Forum Discussion
How to keep existing prepaid account and plan when upgrading to a new phone
Hello. I currently have a prepaid plan. My phone is old and I want to upgrade. My friend wants to give me his old phone (which is much newer than mine) to use. It is compatible with t-mobile's network as far as I can tell--Friend had a t-mobile plan but it was post-paid. How do I keep my existing prepaid plan, service, and phone number and move to using the new (friend's) phone?
Hola @CherylG If you are on T-Mobile Prepaid service and your friend gave you a T-Mobile branded phone, then you can use it on your prepaid account. If you can take your physical sim card out of your phone and put it in that phone, then that is usually the easiest way of getting your service on that phone. If that phone only uses eSIM, then you can contact our support teams to help you with that. You can also go to that store to have them help you with converting to an eSIM and they will not charge you to do that.
If you purchase a new phone from BestBuy, then you will not be charged anything extra for getting the phone. They can help you get it set up or you can take it to a T-Mobile store to get it set up for no additional charge. Having it all done at BestBuy means that you don't have to make any additional stops at other stores.
If you by a phone at Best Buy they will do any eSim transferring if needed. Buy either the Tmobile version or the factory unlocked Samsung if available.
Do I need to have best buy do the transferring? Can I just buy the phone from them and then bring into the T-Mobile store to do the transferring there?
Best Buy is a 3rd party agents of Tmobile. I bought my last 2 phones from them using Tmobile EIP.
Also I didn't get charged a fee like Tmobile does.
I am so confused. What is EIP? Why would TMobile charge a fee to continue my existing prepaid plan on a new phone?
It's to keep up with the Jones’s of carriers.
EIP is an installment plan to pay off your phone for 0% interest for 24 months.
That article says it's for postpaid. Are you saying they will charge me a fee to bring my new Samsung phone in and ask them to transfer my existing prepaid account to the new phone? I'm not sure if it will have an eSIM but if it does you're saying they will charge me to do that?
Best Buy didn't charge me any fees. Plus if you're going from a 4G phone to 5G it's wise to change the sim anyway.
Hola @CherylG If you are on T-Mobile Prepaid service and your friend gave you a T-Mobile branded phone, then you can use it on your prepaid account. If you can take your physical sim card out of your phone and put it in that phone, then that is usually the easiest way of getting your service on that phone. If that phone only uses eSIM, then you can contact our support teams to help you with that. You can also go to that store to have them help you with converting to an eSIM and they will not charge you to do that.
If you purchase a new phone from BestBuy, then you will not be charged anything extra for getting the phone. They can help you get it set up or you can take it to a T-Mobile store to get it set up for no additional charge. Having it all done at BestBuy means that you don't have to make any additional stops at other stores.
Thank you so much, HeavenM!
