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New PAYG SIM: How can I register or activate it without knowing its phone number?

  • 18 January 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 481 views
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I bought a new PAYG SIM in Currys for £5 but I can’t get it to work. I’ve tried it in 3 different phones but all show no bars and “Emergency calls only”. Trying to dial 7777 with the SIM in also fails. The phones are all unlocked and work fine with other SIMs and I live in London where I should get good coverage.

 

Looking over the web site for some way to activate or register the SIM, I can’t find anything that doesn’t require knowing the phone number, which I don’t have. The only number that I have is the 19-digit SIM ID on the SIM card. The only document I got from Currys is the receipt which also has the SIM ID but no phone number. Because I bought it in person and they didn’t ask for an email address, I didn’t get any more information by email.

 

Should I need to activate the SIM? If so, how do I do it without the phone number? Is there a way for me to find out the phone number?

 

As a side note: I tried using the live chat function to ask about this, but that doesn’t work without a phone number either.

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Best answer by andewhite 18 January 2022, 17:43

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andewhite
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Hello @NewUser8697,

Your invoice from currys should’ve had mobile number and transaction number. You’ll need these to register for your iD My Account online.

I’d be inclined to go back to currys and get them to fix it - they’ll probably give you a replacement SIM pack, but this time you can make sure you get a mobile number et cetera.

New pay monthly contracts come with an activated SIM, but I’m not sure about new PAYG plans.

I’ve never had an issue using the Live Chat service - and you can use any phone number to start a live chat session. 

The iD live chat service is best used 9am - 8pm weekdays and 9am - 6pm weekends, when you should type “talk to a person” to avoid the 24/7 bot and get an iD agent to help.

Anyway, good luck.

N
Rank

Thanks @andewhite for the suggestions. The invoice from Currys did have a Transaction Number, but definitely no mobile number.

I gave the live chat another go with a random mobile number and managed to talk to someone. They couldn’t help me activate the SIM or find its mobile number, but said it should already be active so might be faulty.

I’ll return it to Currys and see what they say.

Cheers.

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