Cell Phone Q, Pre-paid Card

[Thanyaburi Mac]

When I head up to Laos I use an ETL pre-paid SIM, same as 1-2-Call here in the LoS. Since it's usually 2-3 or more months between trips the ETL SIM reaches it's expiry date and dies, sort of. I found that if I just buy a refill card and top up the kip on system, the old SIM is reactivated.

Wonder now, would this work here for a 1-2-CALL SIM that's reached it's DDD (Drop Dead Date)?

Reason for asking is that my loaner Nokia is back in Oregon right now but another traveler is bringing it back next week. He'll be using it here so would be simpler to just add baht 300 to the 1-2-CALL rather than buying a new SIM, and having to re-enter all the "emergency" numbers.

???

Mac

[MKAsok]

It's my experience with 12Call SIMs that once they reach the expiry date, they generally give you (from memory) a couple of weeks to recharge with further validity (at this point they don't take away the credit on the SIM and you can still make/receive calls). After this period is up, all credit is removed and you can't make/receive calls. You then have (again from memory) a further 1 month to reactivate the SIM before you lose the number forever. At every stage of supposed expiry, you get hysterical SMSs telling you, "that's it, you're done for, if you don't do this by such and such a date," but it all seems something of a bluff on their part. I'm not sure if this process can be repeated more than once, probably not worth the risk if you want to keep the number. And please don't blame me if you try this and it all goes wrong. This was ONE experience based on a spare SIM card I had, but couldn't be bothered keeping the validity up on...

[Thanyaburi Mac]

It's my experience with 12Call SIMs that once they reach the expiry date, they generally give you (from memory) a couple of weeks to recharge with further validity (at this point they don't take away the credit on the SIM and you can still make/receive calls). After this period is up, all credit is removed and you can't make/receive calls. You then have (again from memory) a further 1 month to reactivate the SIM before you lose the number forever. At every stage of supposed expiry, you get hysterical SMSs telling you, "that's it, you're done for, if you don't do this by such and such a date," but it all seems something of a bluff on their part. I'm not sure if this process can be repeated more than once, probably not worth the risk if you want to keep the number. And please don't blame me if you try this and it all goes wrong. This was ONE experience based on a spare SIM card I had, but couldn't be bothered keeping the validity up on...

Understand. I might tell the guy to just risk it and buy a baht 50 refill card to see if it reactivates, been about 2-3 months now. If no work, then another baht 50 for a new SIM.

Mac