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How-To: Activate Verizon iPhone on different phone number

D

daaaaaan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 7, 2010
16
0
Just went through the process, figured this may help some of you.

1) Activate iPhone on the line it was ordered on via iTunes (lets say phone number ends in 1234). Do not allow it to sync anything from your iTunes (music, apps, contacts, calendars...etc..)

2) Once activated, long into MyVerizon for phone 1234, re-activate it (under "activate a device) using the old MEID number that the 1234 phone was on before the iPhone. Dial *228, and the old phone is now back to being 1234 line.

3) CALL VERIZON and have them add the iPhone MEID number on the phone number you want the iPhone on (lets say 6789). The rep will ask you to dial *228 to activate iPhone and will quickly realize *228 DOES NOT WORK on iPhones. Say that is all I needed, and hang up on them (you have to call verizon, logging into My Verizon like you did for the 1234 phone will not allow you to add the MEID number for the iPhone, it will give you an error).

4) With your iPhone disconnected from iTunes, go to Settings-->General--->Reset---> Erase All content and Settings. Your phone will take a few minutes and reset itself Once done, it will prompt you to connect to iTunes

5) Connect to iTunes to activate your phone just like you did with the 1234 number but now it will activate on the 6789 number.

Hope this helps and Verizon tech support was completely useless to me and I figured this out while I was on hold with them.
 
Last edited:
R

Remmnever

macrumors member
Jan 20, 2011
64
0
Sounds like a pain having to call them. I'm going to try tomorrow. I think I'm just going to try and activate it on the line it came on and then re-activate the old phone back on to that line. Then active the iphone on the other line. Sounds good in theory but we'll see.

I've activated phones on VZW website before without issues.
 
richpjr

richpjr

macrumors 68040
May 9, 2006
3,502
2,203
Fresh1 said:
I'll be needing to do this soon. Can anyone else verify that this has worked?
Click to expand...

I did not have to call Verizon. I just did this:

I activated the iPhone using iTunes, which deactivated the other line I used to upgrade.

I logged onto MyVerizon and actived the phone that was deactivated in the step above. I then called *228 option 1 to complete the activation on it.

I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
 
R

Remmnever

macrumors member
Jan 20, 2011
64
0
richpjr said:
I did not have to call Verizon. I just did this:

I activated the iPhone using iTunes, which deactivated the other line I used to upgrade.

I logged onto MyVerizon and actived the phone that was deactivated in the step above. I then called *228 option 1 to complete the activation on it.

I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

Nice, this is what I will do.
 
M

macuserjhs

macrumors regular
Nov 4, 2010
167
0
There are tons of people calling tonight because of the iphone and it takes a while to speak with a rep.
 
R

Rated

macrumors member
Nov 15, 2010
44
0
gotta be an easier way, cant activate it on itunes with a different #?
 
I

Icecoldcoke

macrumors newbie
Jul 25, 2010
29
0
Their website almost makes it sound easy.

I got an error on Step 2, had to call Verizon, and it took 40 minutes for him to get it to activate it on my line.

Now I don't even think he did it correctly because when I go to add my old phone onto my mom's line it wants to activate the iPhone.

I tried to get them to fix this but they continuously hung up on me from 10:30 until 11 when their support line closed.
 
J

johnnyboyvzw

macrumors newbie
Feb 7, 2011
8
0
daaaaaan said:
Just went through the process, figured this may help some of you.

1) Activate iPhone on the line it was ordered on via iTunes (lets say phone number ends in 1234). Do not allow it to sync anything from your iTunes (music, apps, contacts, calendars...etc..)

2) Once activated, long into MyVerizon for phone 1234, re-activate it (under "activate a device) using the old MEID number that the 1234 phone was on before the iPhone. Dial *228, and the old phone is now back to being 1234 line.

3) CALL VERIZON and have them add the iPhone MEID number on the phone number you want the iPhone on (lets say 6789). The rep will ask you to dial *228 to activate iPhone and will quickly realize *228 DOES NOT WORK on iPhones. Say that is all I needed, and hang up on them (you have to call verizon, logging into My Verizon like you did for the 1234 phone will not allow you to add the MEID number for the iPhone, it will give you an error).

4) With your iPhone disconnected from iTunes, go to Settings-->General--->Reset---> Erase All content and Settings. Your phone will take a few minutes and reset itself Once done, it will prompt you to connect to iTunes

5) Connect to iTunes to activate your phone just like you did with the 1234 number but now it will activate on the 6789 number.

Hope this helps and Verizon tech support was completely useless to me and I figured this out while I was on hold with them.
Click to expand...

This is the process they're using in-store. Great catch. The online info was posted prior to actual devices being in customers hands.
 
Last edited:
mightygitis

mightygitis

macrumors 6502
Feb 3, 2011
271
0
Hampton Roads
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

richpjr said:
Fresh1 said:
I'll be needing to do this soon. Can anyone else verify that this has worked?
Click to expand...

I did not have to call Verizon. I just did this:

I activated the iPhone using iTunes, which deactivated the other line I used to upgrade.

I logged onto MyVerizon and actived the phone that was deactivated in the step above. I then called *228 option 1 to complete the activation on it.

