What to do with old SIMS if revisiting same country years apart?
 

What to do with old SIMS if revisiting same country years apart?

I have 4 SIM cards in my possession. I believe they are all expired, or in the process of becoming expired (one - Tmobile USA has $60 of prepaid credit, and is still valid). My question is, IF (at some future date, probably many years from now), I decide to return to these countries (where the SIMS operate), can I simply go to their respective shops, and have my the SIM's re-initialized (as well as get my old number back, and buy new credit right here to start using the SIM again)?

Or do I have to buy a new SIM each time I visit that country (note: I don't plan to revisit the same country for at least a few years).

Thanks/

Many will expire if unused or no credit added within pre-defined periods. Check the terms and conditions.

and if they expire, can they be re-used again?

If the sim expire you can't use it anymore

IF.........
 

If the SIM is still valid, sell it on Ebay.

The expiration or, in my case LOSS, is always a risk. One must carefully consider one's chances of returning. USUALLY new SIMs are quite cheap unless you MUST use some of the high-end firms, which will remain unmentioned. Unless you travel to a country or country regularly, you probably don't have friends or business partners there that insist you retain the same number.

My 2 shekels.

Stan

Many prepaid SIMs permit roaming in Canada. You can send an SMS once a year to keep most European SIMs active. You can also top up those that don't (e.g. Orange). I have a fantastic Orange number (0796 ababaaa) so I put a tenner on it once a year to keep it going.

Don't forget, you could transfer the number to another prepaid carrier to save having to top it up as often. I don't know offhand if any carrier is particularly good value for North American roaming, though.

Me, I keep an album of dead SIM cards; since they fit in the slots for business cards, it's not hard to do. I've got 60-70 of them, although a disproportionate number are old Heyah, Vodafone DE, and TMO UK and US SIMs. Even so, a fun collection, and I'm sure I'm not the only one here with one.

this is impossible in Italy: you have to refill sim card once a year or it expires:D

As someone mentions in an above post, check the terms and conditions with each specific company you hold a sim card for.

Some networks (EG: Vodafone UK as well as most other UK networks) require 'activity' (e.g: making a call or sending a sms) every 180 days to keep the account active.

Other networks (EG: Vodafone GR as well as all other Greek networks) have a specific date of expiration. This is usually 1 year from activation (although some promotional packs have different specificed validity) or 1 year after each recharge is applied. This means your account will expire on this date and you will loose any unused balance.

And it doesn't have to be the operator's bad will not to bring such a dead SIM back to life. If the SIM has been dead long enough, the number may have been "recycled" and sold to another user, and later even ported to another network.

As far as the actual SIMs are concerned, since you asked about it, no, you cannot re-activate them... In most countries you have to get yourself a new SIM card, but this is quite cheap!

Sometimes, it's technically possible to use the old SIM but still you have to purchase a new connection package which already includes a new SIM in the price... So, there's no real reason for you to re-activate the old SIM!

Your question is legit in the US, where you can walk in, let's say, a TMO store and ask them to activate a new prepaid account with a new number, on an existing expired TMO PAYG SIM, but in Europe, activation and new SIM are usually in one package and one price, it will sound very weird to them if you want a new activation with an old SIM, because the price is the same either way. They will have to activate the new SIM first and THEN change the SIM on the account to the old one... And since most European prepaids are automatically activated by the user on the new SIM, it will be more difficult to convince a clerk to change the SIM registered on your new account, to the old one you have from a last visit...

As far as the old number is concerned now, in no case can you get this same number after the account has expired... In Greece though, even if your account expires after 12 months (6 months on MVNOs), you still have a 1 month grace period, to reactivate your account without losing your number, but this is of no importance in your case, you've probably lost your number a long time ago!