# Has TracFone deliberately destroyed my cell phone by remote control? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 21, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463 "2015-05-21T01:19:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/21 "2015-05-21T19:19:03Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I don’t understand. No rudeness intended, but… clearly. You think it would be better for them to instantly reactivate a long-inactive account, just because you gave them $10 for the next month’s service. That they have other issues with reactivating long-dormant accounts, issues that cost or could cost them far more than mailing you out a new chip ($5, maybe) is what you’re failing to grasp. Good customer service is most companies’ goal, but meeting every customer demand is not necessarily a component of that process. > [@gnoitall](#): > > In other words, you agree with the beancounter. Well, if you’re going to sling around long four-letter-words as your argument, and wave away that the goddamned _beancounters_ are doing anything but dreaming up _policies_ that maximize revenue at the cost of the dear, dear customer… you win. Companies are eeevil. Corporations exist to rape consumers. Yay. Or… just possibly… amid issuing hundreds of thousands of low-end cell accounts and devices a month, it’s more cost-effective and blocks a whole spectrum of headaches and malfeasance to burn SIMs and accounts that customers have abandoned for a year. The time and effort to back-check a SIM, and the chance that it’s stolen or will be somehow contested or conflict with another account, isn’t worth the miniscule feel-good for Boyos who want to use their phone in alternate years. I have no love for corporations as such or beancounters who can see nothing but the bottom line, but I also don’t see any reason to castigate TF for failing to instantly reactivate a dead account for a long-lapsed customer - at least, not without doing it on their terms, which means, for many possible reasons, issuing a new SIM. For free. As the SIM has absolutely no use for any provider except TracFone, it’s not like Boyo was robbed of some precious right here. He can take his $20 phone to Net10… who will probably have to send him an updated and compatible SIM card anyway. I really fail to grasp the complaint here except that Boyo was briefly inconvenienced in reactivating a cheap phone he hadn’t paid for or used in a year. May I fail to sob? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/22 "2015-05-21T19:48:40Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Well, if you’re going to sling around long four-letter-words as your argument, and wave away that the goddamned _beancounters_ are doing anything but dreaming up _policies_ that maximize revenue at the cost of the dear, dear customer… you win. Companies are eeevil. Corporations exist to rape consumers. Yay. That’s a lovely strawman you’re talking to. Were you planning on actually talking to me? No? Oh, well. I’ll get over the loss. I just find it amusing that you agree with me so vehemently, and yet still find reasons in your own head to take up an oppositional tone with me in the process. ETA: feel free to take the strawman to the Pit to beat up some more. I think we both agree that the business case for not supporting an ancient blacklisted SIM and a long-deleted inactive account are perfectly valid reasons to put **Boyo Jim** through the extra inconvenience, even if you take issue with how I expressed the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/23 "2015-05-21T21:09:38Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > That’s a lovely strawman you’re talking to. Were you planning on actually talking to me? No? Oh, well. I’ll get over the loss. Yeah, me too. When someone starts throwing around straw-ish denigrations like \*beancounter \*and implying that’s a whole answer to a business issue - by further implying that siding with them is some kind of cop-out or admission of culpability - it indicates a fundamental disinterest in anything but dismissing the topic with “You know. It’s those assholes over there. Q.E.D.” Very few corporations do things without a reason that makes sense to them, and if that “sense” is saving money and potential costly headaches at the expense of appeasing every customer’s wishes, no matter how outlying, saying it’s just “beancounters doing their thang” is unproductive yack. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/24 "2015-05-22T01:37:18Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > No rudeness intended, but… clearly. You think it would be better for them to instantly reactivate a long-inactive account, just because you gave them $10 for the next month’s service. That they have other issues with reactivating long-dormant accounts, issues that cost or could cost them far more than mailing you out a new chip ($5, maybe) is what you’re failing to grasp. Good customer service is most companies’ goal, but meeting every customer demand is not necessarily a component of that process. > Well, if you’re going to sling around long four-letter-words as your argument, and wave away that the goddamned _beancounters_ are doing anything but dreaming up _policies_ that maximize revenue at the cost of the dear, dear customer… you win. Companies are eeevil. Corporations exist to rape consumers. Yay. > > Or… just possibly… amid issuing hundreds of thousands of low-end cell accounts and devices a month, it’s more cost-effective and blocks a whole spectrum of headaches and malfeasance to burn SIMs and accounts that customers have abandoned for a year. The time and effort to back-check a SIM, and the chance that it’s stolen or will be somehow contested or conflict with another account, isn’t worth the miniscule feel-good for Boyos who want to use their phone in alternate years. > > I have no love for corporations as such or beancounters who can see nothing but the bottom line, but I also don’t see any reason to castigate TF for failing to instantly reactivate a dead account for a long-lapsed customer - at least, not without doing it on their terms, which means, for many possible reasons, issuing a new SIM. For free. > > As the SIM has absolutely no use for any provider except TracFone, it’s not like Boyo was robbed of some precious right here. He can take his $20 phone to Net10… who will probably have to send him an updated and compatible SIM card anyway. > > I really fail to grasp the complaint here except that Boyo was briefly inconvenienced in reactivating a cheap phone he hadn’t paid for or used in a year. May I fail to sob? Answer the question that your earlier post raised – what bad acts might some ill-intentioned person do that would threaten TracFone should they have a policy that allows reactivation of SIM cards? ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/25 "2015-05-22T16:09:56Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Well, if you’re going to sling around long four-letter-words as your argument, Beancounter is a four letter word now? ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463/26 "2015-05-22T16:37:06Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > what bad acts might some ill-intentioned person do that would threaten TracFone should they have a policy that allows reactivation of SIM cards? If a stolen cellphone was used to impersonate you, TF could be potentially liable. More likely, some IT person has decided that abandoned records will be stored for 12 months only. And once the electronic record about your SIM has been erased, it cannot be recovered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-tracfone-deliberately-destroyed-my-cell-phone-by-remote-control/720463.md?page=1)