go phones" from Walmart as a replacement?  I've never had one, but it seems as though you could just take out the prepaid sim card and replace it with your regular one.  If that won't work, my only other option is ebay.

I don't see why not.

I was going to do this with Verizon about a month ago. Same thing-- buy one month of service, activation, then switch the phone to your new account... The lady said I'd have to make the switch about 3 days after so it didn't look like fraud-- I don't see how it would look like fraud though-- if I paid for the phone under their terms... PS: this wouldn't be an issue if Verizon had sim cards like Cingular... :D

I never ended up doing it cus I am thinking of switching providers, but haven't decided what to do yet...

I also found its cheaper to go straight to the manufacturer and pay full replacement cost, or buy a go phone online.

PS: for Verizon people (I know you are Cingular), they have two types of pre-pay phone plans-- one has a very limited selection of phones, the other is pretty much all phones are available. Also, with the Easy Pay plans, you get unlimited mobil to mobile nationwide... so it comes out cheaper than many pay as you go phones if you know verizon people...

by the way-- did you have to activate your go-phone or did you just buy it in the package at the store and just use your sim?