I just arrived Taipei and want to buy a new mobile phone with number. I was advised by one shop owner that since I am a foreigner I have to pay like NT$4000-5000 (for one of Nokia’s brands) and have to buy a phone card separately at 7-11. He further explained that if I have a Taiwanese friend, the Taiwanese friend could buy it at only NT$1000-2000 with number and pay at only NT$200 a month. I don’t quite understand why it happened like this. Anyone kindly give me suggestions or alternatives, please!!! :help:
Welcome to Taiwan!
First rule of thumb, as a foreigner, you are subjected to strange, vexing and at many times, infuriatings rules and procedures. The phone business is one such thing where because you’re a foreigner, they’ll make it expensive and difficult for you to get a simple thing like a mobile phone.
In this case, the guy is correct. Buy the simplest phone and then go to 7-11 and get a Far East One IF card in NT$500 and NT$1000 packages. You will need two picture IDs, a passport and another with a picture, such as a driver’s license (if from US). This would get you up and running within 24 hours.
Do a search on our boards and hope you find Forumosa helpful 
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If wiboonk (knoobiw?) would please check his/her/its/their PMs. . . .
If you want to go the fast and easy and still pretty cheap route:
Go to a used cellphone store; there are a few, especially in nightmarkets, and you can pick up a halfway decent phone for about NT$1200.
Shop around for places selling prepaid SIMs. The one that someone found for me charged me NT$550 for a SIM with NT$1300 of time on it (really, all it is is a hook to get you to buy that brand of SIM, so that you’ll be stuck buying their prepaid recharge cards from then on to retain your phone number).
Typically, the recharge cards are sold at a slight discount, like NT$900 for a NT$1000 card. Sometimes they have specials where the NT$1000 card gets you NT$1300 of airtime, or the NT$300 card gets you NT$400 of airtime. (They usually announce this via an advertising SMS to your phone.)
I find that I go through about NT$300 of airtime per week.
Once you get your ARC, you may be able to get a regular cellphone account. Depends on a lot of things, like the sales(wo)man’s attitude and how long your ARC is good for and so on. Helps to have a Taiwanese (boy|girl)friend who will act as a “guarantor” – look on the site for information about that (there’s a whole section of the legal forums devoted to it).
Until then, this will at least get you going, as cheaply as possible.
if your lucky like in my case I just had my girlfriend purchase it for me with her Taiwan id card and paided her back afterwords I to had the same probblem and was with out a phone for quite a while during my first couple of weeks in Taiwan.
thanks all for giving me valuable suggestions !!! i thing i would try to buy the pre-paid one which is much more easier.