Did AT&T scam me?

[mrat93]

I am one of the younger iPhone owners out there who lives in a community where these things would be stolen in a heartbeat. Me and my father agreed that if I got an iPhone, that I would also use one of his older phones to take to school/town at night. The clerk at the AT&T store said the best solution is to get a pre-paid plan for the older phone. I paid $150 for $1 for each day of use + $0.10 per minute. It didn't hit me till today. Could I have saved $150 by just switching out the SIM cards using the same iPhone plan on the other phone?

 

[KD7IWP]

hmmmm that's a reeeeally good point. I may have heard elsewhere that iPhone SIM cards work fine in other AT&T phones. Take it back if you find out that you can do that. Good luck!

 

[D1G1T4L]

I am one of the younger iPhone owners out there who lives in a community where these things would be stolen in a heartbeat. Me and my father agreed that if I got an iPhone, that I would also use one of his older phones to take to school/town at night. The clerk at the AT&T store said the best solution is to get a pre-paid plan for the older phone. I paid $150 for $1 for each day of use + $0.10 per minute. It didn't hit me till today. Could I have saved $150 by just switching out the SIM cards using the same iPhone plan on the other phone?

Yeah sounds like you could have just picked up a cheap second phone and used it as your backup phone. Switched out SIM cards as needed.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Correct. An iPhone SIM works perfectly in other phones (AT&T locked or unlocked GSM.) I can confirm this, as I have used my iPhone SIM on four different phones.

The locking comes in that the iPhone itself will *ONLY* work with the SIM it is registered with. It won't work with any other AT&T SIM, including another iPhone's SIM. (And it definitely won't work on another GSM provider.) (Caveat: People have figured out ways around this, I'm talking only about an unhacked iPhone.)

 

[sirnick4]

Yep, you got screwed over.

I also have switched out my "iPhone SIM" with other phones and, it works perfectly.

 

[Canuck4]

Yes, works fine with other AT&T cells.

 

[mkrishnan]

Dropping $150 on a pre-paid plan at once seems kind of insane in general... Yeah, I's sowwies. You should call them and see if there's anything they can do for you, although there may not be.