Help Question about activating Evo from BB on another line

[unwallflower]

I want to go in and pre-order the Evo from BB (I know I won't be receiving one on launch day).

Here's my problem: I'm going to be giving my dad my old phone and using his upgrade. However, he is going to be out of town all next week. The way I understand it is that if I preorder the Evo, I have to pick it up within a certain amount of time... so I can't just wait until he gets back to go pick it up and activate it.

So how can I do this? If I activate it on his line, deactivate it, activate it on MY line, REactivate his old cell phone on HIS line, and then finally activate my old (current) cell phone on his line when he gets home... am I going to have to pay a billion activation fees? Or am I just going to have to not preorder, wait to buy my Evo until he gets back... and risk tons of backorders?

 

[sitlet]

You have to keep the phone on the line being upgraded for at least 30 days to get the discount.

 

[unwallflower]

That is true if you are buying directly from Sprint. If you buy from BB the price is $199 out the door... NO rebate. I am buying from BB... so my question was NOT whether or not I would receive the rebate. I was hoping to confirm my suspicions that I have to pick up the phone the day it comes in, as well as ask what my option are re: activation, especially concerning the fees.

 

[dereileak]

You have to keep the phone on the line being upgraded for at least 30 days to get the discount.

if you get the phone from Best Buy you can put it on any line, you pay for the phone there, once you get home go on sprint.com and do a ESN switch and you set to go, Best buy actually did that for me when I got my hero, so it worked out great

 

[unwallflower]

Yeah, I'm way stoked that Best Buy does it that way... otherwise I would have to wait a year and a half because my current phone is only a few months old.

I guess logically if I did it all while he was gone, I would have to pay 4 activation fees, right?

Can anyone confirm that if I preorder from the second shipment, will I HAVE to pick the phone up the day it arrives in the store?

 

[dereileak]

Yeah, I'm way stoked that Best Buy does it that way... otherwise I would have to wait a year and a half because my current phone is only a few months old.

I guess logically if I did it all while he was gone, I would have to pay 4 activation fees, right?

Can anyone confirm that if I preorder from the second shipment, will I HAVE to pick the phone up the day it arrives in the store?

I am not sure about your question, but you will have to pay an upgrade fee of 18 dollars but that is just billed to your account, does he know you are gonna use his upgrade?

 

[unwallflower]

Yes, he knows. He wants the same phone I have... so rather than using his upgrade to buy it, I'm going to give him mine and use his upgrade to get the Evo.

Here is the problem. I am aware that HTC notoriously can't keep up with the demand when they release new phones. The Evo is going to be insanely popular, so I want to preorder (for the second shipment) from Best Buy, rather than risk them running out and having to wait forever.

However, my dad is going to be out of town next week when they call me to pick it up. Which means, in order to activate it on MY line, I would have to:
1) Activate it on my dad's line (because I'm using his upgrade).
2) Activate it on MY line.
3) Reactivate my dad's old phone on his line (because he needs a phone still while he is out of town).
4) When my dad gets back in town, activate my old phone (his new phone) on his line.

My question is: wouldn't this incur four activation fees?

I guess it's either pay the activation fees or not preorder and risk them running out, because I can't preorder and wait to do all the activating once my dad is back in town... I'm pretty sure Best Buy won't hold the phone for that long.

 

[dereileak]

Yes, he knows. He wants the same phone I have... so rather than using his upgrade to buy it, I'm going to give him mine and use his upgrade to get the Evo.

Here is the problem. I am aware that HTC notoriously can't keep up with the demand when they release new phones. The Evo is going to be insanely popular, so I want to preorder (for the second shipment) from Best Buy, rather than risk them running out and having to wait forever.

However, my dad is going to be out of town next week when they call me to pick it up. Which means, in order to activate it on MY line, I would have to:
1) Activate it on my dad's line (because I'm using his upgrade).
2) Activate it on MY line.
3) Reactivate my dad's old phone on his line (because he needs a phone still while he is out of town).
4) When my dad gets back in town, activate my old phone (his new phone) on his line.

My question is: wouldn't this incur four activation fees?

I guess it's either pay the activation fees or not preorder and risk them running out, because I can't preorder and wait to do all the activating once my dad is back in town... I'm pretty sure Best Buy won't hold the phone for that long.

