A:Answer I am the one who asked the question. I did purchase the phone. My phone came with a sim card already installed, exclusive to Tracfone. The SIM card number and the IMEI number were printed on a welcome leaflet. You can't register phone by using itself, as it arrives not activated, just good for 911. The online activation did not work: the last step, creating an account, gave an error message that I needed to call. I then exited and tried to first create an account using the IMEI number of this new phone; I then got a scary error message that an email was sent to the account associated with this IMEI phone for password recovery - but I did not receive one in my mail. It made me freak out that someone could have already registered the phone as this number is printed on the outside of the box... Conclusion: use the website to look at the available plans, but call to buy the plan and activate the phone. The call center person sounded like outside the US, and the Tracfone website AI bot is one of the most frustrating I have ever used. Essentially always responding "Sorry, I didn't get that" and offering only the same 4 options as buttons. BTW, the phone itself is great. From my home, the phone connects to the Verizon network.
