SIM CARD VALIDITY

[furiousjoe]

I had a Public Mobile account for a few years, but yesterday, I was offered a new plan from Virgin Plus that interested me so I ported my number over to Virgin Plus only to find out that they could NOT finalize the plan they originally offered due to an error on their part (the customer service people did not realize they were not able to offer the combination of plans they offered me and only realized after they ported my number). Instead of staying with Virgin Plus, I am trying to port my number back to public mobile, since they would not honor the original offer to port over to them in the first place.

However, in trying to activate my Public SIM through the activation website, it states that my SIM number is invalid (this is the same SIM card I used with Public Mobile up until I ported it to Virgin Plus yesterday afternoon. Are SIM cards invalidated after being ported once? Do I need to buy a new Public Mobile SIM card to activate a Public Mobile account and port my number back to Public Mobile?

Any help would be appreciated. 

[JL9]

Yes this is a good point and very unfortunate that Virgin was so incompetent bc it took away old rewards for you permanently, also since you have to get a new sim I would recommend finding a koodo/telus store that confirms they have them as the delay can be quite long if ordered online. The good news is since you are new customer in the new rewards you will get 5 welcome points and if you use a referral code you will get a 10 credit on your account. So if a friend, family member or co-worker is with PM just use their code and you will get your 10 and they will get their 1 a month.

[JL9]

lol unbelievable - I hope they figure out a way to weed this kind of stuff out

[BKNS27]

@furiousjoe 

If the porting was completed and when you port back to PM.

You will need a new SIM but the only issue is that you won’t be on the old Rewards system but will be in the new Points system.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to switch back to the Rewards system.

[cellphoneuser1]

@furiousjoe Put your Public Mobile sim card back in the phone and see it stll works. If it works, porting never finalized.

[esjliv]

@Alexandf - i think you know the rules of porting out well enough. Account is gone once complete.

[Yummy]

If you ported out your PM number, then your PM account is closed.

You would need new SIM to open brand new account and then port back your number.

[cellphoneuser1]

@furiousjoe You need to buy a new sim card. Your old account is wipe out.

[Outdoorsman]

@furiousjoe hi sorry once you port your number your account is permanently closed!!

[HALIMACS · Accepted solution]

Indeed, @furiousjoe , if the number was ported out, the Public Mobile SIM card is dead in the water.

You'll need to get another and go through the activation process again.  In order to port the number back, however, it needs to be active with another provider, so you may wish to find out more about what happened with the original port to Virgin.

EDIT:   for ease of porting back to Public Mobile, make sure you responded "YES" to the port authorization request when moving to Virgin and ask them for your account number.   It'll be much easier to port back here when that time comes to return.