You only will get one activation fee if you do it this way, buy the phone and put it on your dad's line, let him know you are doing this and his phone won't work for a couple of hours, tell him to turn his phone off while that occurs, and tell him to turn it on in an hour, as that is all the time you will need to do this. So you now have the phone on his line and your phone on your line both in your procession, then go home, log on to sprint.com and use the esn switch, so first switch the esn, which you will need to get before you go and get the evo, from him, then switch it back to his old phone, and then a 2nd esn switch moving the evo to your line, and then finally when he gets back switch the phone he wants on to his line, so here

1. Get your dad's phone esn
2. tell dad to turn phone off for about 1-2 hours while you go to get the evo
3. Go get the evo and have them put it on his line
4. Go home and go onto sprint.com
5. switch dad's old phone esn back onto his line
6. Move Evo esn onto your line
7. when dad restarts phone it should just work fine for his number
8. when dad gets home then do another esn switch to give him your old phone

You will only pay to activate the Evo 4G, and the esn switches are free to use, 100%

Follow those steps and you should be good to go, also make sure you know the passwords you need when you go to upgrade, cause if you don't your dad's phone will be off and you will not be able to get them, lol, good luck, you can probably just go to best buy and pick up an evo, according to the posts, they ordered double of what was preordered, and they have lots and lots of evo's in stock!!!!

 

[gatorchomp83]

You don't have to pick up the phone the day it arrives...I believe you have 14 days after arrival before they sell it to someone else.

You'll be fine.

 

[dereileak]

You don't have to pick up the phone the day it arrives...I believe you have 14 days after arrival before they sell it to someone else.

You'll be fine.

you would have to be crazy to wait that long, ha ha, these last few days are killing me

 

[unwallflower]

Oh, perfect! I was defining "activation" wrong, apparently.

I thought I had read that Best Buy was already taking orders for the SECOND shipment, which is why I figured I wouldn't be able to walk in there on Friday and pick one up.

I also read some posts from people saying that they are on a waiting list to get their Evo if someone who preordered before them doesn't pick it up that day... which is why I thought I had to pick it up the day it came in. Are you sure I can wait?

 

[dereileak]

Oh, perfect! I was defining "activation" wrong, apparently.

I thought I had read that Best Buy was already taking orders for the SECOND shipment, which is why I figured I wouldn't be able to walk in there on Friday and pick one up.

I also read some posts from people saying that they are on a waiting list to get their Evo if someone who preordered before them doesn't pick it up that day... which is why I thought I had to pick it up the day it came in. Are you sure I can wait?

I don't know about waiting and how long they will wait, but some best buy's will have extra stock, some will not, you better call and just see

 

[sikclown]

Oh, perfect! I was defining "activation" wrong, apparently.

I thought I had read that Best Buy was already taking orders for the SECOND shipment, which is why I figured I wouldn't be able to walk in there on Friday and pick one up.

I also read some posts from people saying that they are on a waiting list to get their Evo if someone who preordered before them doesn't pick it up that day... which is why I thought I had to pick it up the day it came in. Are you sure I can wait?

Order it from Sprint online using his info. When it comes in activate it on your line. I do it all the time. No need for an ESN Swap because it doesn't get linked to the account until it gets activated. Takes two seconds

 

[unwallflower]

Order it from Sprint online using his info. When it comes in activate it on your line. I do it all the time. No need for an ESN Swap because it doesn't get linked to the account until it gets activated. Takes two seconds

I was under the impression that if you ordered from sprint and activated it on a different line from the one that was due for the upgrade within 30 days you won't receive the rebate.

I actually found this out the hard way when I bought my last phone. The Sprint employee told me to just open up a new line so I could get the upgrade (I wasn't due for one yet), and then switch the phone from the new line to my regular line. When I sent the rebate in they denied it because it was put on my line before 30 days were up. (Luckily they gave me the rebate anyway after I told them that the employee told me to do that in the first place).

 

[sikclown]

I was under the impression that if you ordered from sprint and activated it on a different line from the one that was due for the upgrade within 30 days you won't receive the rebate.

