jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A few days ago, I posted about a problem I was having activating a new Samsung Galaxy J3 Luna Pro through TracFone. My son's phone failed under warranty and was replaced. I made the mistake of putting his old SIM card into the new phone, thinking that would make the transition easier. I prefer doing Chats because I can understand writing better than I can understand TracFone phone support. Over a period of several days, I did many Chats and also did a lot of phone talking. One person told me to buy a new SIM card kit from Walmart. She then told me to use the AT&T card. Activation did not work.

Eventually, it occurred to me that I had kept the SIM card that had come with the new phone. As soon as I put that in, they were able to get the phone working. My son was still able to get online and use Facebook, etc, but the phone part didn't work. The lesson I learned is that the SIM card must stay with its phone. I've seen people on TV switch cards for whatever reason, but in the real world, that doesn't work. It seems to be like Windows. It is assigned to one piece of equipment, and change is not possible.

I was also able to get all my son's data and time restored, something a person at TracFone said was not possible. Like calling for software support, if you don't get the answer you want, call back and maybe a different agent will be able to help you.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Interesting information, Jerry.
--Bob

TonyF Loc: Bradenton, FL

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

That sounds a lot like a fellow UHH'r who had an issue with his 80-200 F2.8 Nikkor and Nikon support was unable to help him but I resolved his issue. Also like Nikon saying the focus screen on my old D70s wasn't user replaceable but I replaced it (long gone now). Bottom line is those CSR's don't always know their stuff...

hj Loc: Florida

Thanks Jerry for info that may help others. Though we had TracFone for several years we went to Consumer Cellular a couple years ago and are much happier. I'm posting now not to compare the two providers but to mention something that we experienced with both TracFone and Consumer Cellular. Both my brother (who lives about a mile away) and we were having problems with low bars or no service intermittently. We discovered both providers had given us T-Mobile sim cards with our phones and after requesting they send us AT&T sim cards specific to our phones our phone service improved greatly. Probably has something to do with tower placement in our area.

WessoJPEG Loc: Cincinnati, Ohio

Had T-Mobile years ago, awful couldn't call or receive calls in lots of places;
Never again.

tomad Loc: North Carolina

I think that's another of those "only in the U.S." things. I've lived (and traveled) in several other countries and in all of them your phone wasn't tied to a carrier and you can switch sims and charriers freely.

kd7eir Loc: Tucson, AZ

SIM cards are DESIGNED to be switched from phone to phone. In most systems the SIM card is where your contacts are saved. The SIM card was NOT the cause of your problems unless the SIM card was defective.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

AFIK, the SIM card goes with the network carrier. When traveling to Italy, I installed their SIM card and phone worked great. Returning to US, reinstalled the original Verizon SIM card and phone reverted to what it had been.

Bill MN Loc: Western MN

Get the grand-kids to fix it.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA