Cell phone question, can't get a straight answer

[slonezp]

I pay $90 a month for unlimited everything on a single line. I don't use unlimited everything. ATT who is my carrier has an option for prepaid 8GB a month for $300 a year. What I want to do is get a new phone, buy it outright, and then buy the 12 month prepaid deal and, most importantly, keep my same number. Simple enough...

I can get the best deal on a new phone buying online direct from Samsung and they will give me $250 for my trade in.

The ATT customer service guy on the phone said it can be done but needs to be done at the store level. I went to an ATT store and he said it can be done but needs to be done over the phone with customer service. So either one, none, or both have no idea if it can be done. ATT website says my number can't be transferred and I got sick and tired of the phone automation questions that I just hung up.

Anyone done this? I don't want to buy a new phone to find out I can't keep the same number.

[MN Fisher]

I've been with AT&T for 26 years - three flip-phones and two smart phones and I still have the same number I started with.

 

Latest upgrade, we even ditched the land-line and the wife's phone is our old home-number...so no running around telling everyone and his brother that our main number changed.

 

Of course I've always gotten my new phones through AT&T, so I dunno what they have against buying a phone direct - it's just a SIM card that you need really.

[Deephaven]

They can activate anything.  For a while I carried a $25 phone on weekends instead of my real phone so I didn't have to care about it.  They want to make money on the sale of the phone....which makes used ones cheap

[Glenn]

Yes, you can buy 3rd party, unlock it, and use your current sim card (keep the same number).  The ATT store can do it, but I suggest you go to an ATT corp owned store rather than an "authorized dealer". The corp stores have better training for their employees, who can handle uncommon transactions such as yours.

[CrankFate]

I buy an unlocked phone from Apple. I have a prepaid unlimited everything account for $43.06 a month, auto billed to my credit card. Anything else and you are paying an extra $1,000 - $2,000 for nothing but the brand name of the carrier. I have the same number I ever had, no problem. No way I’m paying $90 a month for the same service. Just buy the phone outright, instead of basically financing it for $45 per month on top of the already inflated price of the phone.

[txchaser]

1) buy the unlocked or AT&T version of the new phone. 

2) when it arrives put your sim card in it.

3) test it and make sure everything works fine

4) change your plan

 

It's really straightforward because the number is connected to the SIM not the phone. I keep an old phone around as an emergency phone in case my main phone dies. Takes just a minute to swap it out and keep going.

[bulldog1935]

I've been on month-to-month with AT&T for 10+ years and no contract, with new phones I bought 3rd party.  With limits, I pay $50/mo and get an occasional use charge when I travel. 

$300/yr sounds like a very good deal.  

[deaknh03]

I use xfinity. $45 per line for unlimited everything, plus they use Verizon towers. At&t sucks. 

[MN Fisher]

17 minutes ago, deaknh03 said:

I use xfinity. $45 per line for unlimited everything, plus they use Verizon towers. At&t sucks. 

I tried Verizon for a year - went back to AT&T when the contract with V was up...there were places I couldn't get a signal from V...I've never had a 'signal not found' from AT&T. That includes a place I use to go to a gathering in 'no-where Kansas' - everyone wanted to borrow my phone because I had signal and they didn't (Verizon, Sprint, etc).

[slonezp]

Update:

Sneaky sumsofbiches...Went into a different ATT store today. My wifi is tied in with the cell phone plan, not with the Uverse plan.(I bundled everything together 3 years ago when I switched to ATT. If I go to prepay, then I have to pay $45 a month for wifi. I also found out that I've had free HBO and HBO Max for 3 years and didn't even know about it. I signed up for ATT Wifi tv which will save me $60 a month and upgraded the post pay plan for $10 less a month. So it's $800 a year I'll save rather than $900

[12poundbass]

55 minutes ago, slonezp said:

Update:

Sneaky sumsofbiches...Went into a different ATT store today. My wifi is tied in with the cell phone plan, not with the Uverse plan.(I bundled everything together 3 years ago when I switched to ATT. If I go to prepay, then I have to pay $45 a month for wifi. I also found out that I've had free HBO and HBO Max for 3 years and didn't even know about it. I signed up for ATT Wifi tv which will save me $60 a month and upgraded the post pay plan for $10 less a month. So it's $800 a year I'll save rather than $900

Did you upgrade your phone to a jitterbug? It’s getting about that time you start thinking about one. ?

[OCdockskipper]

Glenn was right about going into a corporate store.  What you wanted does not create any commission for the clerks, so those at authorized stores typically aren't interested in assisting you & have been known to pass along misleading information.

[slonezp]

6 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

Did you upgrade your phone to a jitterbug? It’s getting about that time you start thinking about one. ?

I had to google jitterbug  phone. 

 

The kid with mint green hair at the ATT store was very helpful with my oldazz. I went to a different ATT store today than I did yesterday. The kid yesterday was zero help. He either didn't know or didn't care about my concerns. The kid today was good. 

5 hours ago, OCdockskipper said:

Glenn was right about going into a corporate store.  What you wanted does not create any commission for the clerks, so those at authorized stores typically aren't interested in assisting you & have been known to pass along misleading information.

The store I went to today is a hybrid. It's not corporate but they are on the same system as corporate as opposed to the store I was at yesterday which was an authorized dealer.

[Jigfishn10]

On 5/22/2021 at 9:24 PM, Glenn said:

Yes, you can buy 3rd party, unlock it, and use your current sim card (keep the same number).  The ATT store can do it, but I suggest you go to an ATT corp owned store rather than an "authorized dealer". The corp stores have better training for their employees, who can handle uncommon transactions such as yours.

This is actually the perfect answer. So true in so many ways.

[huZZah]

Option C is just throw the leash I mean phone away and go fishing.  I’m in a habit of “forgetting” mine all the time now. Hate that thing. 
 

But seriously, a dedicated ATT store will be able to help you. I’ve used a phone I got from a friend before. It’s no big deal they do it all the time. 

[galyonj]

On 5/23/2021 at 7:45 PM, slonezp said:

The store I went to today is a hybrid. It's not corporate but they are on the same system as corporate as opposed to the store I was at yesterday which was an authorized dealer.

 

The authorized resellers for most carriers are still pretty much the same system as the corporate stores.

 

FWIW, I haven't gone into a store for a new phone in probably ten or 15 years, and that's through three carrier changes. I've usually just bought from the corporate website (but the last one I bought through Amazon), had the phone shipped to my house, set it up to move my information over, then called the carrier's support line to have them provision the phone on their network.

 

Easy-peasy if you're into that, but I understand if someone doesn't wanna go to all that effort and fiddling with settings and whatnot.

 

You can still get your phone from wherever the best price on what you want is, take it to whatever affiliated brick-and-mortar store you want, and have them copy your data over and set the phone up for you. Corporate stores will 100% give you less BS during the process than a reseller (or, god forbid, a mall kiosk).