Prepaid Conversion Upgrade Phone

**shango6** · 12-07-2010, 11:53 AM

I converted my prepaid line at the local Alltel/ATT store and chose the LG CF360 slider phone. The phone was $20 + tax, $15 of that goes on the new go phone account along with the remaining Alltel U account balance.

When converting you can choose your go phone rate plan.

Other phone offered were a Pantech qwerty phone for $50 and the next phones up were around $100+.

Phonescoop shows the CF360 as discontinued. I am fairly happy with the phone, it gets good reviews, feels solid and has good rf performance. I put my post paid sim in and the phone worked fine. I was told that once the phone is turned on with the prepaid sim inserted it locks to that sim or prepaid only sims. Im not going to try it.

Expect long wait times at the store when its conversion time in your area. If you dont have a few hours to burn, go another time. The store was packed with phone book transfers, exchanges, plan mods etc. It is simply please sign in and please wait to be called.

This was my experience with prepaid conversion/retail store, no doubt phone selection and procedures will change.

**Mark Uhde** · 12-27-2010, 12:10 AM

I've never heard of the phone getting burned to "prepaid only SIMs" and I can't think of any way that'd be possible short of majorly customized software a la Tracfone (and I'm not totally sure what they do is completely OK with the GSM Association, I think if their system was more widespread someone would step in like they did when 3 UK got around the SIM card requirement by supergluing the SIM cards in their phones...)

**James30154** · 02-01-2011, 06:38 AM

Call ATT CS and ask how long the prepaid SIm must be associated with that phone. You found a better phone that you want to upgrade to and you need to move the SIM.

**James30154** · 02-01-2011, 06:40 AM

Also go to another corporate store to buy airtime and ask for a new SIM card.

**skippinjack** · 02-19-2011, 01:56 AM

Originally Posted by James30154

Also go to another corporate store to buy airtime and ask for a new SIM card.

Yea. Simple as that. If they just replace your SIM card at a COR store, then it's going to be a standard one anyway. It's not like they keep around a stack of "Prepaid Only" SIMs or anything.

**izzaboo** · 03-04-2011, 05:23 PM

This is good info. So they're not really giving big discounts on prepaid handsets then? Where this is a benefit is that I get to keep my prepaid # and transfer my balance? Why don't I get a free handset? I paid $80 for my current prepaid handset. I'd keep using it but for this at&t purchase.

Has there been a list of handset options provided on the web? I mean other than what's available on att.com's normal gophone pages?