When shipped the phones are completely shut off, so they would have no way of tattling on themselves until turned back on.
Come to think of it..... If I remember correctly, every cell phone I ever bought.... incliding a tracfone for a relative last year, the battery was not even in the phone ... you had to unwrap it from cellophane or plastic baggie and install it yourself .
They were probably just packing each component separately for space efficiency..... It would be hard to pack a thousand of those blister packs that tracfones come in efficiently even in a good sized van.