Transfer an iPhone for your out of state child

[Jamez]

I have created a separate Visible account for my child's iPhone. My question is, how can I set up my child's iPhone who lives out of state? I have all the information to transfer her from my Verizon account to Visible.

I understand the iPhone has to download the Visible onto the device you're activating. I will be the manager of her account/device. I'm just trying to avoid her having to enter my credit card information, etc.

[DeanKevin64]

It would be a lot easier if you had the phone in hand. I have not ported in myself so I am not sure how the port process works. You can try to set up an account on your PC and see if you can add the payment information. Once done she will need to download the app and would need the email address and password you used for the account to be able to sign in. She should be able to proceed with activation and porting of her number. She will need to be on Wi-Fi the whole time to be able to activate and port. Again, I don't know how much of this you can actually do without the phone in hand.

The biggest issue or hurdle I see is if she has any issues and needs to contact customer service, she needs access to the email address so when, or if, she needs to contact CS she will need to verify that account through an email. Also, for you to access the account after she activates you will need the 2FA code that is sent by text to the phone number on the account. You can check the "trust this device" box when signing in on your PC and it shouldn't ask again in the future for this OTP code, but, Visible has removed devices from my account in the past, it may be because I don't sign into the app very often and that seems to be the one removed. The other thing is if you didn't know already is customer service is completely handled by chat or by messaging them on one of their social media platforms, there is no phone number to call.

[Jamez]

Thanks for the reply. I figured some work arounds to a certain point. And, I can easily give her the email address and password for her to log into the app to finish the activation.

The challenge is, even if I gave her a payment option to finish the entire sign up process, and I could still access the app, to change the payment to myself, she'd have access to that payment info (not that I don't trust her, lol). I could obviously set up some kind of automatic payment option not tied to my CC.

You're 100% right, it would be a lot easier if I had the phone in hand. The funny thing is, I just added her to my Verizon account days ago, googled best Verizon family plan, and then discovered MVNO's in the process.

So, then I of course switched to Visible and want to move my partner to Visible too, but she's the Verizon account owner, and I don't want my daughter getting kicked off of Verizon. If only there was a way Visible could simplify setting up accounts. It seems like their market is not family plans, which is fine. However, there's no reason why they couldn't let customer's manage multiple separate accounts, without them being family plans...

[DeanKevin64]

If you have PayPal you can set that up as a form of payment, that is what I use. No way she could do anything with PayPal unless she knows your account password. I think you can set up an account with payment before she needs to activate on a PC. Once set up and she activates you can still access the account through your PC, the first time you sign into the account after she activates she will get a text with the one-time-protocol code and you would need that to sign in. Upon signing in before hitting enter check the trust this device box and that will bypass the 2FA code for future sign ins.

Visible is geared more towards single line users such as myself. I think the single email accounts must be easier to handle billing is my guess. If you want a family plan you would have to look in to Total Wireless, which is another one owned by Verizon. There is US Mobile I see mentioned a lot that operates on all 3 networks. Mint if you want a T-Mobile owned carrier or Cricket if you want AT&T, I believe they all have family plans but I don't think they offer unlimited data including hotspot.

Hopefully you get it figured out.

[Jamez]

Thanks again, can I start the activation process here in my state, on the Visible app? I have her IMEI. It would probably be better to walk her through it. I'm asking because I wanted to see if I could set up PayPal first.

[DeanKevin64 · Accepted solution]

Not 100% sure but you should be able to open an account on the app and add the form of payment. My preference would be to open the account on a PC since the app to me seems so primitive. But still you should be able to add a form of payment whether credit card or PayPal. It's been close to 4 years since I joined and Visible was my first cell carrier after retiring. I had a pSIM sent  along with a phone from Visible, I was able to set up my account add a form of payment because of ordering the phone. So you should be able to open an account and add a form of payment. Then she should be able to finish the process of activating service.

Also, one thing I thought of is does she have another way to contact you for the steps to do this such as a landline? I ask because her phone needs to be on Wi-Fi in order to activate and port the number she has. I don't know it she can have an active SIM in the phone or not, I never ported so I don't fully understand that part of the process.

Sorry I can't be 100% positive. If you run into any issues you would need to contact customer service for help.

https://www.visible.com/help/contact-us

[Jamez]

I was able to completely set up her iPhone and the payment on my end. The only problem I ran into was the activation. The app gave me a QR code but of course she’s in another state. The app also gave me/us a manual way to set her eSIM. She entered an SM-DP+ Address and the Activation Code I provided to her and number was immediately ported over and it was done! Amazing…

Thanks again for all your input and assistance.

[DeanKevin64]

You're welcome! I am happy to hear it worked out. Welcome to Visible!