# Pre-paid phone - who is my carrier?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 30, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266 "2013-06-30T14:56:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266/1 "2013-06-30T14:56:47Z")

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My son recently found his old pre-paid phone. It disappeared into one of those black holes that sometimes appear in teenaged boys’ rooms. Now that it is back, I would like to buy some minutes for him… but no one can remember what service this phone uses. And poking around I can’t find anything in or on the phone itself. I have a phone number, a serial number, and a SIM number but nothing else. I tried to use net10 thinking that might work… but no dice.

So is there a lookup service, where I can figure out who this phone is through? Or is there some other way to turn this thing back on?

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266/2 "2013-06-30T15:12:51Z")

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[https://www.carrierlookup.com/index.php](https://www.carrierlookup.com/index.php)  
or

> **[Free Mobile Phone Number Carrier Lookup](https://www.smsmatrix.com/num_lookup)**
>
> Use this page to find out the carrier of any mobile phone number in US and Canada

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**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266/3 "2013-06-30T17:37:49Z")

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Thank you. That did the trick.

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266/4 "2013-06-30T18:12:49Z")

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Did you check with the carrier? After I posted that I was remembering that carriers re-assign phone numbers if they are not used within a certain period of time.

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**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-paid-phone-who-is-my-carrier/662266/6 "2016-01-08T12:16:08Z")

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Spam reported.