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upgrade swap gone wrong?

Upgraded, activated, then switched sim cards.

I have an extra line for upgrades, and received 4s today from Apple for this line. It took appx 30 minutes to activate, but once I did, I called ATT, had to hold only about 5-6 minutes. In meantime I had taken sim from iPhone 4 on my main line and inserted in 4s. All working fine. When ATT rep came on I explained what had transpired until now, she said no problem and removed data plan from my spare number and switched to 4s on my main phone line with unlimited data. I thought giving today is iPhone day that all went pretty smooth. Just thought I'd throw out a little positive vibes.
 
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biosci said:
I don't understand why there's such an issue here with these swaps. ATT is messing up big time with this IMO. And why would they tell you not to mess and exchange sims? I mean, isn't that the whole purpose of them? There weren't real issues way back when the RAZRs came out. It should be as easy as: (For swapping iP4 to iP4S with GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever)

1. Turn on iP4S and activate the SIM that's enclosed. (Now your subsidized phone is active)

2. Take the SIM out of the iP4S (belonging to your GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever) and exchange it with the sim from your iP4.

3. iP4S now should connect to network under your credentials from iP4

4. GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever - Which was activated to that new sim should be working now in your old iP4.

WTH?! I don't get it... If you can't exchange SIMs etc then there's no use / reason to even make them removable!
Click to expand...

Okay.. Wife came home so I knew she wouldn't be out a phone. Did what I outlined above like vain000 and made the phone call from the iP4 to the iP4S. It appears that it worked okay with the sim swap! I'll keep an eye on things over the next few days to make sure no weird data things or hangups occur or Weird messages etc
 
I used a family member's upgrade, so I called AT&T this morning before attempting to activate to have the SIM switched to my number. After failing all day, I'm now getting the "this SIM does not match your account" message. Frustrating :(
 
Called AT&T to do an upgrade swap. My old line (Line 1) was an iPhone 4. I used Line 2 (an iPhone 3G) to upgrade.

She attached the SIM card that came with my 4S to Line 1 - the previous SIM was deactivated.

I put the new SIM in the 4S and it tells me that the SIM does not match the SIM on the account.

It does not work in my old phone and it does not work in the new phone. I am without a phone.

AT&T sucks hardcore.
 
Just got off the phone with AT&T, she blamed the problem on apple. Said it was "security" they had enabled in iTunes.

Yeah, way to pass the blame
 
If you ask me, they just make more work (pi%$ed off calls, correction, etc) for themselves by F&$*ing with stuff like this..

Im just going to activate the new #/sim and change sims to my old Ip4. Ill update the acct later. Guess they'll get me for 2 data account for a couple of weeks. See? it DID work for them, to just squeeze a little more $$ out of me.

B.S.
 
biosci said:
I don't understand why there's such an issue here with these swaps. ATT is messing up big time with this IMO. And why would they tell you not to mess and exchange sims? I mean, isn't that the whole purpose of them? There weren't real issues way back when the RAZRs came out. It should be as easy as: (For swapping iP4 to iP4S with GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever)

1. Turn on iP4S and activate the SIM that's enclosed. (Now your subsidized phone is active)

2. Take the SIM out of the iP4S (belonging to your GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever) and exchange it with the sim from your iP4.

3. iP4S now should connect to network under your credentials from iP4

4. GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever - Which was activated to that new sim should be working now in your old iP4.

WTH?! I don't get it... If you can't exchange SIMs etc then there's no use / reason to even make them removable!
Click to expand...

This is what I am planning to do, except I pre order a new line for my wife with phone number port over from tmobile.

1. Activate her new ip4s with the new micro sim on itune, I believe once I do that, her old sim will be dead.

2. Swap my ip4 and her ip4s micro sim

3. Put her micro sim in a sim adapter and put it in her old unlock blackberry.(That's what she prefer to use)

4. Call AT&T to drop the data plan on her blackberry

5. Have AT&T convert both line to family plan
 
steph280 said:
This problem seem to have occurred back in the 3GS launch as well:
http://forums.att.com/t5/Apple-iPhone/Anyone-else-having-SIM-card-problems/td-p/1802853

The solution back then was to use a blank (or "cold") sim card to activate.
Click to expand...

Just tried that and it worked for me! After an entire day of failure! Use a cold sim and it goes right through. Then just call AT&T with the sim #'s and transfer your lines. Thank you for the link! No one at Apple or AT&T came up with that all day.
 
After getting the invalid sim msg, I took mine to the ATT store. He took out my wife's Atrix sim and put in mine and activated it. (It gave the invalid sim msg once more even after doing that but it finally worked). Then he had to put a new sim card in her phone and activate that or something. Then he switched them both back and I was golden.
 
jasonycurtis said:
Just tried that and it worked for me! After an entire day of failure! Use a cold sim and it goes right through. Then just call AT&T with the sim #'s and transfer your lines. Thank you for the link! No one at Apple or AT&T came up with that all day.
Click to expand...

so when you use the cold sim method does that activate that SIM card again to the line you bought the phone with or does it stay cold? I don't want to deactivate the line that was upgraded because they are out of town for the weekend.
 
I just tried the cold SIM on the second phone and that worked as well!

Here's what my take on the whole situation is:

The process of activation a virgin iphone requires a virgin, non-provisioned, COLD SIM card. This is a security check by iTunes, not AT&T.

The mistake I made was to call AT&T BEFORE I activated the iPhone, to have them transfer my phone number to this virgin SIM card that came with my iPhone 4S. What this does is effectively activated the SIM, which means it's no longer COLD.

