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Buying grandfathered unlimited data plan/sim

J

JLee361

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 20, 2012
78
0
Texas
So I'm buying an at&t grandfathered unlimited data plan/sim from a guy tomorrow and am gonna transfer it into my name and information tomorrow when i meet up with him. Before I do so I have a couple questions:

1. It is from my understanding that I go to att.com/ipadlanding and login using his account information and then edit the information with my information (login, password, and credit card information,IMEI, ICCID). Is that correct?

2. Will the bill be sent by mail or is it all electronic (sent to my email)?

3. Can step 1 be done straight from my iPad alone?

Thanks
 
I don't believe you can transfer a "grandfathered unlimited plan" to another person. It's not reliant to the sim but the account itself.
 
advan031 said:
I don't believe you can transfer a "grandfathered unlimited plan" to another person. It's not reliant to the sim but the account itself.
Click to expand...

+1

Sim cards are easily replaceable. The reason why people sell the account information for the iPad is because there is no contract so essentially there is no way that the seller can get screwed.
 
advan031 said:
I don't believe you can transfer a "grandfathered unlimited plan" to another person. It's not reliant to the sim but the account itself.
Click to expand...

Ive heard a couple people already doing this.. Some have sold/bought theirs off ebay and successfully transferred it to another person. I may be wrong, but thats why I'm here on the forum trying to find out..
 
No sim card is needed for this. Though I'm sure AT&T will not honor any of it if they did find out.

The idea is that you change the name and billing to someone else and hope that it doesn't get caught.

Worst they can do is shut you down. But you'd be out the money for it.
 
My cousin did this. Worked great. Except it wasn't an unlimited data plan, it was a 24 hour all you can eat buffet. He tag teamed with his identical brother. They ate for 3 straight days before they got sick. Hope that helps.
 
Transferring unlimited SIM cards can be done on the device. Just make sure you change the email and password. This is how I got mine.
 
When i first upgraded from iPad 1 to iPad 2, I sold my unlimited ATT sim card to fund the new purchase. It was as simple as you said, log in, change info, plug the sim into your new ipad.

However, this was going from 3G ipad1 to 3G ipad2. Not sure if the same sim would work now going from 3G to 4GLTE.
 
socaltyger said:
When i first upgraded from iPad 1 to iPad 2, I sold my unlimited ATT sim card to fund the new purchase. It was as simple as you said, log in, change info, plug the sim into your new ipad.

However, this was going from 3G ipad1 to 3G ipad2. Not sure if the same sim would work now going from 3G to 4GLTE.
Click to expand...

Thanks that's what I was lookin for, I just hope AT&T doesn't somehow terminate the plan because it was sold and it didn't stay with the original plan holder because I'm paying a good amount of money for it
 
I bought my unlimited plan through eBay and it was easy to switch. This was done over a year ago and I've had no problems since. Just make sure you turn off both iPads after you change information. This helps reset the information in AT&T system.
 
There's shady people out there too or ones selling something they claim is an unlimited plan. The BEST course of action would be:

1. The current owner holds an unlimited in good standing
2. Shows proof of the billing via a screen pic (press two buttons on the cell plan page to take pic)
3. Has transferred the plan already to a prepaid credit card, say $50.
4. Optional, has already signed up for LTE via new iPad
5. At time of purchase hands over the sim card and prepaid credit card to show intent to you that they are indeed selling you, not lending or later claiming you stole the plan.

Anyone else have a better idea?
 
Just want to be clear on this. I'm buying an iPad2 with the ATT unlimited plan from someone. The sim will stay in the ipad2 I'm buying.
Is it as simple as just changing the ATT account email name and billing info to me on the ipad?
What about syncing iPad to my Mac and iTunes account?
thanks.
 
gigaguy said:
Just want to be clear on this. I'm buying an iPad2 with the ATT unlimited plan from someone. The sim will stay in the ipad2 I'm buying.
Is it as simple as just changing the ATT account email name and billing info to me on the ipad?
What about syncing iPad to my Mac and iTunes account?
thanks.
Click to expand...

The way I did it was I had the previous owner go on the computer to att.com/ipadlanding and change all the information for me (IMEI, ICCID, billing info, login id, password, and credit card info). After he was done, I logged into my iPad with the new changed login id an I was good to go, but since you're buying yours with the sim already in it, you can just change the billing info and personal info and keep the IMEI and ICCID the same since you're buying the iPad with it.
 
I don't think its worth it to buy an unlimited account from another user for hundreds of dollars. Not only is it complicated to transfer, but AT&T could cap or end those old unlimited plans at any time. They did with the unlimited iPhone plans and I expect they will eventually do it for the iPad plans as well -- especially if they add the hotspot feature Verizon now has.
 
yes, definitely a risk with a change at ATT.
I'm not paying extra for it, its an included perk. I actually had it on my first iPad1 too.
 
barkomatic said:
I don't think its worth it to buy an unlimited account from another user for hundreds of dollars. Not only is it complicated to transfer, but AT&T could cap or end those old unlimited plans at any time. They did with the unlimited iPhone plans and I expect they will eventually do it for the iPad plans as well -- especially if they add the hotspot feature Verizon now has.
Click to expand...

Complicated to transfer? Hardly. You don't need to make any phone calls or even physically remove a SIM. It's just a matter of signing into the seller's account with his username/password on the buyer's iPad and you'll receive a prompt asking if you want to transfer the data plan to it. Then you simply change the account and billing information, and you're done.
 
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IllIllIll said:
Complicated to transfer? Hardly. You don't need to make any phone calls or even physically remove a SIM. It's just a matter of signing into the seller's account with his username/password on the buyer's iPad and you'll receive a prompt asking if you want to transfer the data plan to it. Then you simply change the account and billing information, and you're done.
Click to expand...

Ok, but how would you feel if you spent $500 on this account and a month from now AT&T announces that any data consumed over 3GB on the unlimited plan would be cut down to EDGE speeds?
 
barkomatic said:
Ok, but how would you feel if you spent $500 on this account and a month from now AT&T announces that any data consumed over 3GB on the unlimited plan would be cut down to EDGE speeds?
Click to expand...

That hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen. I've had ATT unlimited data since the release of the first generation iPad, and have NEVER been throttled. Besides, the number of active iPad unlimited data accounts is a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of ATT data users out there, so unlimited data customers likely do not pose a significant impact on excessive data usage stats. And unless ATT brings back unlimited data, that number will only go down over time, not up. Unless you have evidence that shows this will change in the next month, your scenario is baseless and has nothing to do with the fact that it's not complicated to transfer accounts, which is what I was talking about in the first place.
 
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Jlee, I'm doing it in steps. first, I will buy the iPad2 with the unl plan.
and soon, buy the 3 model I want and transfering it to that.
if the deal works out.
 
barkomatic said:
I don't think its worth it to buy an unlimited account from another user for hundreds of dollars. Not only is it complicated to transfer, but AT&T could cap or end those old unlimited plans at any time. They did with the unlimited iPhone plans and I expect they will eventually do it for the iPad plans as well -- especially if they add the hotspot feature Verizon now has.
Click to expand...

bingo, and im pretty sure they are already capped. the new throttling limit 3 gb 3g, 5 gb 4g didnt say iphone, it just said unlimited plans..
 
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