At least the phone won't get sunburned.

August 5, 2011 1:11 PM

Sunscreen in a Tracfone - do I need to worry?

A bottle of lotion sunscreen exploded in my son's backpack, and the Tracphone he was carrying (Motorola C139) got the worst of it. It still works, but the screen has a big dark splotch on the right side of the screen. I took the battery out and cleaned as much of the sunscreen out of the back of it as I can, but I'm wondering two things:

1. Is there anything else I can do to fix it?

2. If it does eventually die, we can just take the SIM card out of it and put it in a new Tracphone, and keep the minutes we've purchased, right?

posted by Lucinda to Technology (4 answers total)

I know you can buy a new phone and transfer your minutes to it and keep the same number. I have done that. Don't know anything about a SIM card.
posted by JayRwv at 1:26 PM on August 5, 2011

1. The LCD is probably busted. No way to fix that.

2. Yes. All account information lives in the SIM, not in the phone.
posted by falameufilho at 5:40 PM on August 5, 2011

Actually the answer to #2 is no... unless they've changed something recently, Tracfone SIMs have a symbiotic relationship with the custom firmware in their phones, such that the two are permanently associated with one another once the phone is activated. (This has to do with how it is the phone's firmware that enforces your minute pool, not the network, unlike every other prepaid option in the US.) You should have no problem getting them to move your account to a new phone, but you'll have to call them to get it done.
posted by robt at 9:39 PM on August 6, 2011

Response by poster: Well, the phone is shot (when trying to charge it, it started leaking sunscreen and got *very* hot) so we'll have to buy a new phone, and it looks like we can transfer the phone number and minutes on the website. So, problem solved.
posted by Lucinda at 7:00 PM on August 7, 2011