My relatives are arriving to the US by air and I have given them an unactivated Tracfone so that they can make calls as soon as they land. Can I activate the Tracfone online (I have the SIM and IMEI number) so that when they land and switch on the phone, it simply works and allows them to make calls? The place where it goes against instructions is when they ask you to keep the phone ON before starting activation.
(Of course they can always use the payphone at the airport if that does not work, but wanted to know if someone has had experience activating Tracfone in advance this way).
You can put in all the information, and when the phone connects to the tower, it will finish activating. I once tried to activate a phone that had the wrong sim in it from another phone. The phone just sat there. As soon as I put the correct sim in the phone, everything came to life. So it will wait until everything is there. The activation will be pending until it gets a signal. It can stay in the pending condition for months. Tell them to give the phone a couple minutes to get going.
I think you should be OK as long as it's a GSM phone. A CDMA phone sometimes needs codes plus that *228 thing.
I need to mention that the airtime days will begin to tick down as soon as you do the online activation. Tracfone will think that the phone is activated and everything's OK as far as it's concerned. However, the phone will still need to contact AT&T and get itself registered.
That is useful information. I do not want the the phone's airtime duration counter and Tracfone's system to be out of sync as it can lead to problems later. I will activate the phone on the day when they are due to land to avoid such trouble.
When the phone is turned on and it receives the activation signal, the signal will program the phone with the correct days REMAINING at that moment. It will not be out of sync.
Activating a Tracfone in advance
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