Pajama Entrepreneur

I know, it’s 2007 and most cellular carriers around the world will sell you a prepaid plan without much ado. Heck, they’re so thrilled you’re buying service from them and not from a competing operator! But not AT&T, according to VC Fred Wilson, who says AT&T sells prepaid subscriptions for the iPhone only to people who are deadbeats. I still can’t believe it, but read his post: After about five minutes, the manager got on the line. I repeated my case, asked him to authorize a prepaid plan for my phone. He said he could not do so. That it was AT&T policy to only issue pre-paid plans to people with valid social security numbers who fail a credit check.

Vincent Everts posted this solution on Fred’s blog:

Fred, I had the same problem. If you add 00000000 or 123456789 as a social security number then you will be automatically enrolled in the pre paid program. I am a dutch alien I did not have a number. The first time I used the social security number of my son which is one year old and who had bad credit. But easier is to go to www.iphonehacks.com and get the phone unlocked. Then you can use any sim card you like. Takes about 45 minutes.

I guess one of the ways to get an AT&T prepaid card is to NOT pay your monthly subscription plan, so they automatically classify you as a deadbeat and then move you to the prepaid plan. Good grief!

I don’t understand why Fred Wilson encountered this problem. When you visit AT&T’s website, their prepaid plans section does not mention any strange restrictions (i.e. that you need to be a deadbeat first before they sell it to you).