How to switch to Visible with a new phone purchased online, when old phone is not compatible

[kyleknapp]

I did this a couple years ago, it was a breeze. Now my wife wants to switch from Verizon to Visible. Her current phone (Samsung Galaxy S8) is not compatible.  So I bought her a Samsung Galaxy S20 on Amazon. The new phone arrived today. I signed her up for Visible using her old phone number and the IMEI from the new phone. The SIM card should arrive tomorrow.

My question is, how do I activate her new phone on Visible, while transferring all her apps, contacts and other data from her old phone?  Somehow I had instructions when I did this two years ago, and it worked without a hitch, but I can't seem to find any info online about doing this. Will instructions come with the SIM card?

Thanks

[DeanKevin64]

You will need to download the app to activate the card on the new phone. First make sure the phone has all the updates, it is fully charged and on wi-fi before attempting activation. I am not sure the procedure to port a number over but that can also be found at visible.com in the help section. 

Procedure can be found here:

https://www.visible.com/help/how-to-insert-sim-card

[illumiN8i]

Regarding transferring the apps, contacts, and data, the new phone should walk you through the transfer process when you initially power it on.

[kyleknapp · Accepted solution]

Well, that partly worked. At one point it instructed me to download and install AT&t Mobile transfer on the old phone, but This app does not seem to exist in the Play store

[kyleknapp]

I think I got it. It kept prompting me to use ATT mobile transfer, but then wouldn't allow me to create an ATT login, because I don't have any ATT services. After I cancelled the ATT transfer process, it THEN prompted me to use SmartSwitch, which seems to be working.

[kyleknapp]

Okay this is turning into a nightmare.
It took a couple hours for data to transfer to the new phone, everything looked good. But when I tried to make a phone call, it said This phone is not registered on a mobile network.

I went to Visible's help chat.  I checked the option that says "Network Issues", which did literally nothing! It just cycles back to the same set of options, no matter how many times I selected Network issues. The same thing happened with several other options.
(All the while, "Connai" the virtual assistance kept saying "I'm great at helping!"
I finally selected "None of the Options", several times, and and Connai finally allowed me to type in a question. Every question I typed just brought me back to one of the option menus that does nothing.

Eventually I typed in "Chat with a human", and it put me on hold to wait for a live agent.  The agent suggested I take the SIM card out, reboot, and put it back in.  This didn't work, and, of course, disconnected the chat.

Now I'm trying to chat again, and it has kicked me out twice after being on hold for 20 minutes or so (each time it said I was number 1 in the queue). Now I'm trying a 3rd time, and suddenly I'm #14 in the queue.

So, I thought, my wife can just use her old phone on Verizon while we work this out.  BUt no, Verizon no longer works on the old phone. I guess Visible has already canceled my service.

Grrr....

[illumiN8i]

Does it seem like the S20 is recognizing the new Visible SIM card when it's installed? If you check the settings pages on the phone does it detect the Visible SIM as inserted?

I know the old phone is technically unsupported on Visible, but I'd be curious what would happen if you put the new Visible SIM in the old phone, just to confirm it's readable.

[illumiN8i]

I just had another thought. It seems odd that you would see the AT&T mobile transfer tool during initial setup on the S20. Are you able to verify that the S20 is carrier unlocked and isn't an AT&T locked version? Did the Amazon order mention it's an unlocked phone?

[kyleknapp]

The Amazon order specifically says it's unlocked, no mention of AT&T.

But the label on the box says "Samsung Galaxy S10. 5G (Unlocked) AT&T"

I spent a long time on the phone with an Amazon rep, who suspected there might be something wrong with the phone, and helped me message the seller to request a replacement (the seller has 2 days to reply).

BUT, I later chatted with a Visible agent who seemed convinced that the phone was okay, and is sending me a new SIM card. It should arrive today. We'll see what happens.

I'm not sure how to tell whether the phone detects the  SIM card. I have seen "Visible" appear on the upper left of the screen a couple times, and with it a few bars on the signal strenght icon, but it only lasts a few seconds then disappears, along with any signal.

[illumiN8i]

The label on the box says S10? In your original post you mentioned S20. Did they send you the wrong phone?

[kyleknapp]

My mistake. It says (and is) S20. 

[PsychoWriter]

I switched to visible after having purchased my Google Pixel 8 Pro from Best Buy and didn't have any issues. Well, actually the first esim didn't take and I was without service for a few days and then put a second in and now... well for some reason I still miss calls or texts here or there which doesn't make sense because I'm clear for 5g everywhere near me-yet my phone 99% of the time reads LTE and I never hit 5g Even though I pay for the more expensive plan. Strange things is I got my husband to sign up too and he went with the same plan but his bill is $5 less a month. I don't know what to think with visible honestly. I'm not a fan of Verizon. I just didn't want to go with Boost because I had them before they were horrible. I loved Metro but thought I'd check out the cheaper alternative. IDK. I'm not really a good judge of this question after all I suppose. I'm sorry.