I’ve read that when you buy a new Tracfone to replace a previous one, you can transfer the cellphone number, unused minutes, and service expiration date, from your old Tracfone to the new one.
But for the new cellphone, must you buy a new airtime card in order to activate it? Or can you buy the new Tracfone, activate it online without a new card, and transfer the old cellphone number, minutes, and service expire date, to the new phone, with new card not needed?
If you’re wondering why I ask here, a slight rant:
I can’t contact Tracfone. I have no access to a working phone; their “Let’s Chat” note on their web page has no link. Kind of annoying. I tried twice to join their forum but did not receive a confirmation email, even after clicking the resend button. In addition, I tried logging in as a current user using my now-broken cellphone number, but to complete logon, you need to enter the access code they send–which I can’t receive on my broken phone.
This is a crummy dilemma to inflict on a customer; a broken phone seems like a predictable scenario they should be prepared to accomodate. A “Let’s Chat” note with no link to chat? Could be I missed something. Other than this, I’ve been happy w/Tracfone–for someone with minimal needs, the service is reliable, and the inexpensive Alcatel A206G [broken] and new Alcatel MyFlip seem ideal.
By the way, from a post on this forum about Tracfone:
“For $21.95 I got a phone and 180 minutes. And they do not expire, I just have to use the phone once every 6 months. Setting up a Gmail reminder now, and just have to get a charger, the one that came with it only plugs into an outlet.”
—what is this poster referring to? I thought all you had to do was be sure your time didn’t expire–nothing about requiring phone use every 6-months?
In the other thread, I’d mentioned that I noticed these at Walmart. I was there to buy a new phone for the voip system at work. It’s wifi only, no minutes or tower connection at all. So, yes, you can buy an activated phone by itself. The clerk had to scan some extra stuff on the box for the activation.
I’m not sure about the other transfers. I’d have guessed that the phone would work after switching the SIM card.
Yes, you can buy a phone without any minutes, and then transfer your old number and minutes to the new phone. There is an automated way to do it on their website, but they’ll also allow you to do it over the phone.
We’ve done it several times throughout my life. It’s not as simple as just changing out the SIM cards due to a unique aspect of how Tracfone phones are set up: the SIM gets permanently associated with the phone.
You can also soned $1 to get a new SIM card that will allow you to use a non-Tracfone phone you already own. And you can order a new phone from their website, where they have a refurbished section that can save you 75% on a new Tracfone.
And when the phone you have become obselete and won’t work anymore, you can get them to send you a ‘new’ phone for free if you bitch at them long enough and threaten to cancel service. They’ll cave pretty quick.
What they mean by “swap your SIM card” is to replace the one in your current non-Tracfone phone with a special SIM card they’ll send you—the $1 one I mentioned in my post that you can get from their website.
They’re not saying that you can take the SIM card out of a proper Tracfone phone and put it in another phone. Actual Tracfone phones have altered firmware and apparently use a different SIM format. There is, as I said, this elaborate process that you have to go through on their website or over the phone to transfer your minutes and number to a new phone and SIM card.
I am unsure if you can take a SIM card from the website from one non-Tracfone phone and swap it to another non-Tracfone phone with a compatible network. It’s possible that would work, but I’ve never tried it.
But the OP suggests they bought a Tracfone phone, so I am sure that, unless things have changed, the SIM card from that phone won’t work in any other phone. They’ll have to use the transfer process on the website or over the phone.
Thanks for that reminder–I did disable uBlock for tracfone.com, cleared cookies, tried again, but link still won’t display; am not running any script blocker like NoScript. So I don’t know what’s up with that–
Had to use a public libr PC to chat with them–the guy said he’d mail me a replacement phone–my dead flipphone is 3G anyway, so I think would have to be replaced in any case–