With the SIM active, iTunes will give you the SIM does not match...blah blah blah error. I guess this is how Apple keeps track of the number of activations for profit sharing purpose.

Lame, totally lame.
 
guitardave62000 said:
so when you use the cold sim method does that activate that SIM card again to the line you bought the phone with or does it stay cold? I don't want to deactivate the line that was upgraded because they are out of town for the weekend.
Click to expand...

It activates it on the upgrade line. So they would be without service until you got AT&T to switch their phone back. If you did it at the store it would only be a few minutes . . . hopefully.
 
jasonycurtis said:
It activates it on the upgrade line. So they would be without service until you got AT&T to switch their phone back. If you did it at the store it would only be a few minutes . . . hopefully.
Click to expand...

so in order to switch them back I would just need their SIM #? I don't want to have to hassle my family too much with my issue
 
Went to att store, everyone said apple ordered iPhones cannot be upgrade swapped without deactivating sim cards. I had to activate on the sim it came with, swap that with a micro sim that is activated with my number, and then mail an activated sim to my relative.

Hope I'm the only one who had to do this, what a nightmare.
 
Well crap. What should I do? I'm having the same issues but it's nearly 9 where I'm at. Doesn't AT&T close at 9?

I've spent 2 hours with apple and AT&T. No luck.
 
Were you guys swapping microSIMs before turning on and activating the phone? Because that's the number one thing to do when doing an upgrade swap: put in the SIM you want BEFORE you turn on and activate the phone. And this time you have to be especially vigilant because of the Over The Air activation feature. If you didn't do that, then obviously you're going to have problems, as it registers the IMEI and SIM that's already in there, and it will use the phone number on the line you pre-ordered/upgraded with. And now you have to backtrack everything, risk losing service in at least one line, and you may not have a helpful AT&T customer service rep.

I swapped a microSIM before turning on one of the iPhone 4S on my account. The number is correct, no lines lost service. The IMEI and other unique identifiers are correct. Everything on my AT&T Online Account Manager is correct, it even knows which lines have the 4S's. And I never had to contact anyone at AT&T.

Maybe this was all happening because of AT&T's faulty activation serves, as per usual. Or maybe this is an issue between buying through Apple vs AT&T. But if you didn't swap before turning on and activating the phone, well that's an operator error. Just remember it for next time.
 
Yeah I called AT&T before ever turning on my new phone. They said everything was squared away in their system. The iPhone keeps saying my number is actually my wife's phone. Ughhhhhh. So frustrating.
 
Trauma1 said:
Were you guys swapping microSIMs before turning on and activating the phone? Because that's the number one thing to do when doing an upgrade swap: put in the SIM you want BEFORE you turn on and activate the phone. And this time you have to be especially vigilant because of the Over The Air activation feature. If you didn't do that, then obviously you're going to have problems, as it registers the IMEI and SIM that's already in there, and it will use the phone number on the line you pre-ordered/upgraded with. And now you have to backtrack everything, risk losing service in at least one line, and you may not have a helpful AT&T customer service rep.

I swapped a microSIM before turning on of the iPhone 4S on my account. The number is correct, no lines lost service. The IMEI and other unique identifiers are correct. Everything on my AT&T Online Account Manager is correct, it even knows which lines have the 4S's. And I never had to contact anyone at AT&T.

Maybe this was all happening because of AT&T's faulty activation serves, as per usual. Or maybe this is an issue between buying through Apple vs AT&T. But if you didn't swap before turning on and activating the phone, well that's an operator error. Just remember it for next time.
Click to expand...

Yea I swapped microSIMs before turning on the 4s, the phone is locked to the line I bought it with
 
jfrancis04 said:
Yeah I called AT&T before ever turning on my new phone. They said everything was squared away in their system. The iPhone keeps saying my number is actually my wife's phone. Ughhhhhh. So frustrating.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the phone isn't activated and it's giving you the number you don't want on the screen you're on when you're starting to activate?

If so, mine did that at the ATT store even with my wife's sim in it. It still went through even though that number was incorrect.
 
biosci said:
I don't understand why there's such an issue here with these swaps. ATT is messing up big time with this IMO. And why would they tell you not to mess and exchange sims? I mean, isn't that the whole purpose of them? There weren't real issues way back when the RAZRs came out. It should be as easy as: (For swapping iP4 to iP4S with GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever)

1. Turn on iP4S and activate the SIM that's enclosed. (Now your subsidized phone is active)

2. Take the SIM out of the iP4S (belonging to your GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever) and exchange it with the sim from your iP4.

3. iP4S now should connect to network under your credentials from iP4

4. GF, BF, Wife, Hubby, Kid, Whatever - Which was activated to that new sim should be working now in your old iP4.

WTH?! I don't get it... If you can't exchange SIMs etc then there's no use / reason to even make them removable!
Click to expand...

Yep this confirmed work for me as well. Very simple, but then again, all iPhones being activated are under one household, so I had the convenience of just swapping the sim cards on the spot.

From what I'm reading, a lot of you want to upgrade swap with iPhones that aren't in the same vicinity as eachother, i.e. in another state/location.

Good luck and keep us up to date on how AT&T handles everything for yall!!
 
My issue is one step further. I bought my IP4s thru apple for my own Sprint phones upgrade. I live in NYC with a 646 area code. I go thru steps 1-4, it says "Is this the number you wish to activate"and it has a 469 Dallas Area code. I have spoken with Sprint 3x, Apple 3x, and have had an engineering case opened. I am being told they "MAY" be able to help me by next week. Meanwhile I have no phone and no real chance at using my first ever iphone for a while. YAYYYY!
 
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