I have a Motorola V551 on Cingular network. I want to change networks and use it as a prepaid phone, does anyone know if this is possible? I heard that cingular does not lock there phones?
David in OKC
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steva11 Posts: 1677
Phone Model: w810i/pearl
Service Provider: Rogers
Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:07 pm
cingular does lock their phones. you may be eligible for the unlock code, call customer care to find out the criteria, and possibly have a request submitted.
Cptech31 Posts: 650
Phone Model: Nokia 6085
Service Provider: AT&T/Cingular
Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:29 am
you can call customer care and request to be changed to a perpaid account if your postpaid account is still under contract there would be a etf charged to the account but you can take a postpaid number to prepaid
elmo01 Posts: 2342
Phone Model: Samsung SPH-M510
Service Provider: Bell Canada
Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:53 am
steva11 wrote:
cingular does lock their phones. you may be eligible for the unlock code, call customer care to find out the criteria, and possibly have a request submitted.
why would an unlock code be needed?
slipkid Posts: 19
Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:58 am
Cptech31 wrote:
you can call customer care and request to be changed to a perpaid account if your postpaid account is still under contract there would be a etf charged to the account but you can take a postpaid number to prepaid
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying - is "postpaid" the same as an account where you pay monthly, and "prepaid" an account like "payasyougo"????
Because I have been going around in circles the past 2 days with CINGULAR trying to do that - switching from my monthly plan to a payasyougo and keep my existing cellphone # - the short answer is that YOU CAN'T.
The long answer is that one half of their reps will tell you that you can - but none of them will be able to do it for you, or give you instructions on how to do it that actually work, and the other half will say IT CANNOT BE DONE BECAUSE THE PREPAID ACCOUNTS USE A POOL OF SEPERATE NUMBERS (or some other such thing).
If anyone can get me in touch with someone at CINGULAR who can actually get this done I would love to speak with them, but I am not holding my breath.
Shalalala Posts: 658
Tue Sep 26, 2006 1:57 pm
Actually, you CAN
Call either:
1-866-290-0901 for GoPhone
OR
1-866-499-7888
That Dept WILL help you.
elmo01 Posts: 2342
Phone Model: Samsung SPH-M510
Service Provider: Bell Canada
Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:40 pm
TheManator wrote:
Actually, you CAN
Call either:
1-866-290-0901 for GoPhone
OR
1-866-499-7888
That Dept WILL help you.
I saw this note in CSP (#81030)
Note: Customer service does not support the process of migrating a postpaid service to prepaid service. The customer must be referred to a Cingular Wireless retail store.
steva11 Posts: 1677
Phone Model: w810i/pearl
Service Provider: Rogers
Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:55 pm
elmo01 wrote:
steva11 wrote:
cingular does lock their phones. you may be eligible for the unlock code, call customer care to find out the criteria, and possibly have a request submitted.
why would an unlock code be needed?
my bad, i was thinking it was a non-cingular device....must been tired
slipkid Posts: 19
Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:48 pm
TheManator wrote:
Actually, you CAN
Call either:
1-866-290-0901 for GoPhone
OR
1-866-499-7888
That Dept WILL help you.
Thanks but - been there - done that - twice - no luck!
I wish though.
Let me back up & try to explain my particular situation in more detail.
Basically - I am now in the "Nation200" plan since they recently discontinued my old plan. I am not under contract, that expired about oh, let me think, about 5 YEARS ago. I have an old TDMA phone and they are phasing that service out. I want to stop the Nation200 plan because I don't use the phone that much and it costs almost twice as much as my old plan. Switching to a GOPHONE plan would meet my usage needs at a more reasonable price, but to do that I also need to "upgrade" to a GSM phone. So after researching the various phones that CINGULAR offered I decided on the Nokia 6030 for $29.99 as per their website price.
So - All I want to do is to be able to buy the phone, enroll in GOPHONE 25 cents a minute, AND keep my existing cellphone #, one that I've had for like 7 years or so......I thought that would be EZ but it's become the most entangled & confusing thing I've ever tried to do in my life.
This is going to be a very long story but I will try to condense it as much as possible. Here goes....taking deep breath now...INHALE...
I tried to do this myself via the website yesterday morning. And it kept going in circles. From the GOPHONE pages if I put in that i was an existing customer it would force me to login (so I had to first register & setup my account, since I didn't have an on-line one before), and from there it would take me into my account.
From there (my account status page), if i tried to select the "upgrade phone" option, it would take me to a page where phones are offered ONLY with prices associated with locked in contracts, no options for GOPHONE.
But if I selected the "Change Rate Plan" option from my account status page, hoping that might lead me to GOPHONE options, it would go to a screen with an error message of
"RP617: Because this wireless number is not eligible for a rate plan change, we can not process your request to change your rate plan".
Scratching my head from all that, I circled the wagons so to speak, and logged out, and went direct to the GOPHONE page. From there I could select both the 6030 phone for $29.99 and the 25 cents a minute plan I wanted if i answered the questions like I was a NEW customer, but kept going in circles back to my account page again if i did it and answered that I had an existing account.
So rather than continue to waste my time going around and around in circles on the website (plus trying to do this over my PC with a puny dialup line even adds more fun - NOT!), I went in person to the closest CINGULAR store that came up via their websearch function, hoping doing this in person in a store would cut through all that web wierdness.
