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====== Info on Activating the Fi Phone, Tracking your Promo Discount, Completing the Promo and Pause/Cancel Fi Service after 120 days ====== added on 12/11/23 by hpham_53
* Activating the Fi S23 phone
When you get the phone:
1. The SIM is already installed in the phone, although the phone box is sealed.
2. Turn on the phone, connect it to WiFi and log into the same Google account that was used to purchase the phone.
3. Download and install the Fi app from Google Play Store.
4. Leave WiFi ON. Run the Fi app. It will insist that you turn Data ON. Go ahead and turn Data ON. It might use a few MB of Data before switching to WiFi. If FI charges you for that Data at all, it will be 1-3 cents added to the 2nd bill.
5. Go through the activation process with the app which will port in your number to Fi.
6. Your phone should be working on Fi then.
* Tracking Your Promo Discount
Log into your Fi account on the web site. There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. About 24 hrs after you activated the Fi SIM, the In Progress Tracker should show a checklist with entries like: Bought a phone, Got a discount, Activated the SIM, Stay xxx more days on Fi. Make sure the "Activate the SIM" entry is checkmarked and it shows 120 days to go. Then for a few days after that, keep checking the In Progress to make sure the countdown is decreasing each day. The countdown is updated at the same time each day (around the time of day that you activated the Fi SIM).
* How to Verify that your S23 promo was Earned
There's a countdown in your Billing-->Fi Savings-->In Progress that shows how many more days your Fi service has to remain active. The countdown will never say zero day. On the 120th day, it will stay at "1 more day". On the morning of the 121st day, the countdown should say "Stayed (past tense) active on Fi for 120 days in a row". Then later in the day, the In Progress column disappears, and the promo discount gets moved to the Earned column. At that time or later, it's safe to Cancel or Pause your Fi service.
You can use this Date Calculator: https://www.timeanddate
Enter your activation date as the Start Date, select Add 121 days and it'll show the date when it's safe to cancel/pause your Fi service.
* How to Cancel your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Leave Google Fi". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. You'll have the options to Let Go your Fi phone number, or Transfer To Another Provider. (There used to be an option to port it back to Google Voice, but I think it's no longer available). If you choose to let go your Fi number, your Fi service will be cancelled IMMEDIATELY. If you choose to port out, your Fi service will remain active until your Fi number has been ported out to another provider.
* How to Pause your Fi service
In your Fi account, click on Account-->Your Plan, scroll down until you see "Pause Service". Click on that and follow the on-screen instructions. Your Fi service will be paused and Automatically Resumed after 90 days, unless you cancel it before 90 days are up. Once it's Resumed, you can leave it Active, or Cancel it, or Pause again (I don't know how many times you can Pause). If you have a lot of remaining referral Fi credit (which is not refundable), you can choose Pause instead of Cancel to wait and see if there will be new Fi promotions in the future to use up your Fi credit.
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1. Does each group member create their own Fi account before the group owner invites them to join the group? If yes, can the account be empty (without an active Fi line) before joining?
2. Let's say each member wants to have an S23. Does the group owner place an order for all the phones through his account or each member places their own order through their Fi account?
3. If the group owner ordered all the phones, then how does the activation process work? Does each member log into the Fi app on their phone with their own Fi account ID and activate/port?
1. Yes. On the support page, it explicitly states that the person needs a Google account*. They don't necessarily need to sign into Google Fi until the end of Step 2.
2. Yes. I ordered and paid for all of the phones, and I associated each phone with an e-mail address that has a Google account*. That person then receives an invitation e-mail to join Google Fi. That person clicks on the link and acknowledges that they want to join Google Fi. This is also when I recommend saying that you will be porting a number to Google Fi. You give a phone number (which they verify is valid to port), and that's about it. Entering account number and Transfer PIN is pretty useless since you have to re-enter it in the app (in Step 3).
3. Once you receive the phones, you can migrate each person from their old phone to their new phone. Once everything has been migrated to your satisfaction, download the Google Fi app. They must sign into the Google Fi app using the e-mail address declared in Step 2. Continue following the steps in the app to port the phone number and activate the phones.
* - I have a super old legacy free Google Workspace account/domain for my family (lastname.com). Sadly, Google's implementation of it is terrible, and they could never use their lastname.com e-mail addresses to sign up for things like Google Play Family Library, Google Family Link, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, etc. I then had to create a gmail.com e-mail account for each family member, which they use to sign-in to all of these services (but not use Gmail). When I tried sending invites to their lastname.com e-mail addresses, Google Fi wouldn't allow it, so I sent it to their gmail addresses (which is what I used in the Google Fi app).
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If you currently don't have an active Fi phone number, then you'll need to port-in a phone number for this deal.
But currently on Google Fi app, I'm seeing the "Google Fi is not your active carrier" message. Is this a cause for concern? I've activated the Google Fi service on the device and I'm being charged the monthly plan price by Google, but just have my Google Fi sim out, and my Verizon sim in the device instead.
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