2nd-hand Tracfone - does the original SIM still work with the phone?

[spoolin01]

I've sold a few 2nd hand Tracfones, but only recently bought one for the first time. My understanding has always been that if the original owner has removed the phone from their account, the new owner simply activates the 2nd hand phone using the same original SIM. I'm pretty sure I've been told this recently by a couple of TF agents as well.

Is this not correct?

I had some trouble activating my 2nd had TF, which the TF agent solved in an unorthodox manner, after telling me it couldn't be done the way he then did (had me swap the SIM from my then-current TF phone into the 2nd hand one, which has now been working for 2 months like that).

I want to get things back straight - if my understanding of 'straight' is correct - and get the original SIMs back in their original phones. I just spoke to a TF agent who told me SIMs aren't transferrable (I should buy a new SIM from them for my 2nd hand phone), which is not my experience, or what I've understood from participating in online TF phone discussions.

[sillyette]

Maybe your second-hand phone was being used with a BYOP sim, so the sim wasn't the phone's original sim?
In that case, you would need a fresh BYOP sim to activate the phone.

[PaulCrawhorne]

So long as it works leave it alone.

Keep the maybe-paired original SIM FFR just in case

[jet1000]

(had me swap the SIM from my then-current TF phone into the 2nd hand one, which has now been working for 2 months like that).

Well it's likely the rep paired your SIM with the used device to get it to work so there wouldn't be any issues.

But yes, for branded phones, you would typically enter the IMEI of the phone and TF would expect that it has the paired SIM already in it and usually doesn't even ask

I want to get things back straight - if my understanding of 'straight' is correct - and get the original SIMs back in their original phones.

You might cause more problems that way if the old SIM is now paired with the used phone. If you want to have a SIM for your previous phone in case you need to use it, buy a $1 SIM card and have them pair it in the system to the new SIM.

[zapjb]

I can never have 1 of their lines ongoing. This stuff aggravates me.