Hiving an active phone off MyAccount to start a new one, maybe get referral RPs?

[hpham]

Maybe I should just activate the "extra" phone before I give it away. Do you know if I can activate it and get the points without actually using the phone?

You can do that.

[tomseys]

reply to tomseys
The rep that created the new account first tried to move the Verizon SIM`ed phone to the new account. He removed the phone from the old account and then fraud paranoia kicked in and the rep began acting evasive, giving me a number to call to complete adding the phone to the new account. That was the beginning of many calls and chats that all ended with... we cannot complete your request, followed by another phone number to call or the offer of another scheduled call back. I spoke to Corporate several times, facing the same evasive replies.
I have removed the AT&T SIM`ed phone... leaving both phones outside of the original account where I want to do one AAL.
Tracfone is not bothered that they make the innocent suffer with the guilty during their "tracnets" dragnets.

Oh I see so I imagine they are in limbo or the void or whatever colorful name we want to give it right now.

That's terrible.

Well, I took one of my lines and removed it from an account that I have deliberately yesterday. This account had two lines in it, nothing pending. I can't merge it back in but I could have probably done a chat and got the rep to put it back in that account or in another account. I've read people have done that and it doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request.

But instead based on an earlier post by another member I went to where you login and entered the phone number. It sent a 6 digit text to my phone and I had to enter it on the site. Then it asked for email and password for account creation etc and I had new account with the phone in it. I joined the TF rewards program as you might normally do. Did a referral why not, got 5,000 points (did not self-refer). I got 200 for joining. I did the wheel but i lost of course and the other things.

I fixed the name in the account from myaccount to a version of my name. I fixed the number that was in it in the account info to the correct line number. Everything looks nice. I haven't done anything else. More I just wanted to see if it could be done. I have spaces for AALs in other accounts. Including the one that had this line in it before. Now it has an extra space if I use that account for more.

[Tracfancier]

Good point. Maybe I should just activate the "extra" phone before I give it away. Do you know if I can activate it and get the points without actually using the phone?

You should be able to do that. Unless TF decides that there should be some usage each month. But two one-minute calls (one per month) would take care of that if the spam calls and texts to the new phone number do not count (unread text do deduct from text bucket).

[Tracfancier]

Oh I see so I imagine they are in limbo or the void or whatever colorful name we want to give it right now.

That's terrible. Those people should be fired.

Well, I took one of my lines and removed it from an account that I have deliberately yesterday. This account had two lines in it, nothing pending. I can't merge it back in but I could have probably done a chat and got the rep to put it back in that account or in another account. I've read people have done that and it doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request.

But instead I went to where you login and entered the phone number. It sent a 6 digit text to my phone and I had to enter it on the site. Then it asked for email and password for account creation etc and I had new account with the phone in it. I joined the TF rewards program as you might normally do. Did a referral why not, got 5,000 points. I got 200 for joining. I did the wheel but i lost of course and the other things.

I fixed the name in the account from myaccount to a version of my name. I fixed the number that was in it to the account line number. Everythind looks nice. I haven't done anything else. More I just wanted to see if it could be done. I have spaces for AALs in other accounts.

Apparently, the chat CSR didn`t know how to do what you just did... neither did I 10 days or so ago.
I now plan to merge the airtime from the Verizon SIM`ed un-docked phone and keep trying to have the AT&T SIM`ed un-docked phone put into the new empty account. Phones feel vulnerable outside of an account.

[sillyette]

reply to tomseys
The rep that created the new account first tried to move the Verizon SIM`ed phone to the new account. He removed the phone from the old account and then fraud paranoia kicked in and the rep began acting evasive, giving me a number to call to complete adding the phone to the new account. That was the beginning of many calls and chats that all ended with... we cannot complete your request, followed by another phone number to call or the offer of another scheduled call back. I spoke to Corporate several times, facing the same evasive replies.
I have removed the AT&T SIM`ed phone... leaving both phones outside of the original account where I want to do one AAL.
Tracfone is not bothered that they make the innocent suffer with the guilty during their "tracnets" dragnets.

I know someone who works as a customer service rep. (In a different industry, not in the phone industry). He told me that reps are encouraged to write "notes" about their encounters in the customer's account.

Maybe that first fraud-paranoid rep put in some notes on your account. And then every subsequent rep read those notes and became uncooperative.

(The only hole in this theory is that most reps probably don't ever read anything!)

[sillyette]

...
But instead based on an earlier post by another member I went to where you login and entered the phone number. It sent a 6 digit text to my phone and I had to enter it on the site. Then it asked for email and password for account creation etc and I had new account with the phone in it. I joined the TF rewards program as you might normally do. Did a referral why not, got 5,000 points (did not self-refer). I got 200 for joining. I did the wheel but i lost of course and the other things. ....

Wow! Does this mean you have found the latest Tracfone loophole?!!!

Thought about this some more -
Seems to me this would only work if the device hadn't earned referral points in the past. In which case, those referral points are actually legitimately earned points. Those points should vest correctly, and Tracfone shouldn't have any objections.

[hpham]

Thought about this some more -
Seems to me this would only work if the device hadn't earned referral points in the past.

We'll find out in 60 days whether or not that's true.

[trac*fone]

I see that TracFone is making it difficult to move active phones to a different account. I plan on buying new phones for my family members. Would transferring the service from the old phone in account a, to an inactive new phone in account b, be a frictionless procedure for tracfone chat?

Sent from my Pixel 4a using HoFo mobile app

[Tracfancier]

Alex trac had this to say.
We can transfer a line to another account. After validating the account, you just need to make sure that the line is not active for it to process successfully in the system.

[PaulCrawhorne]

So, lets say I activate a new line and use it to create a new account. While waiting for the 60 days to unlock, can I take the sim out of the phone and use it with an existing BYOP T-Mobile sim without issues? I could get points for a new account, and points for the 2nd phone I want to activate also.

I have a couple of phones that I want to unlock. but I have a total of 5 phones in my main account, and am waiting for one of them to vest points.

The carrier can tell if THEIR SIM is put into a different phone. Fi for example will penalize you for that.

However they cannot see other SIMs going into the subsidized hardware, looks the same as if sock-drawered for the duration.

But, with the same upstream MNO network, might be a risk?

[PaulCrawhorne]

Warning posted

https://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?p=17237359

Was a short-lived thread

[pitflyer]

Alex trac had this to say.
We can transfer a line to another account. After validating the account, you just need to make sure that the line is not active for it to process successfully in the system.

I can interpret that a few ways. Not active with TracFone? Not active with another TracFone rewards account? For me the odd behavior was that they said they couldn't send a verification code via text -- instead it went to some very old email that luckily I still have access to but no longer had an active rewards account (abandoned quite a while ago).

Anyway, I'm letting well enough alone for now.

[PaulCrawhorne]

Yes verifications sent to wrong emails is a theme today

but in my case definitely not an old one, any other data point can hange in my profile but I never change the login email.

One wildcard is they ask for email on each Payment method

but I always stick to the login email every time.

Never put the same payment method on two different MyAccounts either...

[PaulCrawhorne]

I can interpret that a few ways. Not active with TracFone? Not active with another TracFone rewards account?

Active means activated, funded plan, working line with a number.

As opposed to what is left once you move a line to a new device, or port the number out

big red INACTIVE on the device in your MyAccount

meaning, ready to send to the void, and then available to sell, or use for a new virgin MyAccount