I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

richpjr said:
I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

This did not work for us. When we attempted it we were directed to call customer service. It went very smooth though. I was on hold for a little bit, but the guy understood exactly what I wanted. We even had a fun little chat about the iPhone mania.
 
R

rlav

macrumors member
Mar 25, 2009
36
0
mightygitis said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

I was on hold for a little bit, but the guy understood exactly what I wanted. We even had a fun little chat about the iPhone mania.
Click to expand...


I have had to call CS a few times in the last few days and they have been very nice and always been able to answer my questions. Kudos to the CS people at Verizon, I'm sure they have been incredibly busy
 
M

martiansoldier

macrumors 6502
Nov 12, 2010
363
82
daaaaaan said:
just went through the process, figured this may help some of you.

1) activate iphone on the line it was ordered on via itunes (lets say phone number ends in 1234). Do not allow it to sync anything from your itunes (music, apps, contacts, calendars...etc..)

2) once activated, long into myverizon for phone 1234, re-activate it (under "activate a device) using the old meid number that the 1234 phone was on before the iphone. Dial *228, and the old phone is now back to being 1234 line.

3) call verizon and have them add the iphone meid number on the phone number you want the iphone on (lets say 6789). The rep will ask you to dial *228 to activate iphone and will quickly realize *228 does not work on iphones. Say that is all i needed, and hang up on them (you have to call verizon, logging into my verizon like you did for the 1234 phone will not allow you to add the meid number for the iphone, it will give you an error).

4) with your iphone disconnected from itunes, go to settings-->general--->reset---> erase all content and settings. Your phone will take a few minutes and reset itself once done, it will prompt you to connect to itunes

5) connect to itunes to activate your phone just like you did with the 1234 number but now it will activate on the 6789 number.

Hope this helps and verizon tech support was completely useless to me and i figured this out while i was on hold with them.
Click to expand...

painful!
 
M

mikeabbz

macrumors member
Jan 17, 2007
78
8
richpjr said:
I did not have to call Verizon. I just did this:

I activated the iPhone using iTunes, which deactivated the other line I used to upgrade.

I logged onto MyVerizon and actived the phone that was deactivated in the step above. I then called *228 option 1 to complete the activation on it.

I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

:D excellent advice. Thanks. Just received phone and activated it on my line instead of fathers. Your advice worked perfectly!!!
 
T

tdar

macrumors 68020
Jun 23, 2003
2,096
2,513
Johns Creek Ga.
daaaaaan said:
Just went through the process, figured this may help some of you.

1) Activate iPhone on the line it was ordered on via iTunes (lets say phone number ends in 1234). Do not allow it to sync anything from your iTunes (music, apps, contacts, calendars...etc..)

2) Once activated, long into MyVerizon for phone 1234, re-activate it (under "activate a device) using the old MEID number that the 1234 phone was on before the iPhone. Dial *228, and the old phone is now back to being 1234 line.

3) CALL VERIZON and have them add the iPhone MEID number on the phone number you want the iPhone on (lets say 6789). The rep will ask you to dial *228 to activate iPhone and will quickly realize *228 DOES NOT WORK on iPhones. Say that is all I needed, and hang up on them (you have to call verizon, logging into My Verizon like you did for the 1234 phone will not allow you to add the MEID number for the iPhone, it will give you an error).

4) With your iPhone disconnected from iTunes, go to Settings-->General--->Reset---> Erase All content and Settings. Your phone will take a few minutes and reset itself Once done, it will prompt you to connect to iTunes

5) Connect to iTunes to activate your phone just like you did with the 1234 number but now it will activate on the 6789 number.

Hope this helps and Verizon tech support was completely useless to me and I figured this out while I was on hold with them.
Click to expand...

so much of this is not correct. The simpler procedure posted above is correct and much better as is of course the one from the VZ support page.
 
B

bretto

macrumors newbie
Jun 29, 2008
7
0
Good thing I bookmarked this thread. I got my phone transferred to my line after calling Verizon, but when I tried activating it kept failing. Apparently I needed to do the reset on the phone, but none of the 3 tech support people I talked to thought that would do anything. I tried it anyway after being on the phone for an hour and remembering having read this thread, and it allowed me to reactivate the correct number in iTunes. Thanks.
 
saberahul

saberahul

macrumors 68040
Nov 6, 2008
3,645
111
USA
Call VZW technical support and came out of process within 45 minutes. Clerk was nice and walked me through the whole process. iTunes would get stuck up on "Waiting for Activation" but *22899 resulted in "Activation is complete." Not sure why everyone is saying *228 doesn't work cus it did for me. Anyways, I'm happy.
 
S

snakelda

macrumors 6502
Jan 23, 2006
253
0
Az.
I had to call verizon for them to transfer the iPhone to my primary line. Hopefully the instructions work for others.
 
richpjr

richpjr

macrumors 68040
May 9, 2006
3,502
2,203
richpjr said:
I did not have to call Verizon. I just did this:

I activated the iPhone using iTunes, which deactivated the other line I used to upgrade.

I logged onto MyVerizon and actived the phone that was deactivated in the step above. I then called *228 option 1 to complete the activation on it.

I called *228 and activated the iPhone by entering the new number. I then had to power it off and on and everything worked perfectly.

The entire thing took less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

One of the guys I work with got his iPhone, followed these instructions and they worked for him as well. I'm not quite sure why it works for some and not others.
 
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