Question about giving old cell phone to someone else

[cgrabe]

I've got an old Samsung A400 cell phone that I recently cancelled service on and have agreed to give it to someone else. I'm a little concerned though. If I dial a number, I get a message that says 'Welcome to so-and-so roaming network; Charges will be such-and-such. Enter the number you wish to dial blah blah' If I look at the settings on the phone, my phone number still shows up. Is there something else I should do before giving it to someone else to use with their own plan? I don't want to get a big bill in the mail a month down the road. Do I have to take it to a Sprint store to get it deactivated?

 

[Walrus]

I'd call Sprint and see if that phone is still active on your account before you let go of it.

Most cell phones (Sprint included) come with a unique identifier (much like a MAC address) to idenify to the carrier which customer is to be billed for the calls taking place on that phone. Some companies bind that unique identifier to a removable chip (SIMM card) so users can switch phones whenever they like without having to call their provider. All entries in the phone book and other personal settings are stored on the SIMM card so you dont have to reprogram all that stuff if you switch phones. Sprint stores all your personal info into the phones memory so thats why your phone # is still showing up on that phone. When the person you are giving the phone to calls Sprint to establish service they will flash the memory on your old phone with the new users information.

I would definatley do a full reset on the phone before you give it away. That way all your phone book entries and other personal info will be erased.

HTH

 

[cgrabe]

Thanks.

A full reset is the first thing I wanted to do after cancelling service, but there's no menu option (not surprising) and no depressed manual reset button (not that surprising either). Maybe I'll run down to the Sprint store tomorrow and see if they can take care of it for me.

I've already manually removed all personal info that I had added, but factory defaults are always nice.