Have you ever bought a cell phone online?

[Sabine]

I''m feeling particularly lazy lately. I''m ready to upgrade my cell phone, and I found the one I like online. They have free shipping right now too. But if I order it online, will I be able to activate it myself from home, or will I need to take it in to a store anyway? Anything else I should know about ordering online?

 

[snlee]

It depends what plan you have. If you have AT&T, you can just switch the SIM card to your new phone and you are set. But if you have Sprint, I believe you have to take it into the store to activate. Not sure about other plans. Where are you purchasing the phone from?

 

[vintagelover229]

I have verizon and i did this. you can go online to your account and activate it that way for free, if you do it in stones it costs like 20-40 bucks for them to do it. just keep in mind that if you buy a phone online, craigslist,etc that it''s a clean phone. The guy at verizon told me that if the person had stone it or just let the plan go to crap and didn''t pay, you can on longer use the phone or activate it unless you pay the fees on the other persons account off.

You can get great deals online. i washed my phone and the cheapest i could get from verizon was 80.00 for a POS phone becuase my plan wasn''t up until this month (washed it 2 months ago) i bought on ebay from a repetuable dealer and paid 50 including charger for the SAME PHONE I WASHED and bam! new phone and now i don''t have to renew my contract

 

[meresal]

Date: 1/3/2009 7:12:00 PM
Author: snlee
It depends what plan you have. If you have AT&T, you can just switch the SIM card to your new phone and you are set. But if you have Sprint, I believe you have to take it into the store to activate. Not sure about other plans. Where are you purchasing the phone from?

You can dile *2 and they can activate it over the phone. They tell you it can be from 2-4 hours, but mine has always been on within 30 minutes.

 

[oobiecoo]

I helped my sis-in-law buy one on Ebay because you can get a new one for the same price as in the store with a new contract and rebates and everything. She didn''t need a new contract though. She has Sprint and she had to activate hers at the store but they were really nice and didn''t seem to care that it didn''t come from that store.

 

[Sabine]

Thanks everyone! I have AT&T, and I would buy from the AT&T site (considering a refurb).