Any harm in leaving T-Mobile UK Sim Cards in phones until I top them up in UK in Aug?
 

I just received the 2 Pay-As-You-Go T-Mobile UK Sim Cards from eBay. Is there any harm in leaving them in my 2 unlocked phones until I can top them both off in August when we travel to London?

no harm
 

Should be no harm. Just make sure they don't expire before you need them.

Have a nice trip.

Stan

Hi Stan,

Thanks for the quick reply. When do the cards expire. Would it be 180 days since the day I put them in the phones?

It seems to be 180 days from the last activity (or activation, I presume). Outbound calls and SMS definitely count. I'm not sure if inbound calls count.

It's a billable activity every 180 days officially (though it might be longer than this in reality -- Virgin states 180 but is really 365). An incoming call won't work, unless you're roaming.

By ACTIVATION do you mean when one TOPS-UP for the 1st time?

Usually, but not always, the EU cards I have purchased, require that you INITIALIZE or ACTIVATE new SIM cards. Sometimes this is as easy as putting the SIM into a phone and allowing the phone to register on the local network. Sometimes the provided asks you to call a customer service number and follow the procedures there. Both the old SIMYO card and the newer SUNSIM required some special action as I described. I cannot remember how the original RIIING or the UM+ activation occurred.

I had some new German T-Mobile cards and I cannot recall they required any special activation at all. I may be wrong.

I cannot speak for your UK cards. Our British friends will have to chime in.

Perhaps there is no user activation required.

Stan

As I remember Vodaphone to activate a SMS from Vodaphone had to be sent to the phone.
You have to be in the UK to have the SMS sent. It will not come to you here in the states.
That card you got for top ups that has to be linked to your credit card another thing that has to be done in the UK. T-Mobile may be the same. Call T-mobile CS in the UK to find out or who you bought the sim card from. I hope this helps.

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I hope I can just top-up with CASH if I want, right?

Cash is good.

In Greece, for example, all prepaid cards have to be activated as follows:
Insert the card in the phone and power on.
Call any billable phone number (i.e. no emergency number or free cc number) and wait until you listen a welcome message like "welcome to XX prepaid, your phone is now activated and you can make and receive calls" on your phone, then you can hang up before the call is actually connected. But you have to listen through the whole welcome message. Some opertors also send you a welcome SMS after that, but the SIM is activated right at the moment the welcome message ends.

Before activation, the card is officialy inactive even though the phone registers with the home network, doesn't accept or make calls or SMS and thus does not count towards the expiration date. This first call has to be made in the home network for the welcome message to be played and the card to be activated, i.e. you can't activate abroad on a roaming network...

Many greek carriers instruct their employees on their shops to activate all prepaid SIM cards unless the customers doesn't want it. If you buy the SIM card from a news-stand or a kiosk of course they won't care to activate your card unless you ask them to (and they know how to do it, I witnessed a Pakistani guy and my grandma asking the local kiosk lady to top his phone up).

Hey guys

Ummm I saw these T-Mobile UK SIM Cards on eBay.

I'm not going to Europe anytime soon at all but all I want is to have a +44 cellphone number...lol to put on facebook lol and I wanna go prank call some friends lol

Plus I heard my friends in England and Wales can text me and I won't be charged. That's important to me because they can text me at home rates. (I really do miss my high school friends and it's been barely a couple of months since graduation lol)

So I was wondering what you guys think.

Should I buy the SIM Card? (I really want a +44 number lol) And if I buy the SIM Card, how do I activate it from within the United States?

THANKS!

Sorry btw, new to the forum, just found this thread on google.

Oh you know what this forum is old. I'll just go ahead and open a new thread.

Oh you know what, yeah I DON'T KNOW HOW TO OPEN A NEW THREAD. Lol so please do answer my question on this thread.

Sounds like you may have a UK address. If you do, you can get the sims for free and just have it mailed to you.

http://www.t-mobilesimgiveaway.co.uk/