In Greece, for example, all prepaid cards have to be activated as follows:
Insert the card in the phone and power on.
Call any billable phone number (i.e. no emergency number or free cc number) and wait until you listen a welcome message like "welcome to XX prepaid, your phone is now activated and you can make and receive calls" on your phone, then you can hang up before the call is actually connected. But you have to listen through the whole welcome message. Some opertors also send you a welcome SMS after that, but the SIM is activated right at the moment the welcome message ends.

Before activation, the card is officialy inactive even though the phone registers with the home network, doesn't accept or make calls or SMS and thus does not count towards the expiration date. This first call has to be made in the home network for the welcome message to be played and the card to be activated, i.e. you can't activate abroad on a roaming network...

Many greek carriers instruct their employees on their shops to activate all prepaid SIM cards unless the customers doesn't want it. If you buy the SIM card from a news-stand or a kiosk of course they won't care to activate your card unless you ask them to (and they know how to do it, I witnessed a Pakistani guy and my grandma asking the local kiosk lady to top his phone up).

Hey guys

Ummm I saw these T-Mobile UK SIM Cards on eBay.

I'm not going to Europe anytime soon at all but all I want is to have a +44 cellphone number...lol to put on facebook lol and I wanna go prank call some friends lol

Plus I heard my friends in England and Wales can text me and I won't be charged. That's important to me because they can text me at home rates. (I really do miss my high school friends and it's been barely a couple of months since graduation lol)

So I was wondering what you guys think.

Should I buy the SIM Card? (I really want a +44 number lol) And if I buy the SIM Card, how do I activate it from within the United States?

THANKS!

Sorry btw, new to the forum, just found this thread on google.

Oh you know what this forum is old. I'll just go ahead and open a new thread.

Oh you know what, yeah I DON'T KNOW HOW TO OPEN A NEW THREAD. Lol so please do answer my question on this thread.

Sounds like you may have a UK address. If you do, you can get the sims for free and just have it mailed to you.

http://www.t-mobilesimgiveaway.co.uk/