ENTERPRISE — The longtime Verizon dealer Blue Mountain Computer in Enterprise is no longer an authorized Verizon dealer.

Instead, BMC has switched to a variety of providers of “burner phones,” such as Tracfone, Simple Wireless, Total Wireless and Page Plus, said Lorraine Swift, who owns the business with her husband, Jan.

“For six years, we’ve been a Verizon-authorized retailer,” Lorraine Swift said. “Verizon ended its relationship with all authorized retailers at the end of the year, so we were casting about for some other way to serve our community with cellphone service. We came on a business that’s called a Tracfone suite.”

Pay-as-you-go

That’s the Tracfone and other pay-as-you-go types of cellphones.

With them, you buy a certain number of minutes on the phone. And many people find them beneficial, Swift and employee Christial Guthries said in a May 25 interview.

“They’re for a lot of folks who don’t want a huge bill every month or want to pay several months in advance,” Guthrie said. “If they want to get a new number, it’s very easy — you just change your service provider. It’s more for folks who don’t want to be tied down.”

They also come in handy if something happens to your regular phone.

“If someone’s here and they drop their phone in the lake, for instance, they can come and get a phone from us, they can take it home and put it on their Verizon network or they can choose to import their number into one of our services,” Swift said.

She said many of the pay-as-you-go phones work on the Verizon network, so it’s not like users don’t get the same service. However, she said, users must check to make sure the pay-as-you-go phones are compatible to Verizon.

Swift and Guthrie said it wasn’t like Verizon just left BMC high and dry.

“Verizon bought these companies we’re working with now,” Guthrie said.

“These work on the Verizon network,” Swift added, saying that Verizon service remains the same.

Still, if a consumer wants service from an authorized Verizon dealer, they’ll have to travel to La Grande or Lewiston, Idaho.

More than cellphones

In addition to cellphones, BMC also provides phone and computer accessories. The shop on River Street across from the Wallowa County Courthouse also changes out computer hard drives, backs up data, troubleshoots computers, provides printers and ink, and has monitors. They work on PC-compatible computers, but not Apple.

“We carry computer stuff: keyboards, mice, other accessories, flash drives, external hard drives,” Swift said. “So often when you’re in the middle of something and your monitor goes out, you need one.”

Swift said that in recent weeks they’ve also begun to accept more ways of paying for products and services.

“While an authorized Verizon dealer, we found many customers preferred to pay their prepaid service with cash,” she said. “As of two mid-May, we can offer the service of taking cash and check payments, not only for Verizon prepaid, but also postpaid accounts, plus Tracfone, Simple Wireless, Total Wireless, Page Plus and a slew of other providers, some of which we’ve never heard of.”

Who: Jan and Lorraine Swift

What: Computer and cellphone store

Where: 114 S. River St., Enterprise

Phone: 541-426-2020

Email: bmc@eoni.net

Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.