Existing T-Mobile Customer Gets Nexus One For $179 (You Can Too?)

Rob Jackson
15 years ago

nexus-one-box The Nexus One is a pretty darn attractive purchase for non-TMO customers who are ready to give their John Hancock on a 2-Year agreement but you’re much less likely to go the distance if $500+ is required. Well one T-Mobile customer who wanted the best of both worlds was able to have his Droid and eat it too as detailed by Gizmodo:

Starting the day of the release I attempted to secure a shiny new toy to replace my aging iPhone only to find out that Google/HTC/T-Mobile were hamstringing existing customers for anywhere from $100 – $200 on the cost of the phone, so I set out to get a fair price. I spoke with a long list of Customer Care/Billing/Tech Support/& Loyalty Specialists to work through the problem. A Tech Support agent along with help from Billing agents suggested that I add a line to my existing account, then swap the created phone number with the original after a cancellation and reuse request. This became difficult as someone on their end flagged my account wrong. I spent the better part of the next 36 hours asking if some flag had been activated on my account indicating I was no longer an Individual Regular Postpaid account. Only after threatening to cancel my account altogether did someone figure it out. Flag changed, I was now able to proceed. Added the line (865 area code), ordered the phone and waited for that to arrive. Once that was achieved, I called T-Mobile back to cancel my original line (not on contract – no fee) and file a reuse of the number. Then came the waiting game. This morning I awoke to a text message from T-Mobile stating that the number registered for the sim card was my original number (412 area code). To sum it up in steps:

Requirements: Non-contract T-Mobile Customer, ability to add a line

1. Add a line through Google check out process.
2. Wait for phone arrival.
3. Once acquired, call T-Mobile to cancel original number, then file a reuse request to swap it with the newly created number (similar to a number port)
4. Wait. (12 hrs elapsed time prior to the swap).

All said and done, Nexus One acquired for $179+taxes+$35 activation fee. One last caveat; by the end of the process, T-Mobile Specialists were getting weary of this method so I would verify they will do this for customers before proceeding.

FYI I’m definitely not suggesting you do this yourself. First of all, there is no guarantee it will work for you. Second, karma is a bitch. I know that technically it’s playing by the rules – just be sure to let us know how it turns out if you give it a shot.