I actually found this out the hard way when I bought my last phone. The Sprint employee told me to just open up a new line so I could get the upgrade (I wasn't due for one yet), and then switch the phone from the new line to my regular line. When I sent the rebate in they denied it because it was put on my line before 30 days were up. (Luckily they gave me the rebate anyway after I told them that the employee told me to do that in the first place).

Ahh I see.... I use a Business account so I get the rebate instantly rather than Mail in. I think why that didn't work for you is because the phone had been activated on the new line and then switched. The way I am talking about, the phone only gets activated on your line. I did this with my Hero. I used one of my other lines upgrade to buy the phone and at check out it told me I might need to change my plan to activate it but it let me check out anyway. Then when it came in I activated it online on my number. Again I got the rebate instantly so I can't be sure how that works.

 

[Loonytunes]

You don't have to make it so complicated. This from my sprint chat when I asked if I could buy the evo on my wife's line, but activate it on my line. There is no swapping back and forth. You buy it on the eligible line, but activate it on yours.

04/28/2010 11:47:25AM Agent (Courtney D): "This way you can purchase the phone for the line #********** and can activate it on the other line #**********."

04/28/2010 11:46:56AM Agent (Courtney D): "If the phone will have any mail in rebate we will apply the same on the account."

When you go to sprint, tell them to purchase the phone for your Dad's line, but activate it on yours.
Make sure they don't activate it on your Dad's line first. You will lose your rebate.

 

[unwallflower]

Wow, I didn't know they let you do that. I'm going to call them and confirm this. Thanks for the tip!

 

[gatorchomp83]

Oh, perfect! I was defining "activation" wrong, apparently.

I thought I had read that Best Buy was already taking orders for the SECOND shipment, which is why I figured I wouldn't be able to walk in there on Friday and pick one up.

I also read some posts from people saying that they are on a waiting list to get their Evo if someone who preordered before them doesn't pick it up that day... which is why I thought I had to pick it up the day it came in. Are you sure I can wait?

Best Buy IS taking orders now for the second shipment. Pre-orders for the first shipment ended on May 21st.

As far as a waiting list for people to grab someone else's if not picked up that day, that store is doing something wrong. When a device is pre-ordered, you have 14 days to pick it up after your specific device arrives. Best Buy will get extra devices on top of the number of devices pre-ordered before the 21st for general sales.

If you don't pick your phone up on launch date, you have nothing to worry about regarding someone else getting dibs on yours, unless you wait longer than 14 days. On another note, if you pre-ordered for the SECOND shipment, you can go into a store on launch date and apply your credit towards an "extra" device in stock if there is one available.

Hope this helps.

 

[unwallflower]

You don't have to make it so complicated. This from my sprint chat when I asked if I could buy the evo on my wife's line, but activate it on my line. There is no swapping back and forth. You buy it on the eligible line, but activate it on yours.

04/28/2010 11:47:25AM Agent (Courtney D): "This way you can purchase the phone for the line #********** and can activate it on the other line #**********."

04/28/2010 11:46:56AM Agent (Courtney D): "If the phone will have any mail in rebate we will apply the same on the account."

When you go to sprint, tell them to purchase the phone for your Dad's line, but activate it on yours.
Make sure they don't activate it on your Dad's line first. You will lose your rebate.

I spoke with someone from sprint on chat last night, and I'm going to be doing something sort of similar: I'm going to buy in on my dad's line, activate it on that line, and then switch it to mine. The rep I spoke to put something in the account notes telling the person who activates my phone to manually apply the $100 rebate to my account (since doing it this way would make them reject the mail in rebate). Wow! I'm SO impressed with Sprint's customer service now!

Best Buy IS taking orders now for the second shipment. Pre-orders for the first shipment ended on May 21st.

As far as a waiting list for people to grab someone else's if not picked up that day, that store is doing something wrong. When a device is pre-ordered, you have 14 days to pick it up after your specific device arrives. Best Buy will get extra devices on top of the number of devices pre-ordered before the 21st for general sales.

If you don't pick your phone up on launch date, you have nothing to worry about regarding someone else getting dibs on yours, unless you wait longer than 14 days. On another note, if you pre-ordered for the SECOND shipment, you can go into a store on launch date and apply your credit towards an "extra" device in stock if there is one available.

Hope this helps.

I think I misunderstood what people were saying about having to pick up the device that day, actually. Thanks for clarifying.