Nokia 6030 To-Go with postpaid account

[Zoombaman]

I love T-Mobile but I am a little confused about what to do next. I had a T-Mobile To-Go account for about a year before deciding to get a post paid contract. I finally chose T-Mobile over at&t and VZW. My pre-paid phone was the Nokia 6030. At work I was given as a gift the Dash. I used the Dash for the remainder of my pre-paid minutes, but I kept the 6030 as a backup / spare phone. When I signed up for a year postpaid contract, I kept my pre-paid number as my post-paid number. So, for several months I have been using my Dash post-paid with no problems. Yesterday I put my SIM card into the 6030 and it asked for a security pin code. I entered the default and it still would not let me in. I thought the 6030 would recognize my post-paid account! I called T-Mobile and they said I would have to get the phone unlocked. ?!? Today I received an email stating that I have to be in a contract for at least 3 months. I understand this for unlocking a phone in general, but for using a T-Mobile phone on a T-Mobile account? What am I missing here?

[Ellen]

I know people that are using To Go PP phones on their postpaid accounts without a problem. Did you attempt to unlock the phone at one time? After 5 failed attempts to unlock it, the phone can only be unlocked by using a cable. If you have a corporate T-Mobile store in your area, bring your 6030 into the store with you and have one of the Reps look at it.

[Zoombaman]

Thanks Ellen! I will just go into the local corporate store with my phone(s) and see if they can help me. For this problem, in person help might be better than calling T-Mobile.

[Ellen]

Zoombaman, let us know if they were able to resolve this issue for you.

[Zoombaman]

The Conclusion!

I took it into a TMO corp. store and they worked on it for a while and were also stumped. They saw that there was not water damage, etc. They agreed that it should just work with my post-paid SIM card. After a while the guy gave up and I said not to worry about it. After all, it was almost a year old and from a pre-paid account. I didn't really expect anything for this. Before I could get up to leave he said, "Why don't we do a warranty exchange?" I told him that I didn't have phone insurance and reminded him that it was a pre-paid phone. He said that it didn't matter and that it was less than a year old; I would just have to pay $10.73 in postage and tax. I was floored and said you bet! VZW would never have done this for me. I now get a replacement phone for my Nokia 6030 and it isn't even my main phone. Excellent! Contrast this with VZW, which will MAKE you use your new contract phone even if you have an older one that you want to use instead. Gotta love T-Mobile!

[Ellen]

Zoombaman, it's good to hear that T-Mobile was able to work with you on getting your handset replaced. The ability to use a prepaid phone as a backup on a postpaid account by simply swapping out the SIM card is one of the many great benefits of the GSM networks.

[SJSMR2]

Having a backup phone that is easy to switch to is a great GSM benefit. I have friends that have CDMA. They get stuck when something happens to their phone.