How to remove my phone number from phone i'm selling

[Rover775]

Okay, I'm not actually selling the phone, but donating the phone.

I have an LG Motion MS770 that I got from Metro PCS that I no longer use. I want to donate the phone to a local group.

4.0.4

I did the Factory Reset.

I have removed the sim card and SD card.

But in Settings/ About Phone/ Status

it still displays my phone number.

I do not want my phone number on the phone when I donate it.

Is it possible for me to do something that would have "My phone number" to be blank??

 

[B. Diddy]

Did you also remove your Google account from the phone? After you did the factory reset, did you go through the Setup Wizard again in order to look at the Settings>About Phone menu? After a factory reset, it shouldn't just dump you back into the homescreen -- that would suggest to me that it wasn't fully factory reset.

What happens if you do a hardware key factory reset as described here? LG MS770 Motion 4G - How to Hard Reset my phone - HardReset.info

 

[Rover775]

Did you also remove your Google account from the phone? After you did the factory reset, did you go through the Setup Wizard again in order to look at the Settings>About Phone menu? After a factory reset, it shouldn't just dump you back into the homescreen -- that would suggest to me that it wasn't fully factory reset.

What happens if you do a hardware key factory reset as described here? LG MS770 Motion 4G - How to Hard Reset my phone - HardReset.info

After I did the Factory Reset, I did have to go through the set up wizard to look at the Settings Menu.

The hardware key factory reset instructions were somewhat vague to me, so I have no confidence in following them.

Here's an example:

Tap Power button to switch off device.

If I tap the power button, the screen goes dark, but the phone is not really off, unless I press and hold the power button, and then an option screen appears to "Power Off". So who knows what they actually mean by switch off...

When LG logo will appear on screen release buttons. -- Is that even an English grammar sentence??

Confirm process twice by pressing Power button.

Press and hold the Power button, or just press and release the Power Button? How does doing that = confirming twice??

So, I hope you see my confusion with those instructions.

But thanks, anyway B. Diddy

 

[B. Diddy]

Sorry about that link. This video is better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rag9XWcMY14

Did you actually reenter your Google account information when you went through the Setup Wizard again? Or were you able to skip that?

 

[Rover775]

Did you actually reenter your Google account information when you went through the Setup Wizard again? Or were you able to skip that?

I was able to skip that. In Settings, under Accounts & Sync, the page is blank, with no accounts listed.

I was able to do the Hard Reset. It took me several attempts at pressing the Home & Back Button keys together repeatedly to get the big green android to come up.

I also had a 2nd LG Motion that I forgot the PW to. I did the same procedure, even with no vibrate on start, and it worked, and the green android came up. After the reset, the phone was unlocked.

But.... for Both phones, after the Hard Reset, the phone numbers Still appear in the About Phone area. :-\

I am going to take the phones to Metro PCS to see what they can do.

Thank you for the YouTube link B. Diddy.

 

[B. Diddy]

Interesting -- I agree with bringing the phone to MetroPCS. If you had a phone on a CDMA network (like Verizon or Sprint), then it'd be less surprising that the phone number was still there, since I think the provisioning happens on the carrier side for those phones. But for GSM networks, I would have thought it is entirely up to the SIM card.

 

[B. Diddy]

I was thinking more about this -- that phone actually is a CDMA phone, from back when MetroPCS was a CDMA network (prior to merging with T-Mobile, a GSM network): LG Motion 4G, MS770 | LG USA. CDMA phones have to be provisioned by the carrier (rather than just popping a SIM in). So I'm guessing the phone number is stuck there due to the provisioning. Since it's been years since MetroPCS was a CDMA network, I'm not sure if they'll be able to get rid of it, but it's worth a try. Good luck!

 

[Rover775]

Right, the 4G LG Motion was a CDMA phone. I hadn't had it for that long when they announced they were going to the GSM network in about 7 months. That's when I upgraded to the Huawei Vitria.

I'll let you know what Metro says. I'll get there in a few days.