unfortunately, times have changed and it's not as easy as calling the carrier and requesting to activate a new sim (although it is still possible, at least with verizon because recently i had to request a new esim which was issued over the phone). however, it is certainly still possible. to do this you need a fake id in the target's name, a burner phone, an sms flooder, and a story (especially when it's an out of state target). since i live in the bay area, my story is that i was out at a club in the city, left my phone in the car, and the car got bipped and my phone and other stuff was stolen.

you go into the store, tell them that you need to get your phone number back because your phone was stolen. they're going to ask if you want a new phone or report stolen if you have their insurance and you can decline (although ive never tried, you might be able to get a free phone 0 down if you were to get the new phone not through insurance). they might not even ask you what happened, but i always like to be prepared so ill have my story ready. then, before they can do the swap, they will send a text to the target's number to see if this is really them. since the phone wasnt truly stolen and the target likely has it in their possession, this is not okay. this is where the sms flooder comes in handy. you need to make sure that the text from the carrier blends in as just another spam. you want to time it so there are spam texts coming in before and after the carrier text is sent. normally the carriers only require a 10 minute wait. after these 10 minutes you will be in the clear and the swap will proceed. this is pretty straight forward. now the phone number is yours.

by the way, you must make sure that this is an authorized user on the carrier account that is allowed to make the swap.

obviously this is riskier than doing the swap online, so may want to have a runner do this.

godspeed folks.