Just an absolutely embarrassing "Selling my iPhone" question

DiamondMac

DiamondMac

macrumors 68040
I have never sold any phone before so I am new to this and have been reading a lot of the "iPhone selling" threads but I am not seeing or understand the little parts of it that seem to baffle me

If I go and sell my iPhone on EBay before the new iPhone comes out, what happens to my number? Do I call AT&T and get them to shut down my number and account? Do I take anything out of the phone before selling it?

I guess I am asking....can I keep my number/account if I sell my iPhone right before the new one comes out?

I promise people I did a search for this but I just came across Sale threads that dealt with prices and/or how much :(
 
GSM phones carry the account with the SIM card inside and not the phone itself like a CDMA phone from Verizon. So, you can pull that card and sell the phone without any problems. You may want to take a look at the thread on recoverable information even after a restore and the recommendations on how to strip your phone of old data before giving it to someone else.

If you sold your phone now you can actually put your SIM card in an AT&T pay as you go phone and use that with your account until you buy the next one. I keep an extra one around here just in case something should happen to the iPhone or if I'm going somewhere or doing something that might risk damage or loss to the iPhone.

You don't need to have AT&T do anything because the SIM is "you" to them. Whatever you put that SIM into becomes you. It doesn't work the other way around though. You can't take a regular phone's SIM and put it into an unhacked iPhone to get it to work.

I hope that helped.
 
All you have to do (after you've wiped your phone) is remove the SIM, I'd probably buy a temporary phone while waiting for the new iPhone (either at at&t or just buy a gophone) and drop your SIM in there so you aren't paying for a service that you aren't using and you'll still have a phone in case you need one.

But you'll keep your number and account, I'd probably avoid having them put a hold on your account, especially if it would only be a couple of days (or a week or two), I could see that being a CSR battle that given the choice you'd most likely want to avoid.
 
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