Cheapest place to get a number to transfer

[Whitieiii]

I've been seeing alot of giving out good deals on prepaid service when you transfer in your number.. problem is I have no number that I'd like to transfer at this time... I don't care about the number just has to be the cheapest way to get a new number that I can transfer to get some good deals.... I tried number barn but they want like at least $200 for a number... I'd like to take a part of the good deals offered by prepaid carriers.. any suggestions?

Sent from my SM-G988U1 using Tapatalk

[high technology]

Search eBay for “preloaded SIM” and buy something you can use for a couple of weeks or a month. You should be able to find one for about $10-12 for the first month. Make sure you get a US carrier (some UK ones come up in the search), and look to see what they need for a port out.

Lyca Mobile is pretty cheap now, and while you need to call them for the port out info, you could just say the coverage isn’t good for you on the T-Mo network.

If you don’t use voice for calls, and use VOIP, many people just buy prepaid SIMs over and over.

It’s a pain to keep changing MVNOs but some people don’t care. If you would rather have stability, consider trying either Red Pocket or Mint that have annual plans.

[NathanA]

If there is a prepaid deal that you want to take advantage of that you can't qualify for unless you are porting a number in, why not just fire up a month of service on something like Red Pocket for $10, and take whatever number they give you? Heck of a lot cheaper than the $200 cited.

[Qt0]

I tried number barn but they want like at least $200 for a number...

you must be doing something wrong, or looking at vanity numbers or something. Because you can narrow down your search from $0-$49, then sort from low to high price, and should be plenty of $5 numbers

another cheap option is getting a google voice number, then paying $3 to unlock it. After it is unlocked you can port it to a carrier

[robbyrobby]

you could go to ebay and search 'numbers for port in promo'

if you are going to a retail store i would avoid being over prepared, for example with pin, account number all ready for the rep.

it is very unusual for typical customers of prepaid stores to be so prepared

there is a concerted effort going on to recognize and refuse promo offerings to people attempting to 'game the system'

dealers get strong conversation from the carriers if they get too many sales that do not lead to several months of bill payments

you may be asked particularly at Metro by T-Mobile and Cricket to under go 'ID Verification' it is not a credit check but a check of commercial databases to verify you are an actual person with a name, birthday and address that can be verified. Neither carrier is actually enforcing limits at this time but they are tracking people who go to multiple stores to get large number of handsets for resale, etc. my understanding is they do plan to enforce promotion limits(there is always something in the fine print along the lines of 'limit 2 per household' or similar) at some point using the data.

[Mr.Peppermint]

voip.ms

Its like $1 to order a number and pretty good selections ($0.85 + $0.40 last time I checked; good for 30 days)

[VisionsDivine]

Numberbarn.com sells phone numbers, lets you port in and out from them, and lets you park phone numbers.

[1stlink]

voip.ms

Its like $1 to order a number and pretty good selections ($0.85 + $0.40 last time I checked; good for 30 days)

Requires minimum $15 account balance to start. (Huge number inventory that allows search)