Do SIM cards expire?

[IWIK]

Last weekend I went through the debacle of switching my fathers Bell pre paid plan to a different SIM so it would fit in my old phone for him. I have several Bell SIM's but Bell informed me that if a SIM is out of Bell's hands and not used for 90 days it is cancelled and can never be used again. This went for a used SIM I had as well as a brand new one. We had to get a new SIM.

I have a new Public Mobile SIM hanging around for when the wife decides to make the jump, will I have the same issue with the SIM being cancelled?

[crisd000]

Incredible that such a cool country like Canada doesnt offer any options for travelers.

All over the world you can now buy temporal sim cards at the airports with small pre paid plans that last for about a week. Not in Canada.

Where I come from, wich is a "3rd world country", you can buy a 7 day sim card wich includes 750mb for 7 days for 5$ Us dollars.. in Canada, Public Mobile is probably your best option, having to pay 10$ for a new card each time plus 10$ activation plus 10$ for 250mb.. good luck making them last for a week.

Im currently traveling to Canada every 6 months. I was planing to at least keep my PM Sim card and top it 10$ or 20$ for some precious MBs on each trip.. I guess this is not an option.

It used to be like that years ago here where I live until a single carrier decided its ridiculous to be so rude to their customers. They decided to boost their plans from ridiculous 200 MB to more usefull 2GBs.. and everybody started to switch and get their plans. All the other carriers where forced to boost their data plans aswell. Yesteday one of those companies called me offering a plan of 2 Gb for $20 a month.. I said no thanks.. I pay 25$ USD for 4.5 GB plus free whatsapp.

[crisd000]

Im guessing this is super recent as I tried to do that on March 2017, and they guy at Wallmart told me you could only get them online.

[srlawren]

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@michelb wrote:

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Thanks for the info - I hadn't realized they could be bought in some stores (I thought it was order online only).

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@michelb it's a fairly recent change: Wow announcement and Walmart announcement for your reference.  🙂

[Rockdaddy22]

Definitely available at some Walmarts and Wow Mobile

[michelb]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@michelb wrote:

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@CS_Agent wrote:

Hey @michelb!
 

Public Mobile SIMs can only be activated once, so your old SIM cannot be reactivated, unfortunately 😕 

If you need a new one, just go to our website and click on "Get a SIM" 🙂 

Feel free to send us a private message if you have any other questions!

Saray

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Thanks for the quick response.  Unfortunately, my tenant wanted it today.  I'll ask if they want to wait for delivery of a new one but I suspect they'd rather not wait and will just go with another provider where we can buy a SIM locally (too bad I didn't think of it 1-2 weeks ago).

Thanks.

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Wow Mobile and some Walmart locations sell Public Mobile sim cards.  Hopefully, there are some of those stores near you.

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Thanks for the info - I hadn't realized they could be bought in some stores (I thought it was order online only).

[computergeek541]

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@michelb wrote:

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@CS_Agent wrote:

Hey @michelb!
 

Public Mobile SIMs can only be activated once, so your old SIM cannot be reactivated, unfortunately 😕 

If you need a new one, just go to our website and click on "Get a SIM" 🙂 

Feel free to send us a private message if you have any other questions!

Saray

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Thanks for the quick response.  Unfortunately, my tenant wanted it today.  I'll ask if they want to wait for delivery of a new one but I suspect they'd rather not wait and will just go with another provider where we can buy a SIM locally (too bad I didn't think of it 1-2 weeks ago).

Thanks.

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Wow Mobile and some Walmart locations sell Public Mobile sim cards.  Hopefully, there are some of those stores near you.

[michelb]

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@CS_Agent wrote:

Hey @michelb!
 

Public Mobile SIMs can only be activated once, so your old SIM cannot be reactivated, unfortunately 😕 

If you need a new one, just go to our website and click on "Get a SIM" 🙂 

Feel free to send us a private message if you have any other questions!

Saray

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Thanks for the quick response.  Unfortunately, my tenant wanted it today.  I'll ask if they want to wait for delivery of a new one but I suspect they'd rather not wait and will just go with another provider where we can buy a SIM locally (too bad I didn't think of it 1-2 weeks ago).

Thanks.

[CS_Agent]

Hey @michelb!
 

Public Mobile SIMs can only be activated once, so your old SIM cannot be reactivated, unfortunately 😕 

If you need a new one, just go to our website and click on "Get a SIM" 🙂 

Feel free to send us a private message if you have any other questions!

Saray

[michelb]

Hi,

    I just wanted to confirm that my deactivated PublicMobile SIM can not be reactivated.  I last used it about 1 year ago.

Let me know. Thanks,

Mike

[Mary_M]

Hey @sincindy

thank you for reaching out to us.

I'm sorry to inform you but you cannot use an active or used SIM on another account. Although it is suspended, and not deactivated, the SIM is associated to another phone number.  The same applies if the SIM was deactivated.

In this case, you will need to order a new one.

I hope this helps,

Mary

[srlawren]

@Mary_M or @Shazia_K, could you please answer @sincindy's question?  I don't quite know what the correct answer is.  My gut is that it's not possible to use that SIM card, but I don't know if there's anything you can do to make that possible.  Thank you in advance!

[Rockdaddy22]

Maybe someone else can chime in here, since the account was suspended I'm just not sure.

[sincindy]

I'm going through the same problem ... I broke my sim card, need my service asap and can't wait for a new sim card. I have another public mobile sim card from an account that is only suspended not deactivated. Can I use that sim card ?

[IWIK]

@DK One was used on a different line but the other was brand new never used. The guy spent half an hour trying to set it up before it came out that I've had it for about a year. So it seemed anyway that he was trying to failing to set it up. Who knows.

[DK]

Sounds like the person at Bell was giving you a line. When I was with Telus I use to swap between SIM cards (different size cards) all the time when I was testing iPhones and that was supposed to be a no no as well. 

Now if if you try to use a used sim to set up a different number then no you can't do that to my knowledge  

I keep old sim from different companies for activating iPhones as they don't need to be active to activate an iPhone. Just need wifi. 

[IWIK]

@youbme It is weird but I didn't ask a reason at the time.

[NDesai]

I was wondering about this too, thanks for confirming. 

[youbme]

Thanks for the quick response and clarification @Kalla_A!  Bell's policy sounds a bit fishy to me...

[Kalla_A · Accepted solution]

Hey @IWIK, @Rockdaddy22, @youbme and @saukalra

Public Mobile SIM cards don't have an expiry date if you haven't activated them.

They will only be deactivated after 90 days of non-payment, starting from the expiration of a plan.

Cheers 🙂

Kalla

[saukalra]

I recently activated a PM line with a SIM card that was over a year old, so I would imagine that they do not expire.

[Rockdaddy22]

I'd love to hear more about this, sounds ridiculous to me.

[youbme]

That's a great question @IWIK.  I suspect that SIM cards do not expire, and Bell's policy seems very peculiar.  I am in a similar situation, with an extra SIM for my wife, so I'm curious to see the response from someone informed on the matter.