However at the store after explaining what I wanted (upgrade to NOKIA 6030, change NATION200 to GOPHONE with 25centsaminute, keep my phone #) they told me that:
(a) they could not sell me the 6030 for $29.99 - I could only get that via the website. But they would sell it to me for $300 or something like that (NO THANKS)
(b) it was NOT POSSIBLE for me to keep my existing cell# when switching from a monthly plan to a payasyougo plan
So I went home and called CINGULAR's 1-800-331-5000 number hoping to get clarification on all of this & find out for SURE what my options are because although I could understand the bit about the $29.99 price being a web special only, not being able to keep my old number just didn't make any sense to me.
The first rep that I spoke to over the phone said that they were sure I could keep my # and that someone in GOPHONE could take of everything for me. They then transferred me to GOPHONE. I found the rep in the GOPHONE group to be very friendly and helpful, and she spent ABOUT AN HOUR on the phone with me, spending time to understand what it was that I was trying to accomplish and tried to figure out exactly how to get it done. She started with saying YES YOU CAN KEEP YOUR EXISTING PHONE#, then even went so far as to ask what store told me that I couldn't, then even called the store to "educate" them so that they do not steer other customers "wrong".
Then throughout the next hour, she worked through what she could on the website and told me a way how I could *supposedly* order the phone I wanted via the web to get the $29 price, order the 25centsaminuteplan, how i could then enter in my existing phone # if i waited until the screen AFTER i enter my name/address/credit card, then that I could continue to use my existing phone until the new one arrives, then that I should go into a store and that the store would then "activate" the new phone, terminate the old plan, credit any amounts from my old account to a new one etc etc etc etc.
I was very impressed with her efforts and how it seemed like we had it all covered.
But it doesn't work. I tried it last night.
The closest I can get to what she described was to go to the GOPHONE section of CINGULAR's website without being "logged in", to answer the prompts like I am a new customer, to order the phone, to order the plan, to go to my shopping cart, to enter in my name address and credit card # then get to a screen where it asks me to "port" my old service from another company (!) try entering my CINGULAR #, and from there, simply getting an error message that says something like "that number cannot be ported".
So this morning I called the 1-800-331-0500 number again. I asked to speak with the same rep I spoke with yesterday in GOPHONE (I know her name). They told me that they could not connect me with a specific rep but could transfer me to the GOPHONE group, which they did.
I told the person at GOPHONE this morning that I had spent a lot of time with someone in his group yesterday, and that I needed to speak with her again, rather than try to explain everything all over again.
But he said that he could not connect me to the person who tried to help me yesterday. So I tried explaining the situation to him. He started with saying that absolutely YES, I CAN KEEP MY EXISTING CINGULAR# & SWITCH TO A GOPHONE PLAN. I asked for his assistance in accomplishing that. He said that since I was an existing customer I would have to go through their "TELESALES" department at 1-866-867-5279. He also said that as far as my difficulties with getting the web interface to let me do what I was trying to do I might need to speak with someone at the "WEB ORDERS GROUP" at 1-866-391-0749.
At that point he transferred me over to telesales. I started my conversation with that person simply asking about what seemed to be the #1 source of confusion and controversy over what I was trying to do - COULD I KEEP MY EXISTING CELLULAR # IF TRANSFERRING FROM MY CURRENT PLAN TO A PAYASYOUGO GOPHONE PLAN??????
The person in that group told me without a shadow of a doubt that CINGULAR cannot port over a number like mine (paid for every month) to a "prepaid" payasyougo# etc etc.
And after all the hassle I have been through the past 2 days trying to do this I believe that person at this point.
I would welcome being proved wrong however. This has been an extremely frustrating and time consuming process for me, and not something I wish to continue going round and round in circles on.
If there is a person at CINGULAR who is reading this and knows how to get this done, PLEASE speak up. OR if as I believe now, that this is NOT possible to do let us know that as well. AND PLEASE - try to raise awareness on this issue at your company, because one half of the people there think it can be done (but can't help me do it!), and the other half say it can't be done. This is no way to run a business....
[exhaling now]
Last edited by slipkid on Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total
slipkid Posts: 19
Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:59 pm
elmo01 wrote:
I saw this note in CSP (#81030)
Note: Customer service does not support the process of migrating a postpaid service to prepaid service. The customer must be referred to a Cingular Wireless retail store.
Hmmmm - thanks for that.
I suspect that if that is true, then I would have to find a Cingular Wireless retail store with a well educated staff, and someone who would be willing to help me do this, as opposed to their spending time selling someone a contract, which in my experience seems to be all they are interested in doing.
My experience with stores thus far has not been positive I'm afraid.
That is based on the one I went to yesterday (where they told me flatout this could not be done!), and the one I went to about a month ago when I was trying to figure out what my options were without knowing a damn thing about ANY plans or phones or anything, and got NO ADVICE WHATSOEVER ABOUT ANYTHING.
They could not even give me brochures on rates/plans let alone advise me on something that might meet my own personal needs. Other than trying to sell me a 2 year contract + phone they would only tell me to go to the CINGULAR website to learn about my options. From there I ended up on this site and thankfully got some useful advice from reading other peoples' questions, and posing some of my own.
I only learned about how GOPHONE plans work thanks to this forum.
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