When my car was broken into, my Nokia 3390 was stolen, so I went to T-Mobile and got it replaced with the cheapest flip phone they had, the Siemens CF62T. Yes, my phone has a spoiler. It’s also a total piece of crap, as many of my IRL friends have heard me mutter a time or twenty. First off, it turns off at random, and freezes regularly. It’s like a tiny Windows 95. Anyway, even if the phone worked as designed, it would still be a piece of crap, because the design is horrible. It’s sluggish, and generally has too much shit going on.
Anyway, I e-mailed T-Mobile and said the above, and they said I can exchange for another CF62T, or I could upgrade (at a minimum of $70) to a newer phone, neither of which is really OK with me. What I really want is the same model as my old phone, or maybe one model newer.
So, if I just go on eBay and buy an old Nokia, can I just switch the SIM cards and carry on with my life? Will T-Mobile know or care?
And this phone I’d be buying on eBay, what are chances it was stolen? It would be nice if by chance I got my exact old phone back, but I wouldn’t want to perpetuate the cycle.
I think I’ve got that model Nokia (or one very similar to it) sitting in my desk drawer. It was my old phone before I switched carriers and got a new LG for free for signing up. If you can switch the SIM cards, I’ll send it to you. Send me an e-mail.
Phones are matched to an IMEI number, so stolen or lost phones may be barred from the network, even with a new SIM card. This may be a consideration, if you’re afraid of buying a stolen phone on eBay. If the rightful owner arranged for their stolen phone to be blocked, then a thief would probably be reluctant to list the phone (since it would affect their seller rating after a potential buyer found out that it’s a dud).
Personally, I’d upgrade to a newer model. There’s some simple Nokia models similar to your 3390. The 1100 is an old-school non-colour screen phone that I’ve seen for less than 20 quid in the UK (cheaper than a cordless home phone, nearly). A bit more contemporary (although the model is over 12 months old) is the 3200, which is a straight-forward camera phone without too many gizmos. It’s available in the UK for 40-50 quid.
I don’t recommend buying a phone on E-Bay and expecting it to work with a simple sim card addition. Cellular phones are programmed to work on certain companies’ networks. They have made it very hard to switch carriers and not have to buy a new phone. Basically, the phone you buy has to be programmed to your carrier, and you can’t put a Sprint sim card into a T-Mobile cel phone.
I have that exact same phone, somewhere, though, from T-Mobile, and if I can find it, you’re welcome to it.
Sounds like the pain I went through with Motorola and their v600. I’m using a Nokia 6820 now and it’s everything the Moto wasn’t…primarily - it’s a great phone.
I had a little candybar Nokia with Voicestream* before getting a crappy LG phone with sprint, and (several) crappy V600’s with AT&T. The 6820 is also with AT&T and I’m dreading the day they say I need a new phone to jump to Cingular.
I still have my 3360, too. The only problem is they don’t have sim cards. They aren’t carried by most places because all the service providers are trying to get their customers on the new networks.
I don’t really know. That’s just what the service rep told me when I went in with my friend to get her new phone. I guess he could call his service provider & ask. I’m pretty sure they can transfer the service to the phone. (They let me transfer mine to my mother’s after it shorted out & she got a new phone.) The question is will they.
Maybe there different in the states but the Nokia 3360 had a sim card when it was used over here (Europe). I had one for ages but gave it to my mother and she got a new sim card for it…
I used to work for a cellphone company and people quite often got stolen phones that they bought on eBay. In fact, anytime someone called in and said that they wanted to do a phone swap, I immediately asked them where they got the phone since if it came from eBay or a pawnshop, it was most likely unusable. As for swapping SIM cards on phones from different cellphone providers, that may or may not matter. It depends upon the companies. T-Mobile was created from the merger of several different regional cell phone companys (before being bought out by a German telecom), so if it came from one of those, it should work fine.
