Phone Woes

[jacey]

I have a new phone. A smartphone, no less, Motorola G. Bought by doubling up my Tesco clubcard points, so I didn't actually buy it with real money, but still, it seems like a nice piece of kit... I've dowloaded some nice apps and I'm getting good wifi connection at home.

But I haven't used it as a phone yet. I was going to go with Tesco because you get triple credit. Pay a tenner, get £30. Then I realised that the extra £20 evaporates after a month if you don't use it, and since I'm a low user... no point...

So I decided to stick with Orange since I've been with them forever and I get 14p minute phone calls, but this new phone needs a mini sim, so I can't just swap my sim card over from my old phone. And that's where it all falls apart. Has anyone ever tried to talk to a real person at Orange/EE customer services? It's next to bloody impossible. It took five tries to get to someone last week - the line kept cutting off to a long bleep right after: 'We'll put you through to someone who can help you,' And this after going through several frustrating menu choices on the automated systen, none of them seeming quite adequate for what I needed. Anyhow, eventually i got a real person who arranged to send me a new mini sim. All I had to do when it arrived - he said - was to phone on _this_ number to port the number over and activate it.

So today the new sim arrives. It's EE not Orange (contrary to what I'd been told) but it's just a plastic sim with a paper label cointaining the sim number stuck to it and no phone number or instructions attached. There's a printed impersonal Welcome letter and a number to call,

I called the number. Jumped through all the menu choices and... BEEEEEEP. Cut off, just like last week. Tried again. Same. Tried Customer Services number - got someone who couldn't help me. Call the shop. Called the shop. What's the phone number on the new sim? they ask. There isn't one, I reply. But what's the phone number they ask again. I describe what's in the envelope I've been sent. One bit of plastic, one welcome letter, no packaging, no phone number. Hmm, that sim seems to be a blank one that's not active, they tell me. You need to call the PAYG helpline. Called the PAYG helpline. No. No. You need to call the shop. THIS IS MY SIXTH PHONE CALL. ALL I WANT IS A NEW SIM THAT WORKS!!!!! (Yes, I'm getting a little tetchy by now.)

Eventually gent with heavy non Brit accent who was obviously having as much trouble with my Yorkshire as i was with his whatever, calls me back. They are sending me a new SIM. Great, what next?

When you get it call this number...

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

And then to add insult to injury I look online... Why do all the PAYG have 'packages' that expire within a month if you don't use them, and which you have to commit to paying a minimum of £10 per month? If I wanted to commit to a specified amount each month I'd have a bloody contract. The whole point of PAYG is that you buy minutes and when you've used them you buy more. Doesn't that make sense? It makes sense to me.  Ah, but you get 500 free minutes if you agree to buy £10 of credit a month. Scuse me? Those minutes are not free. I'd be paying £10 for them. And £10 for 500 minutes is not such a good deal when I only use five of them and then i lose them because my month is up. What is it about LOW USER that EE doesn't get? I'd be hard pressed to use 500 minutes in a year let alone a month. Why? Because we have rubbish signal at home and the only way I can use my mobile is to hang out of the front door. It's something I have for emergencies only. The only time I make use of it is when I'm at SF conventions, to keep in touch by text with my conbuddies.

Dear Orange, I promise to buy £10 of credit a year whether I need it or not. Stop trying to sell me stuff I don't need and can't use. just send me a sim that, yanno, actually works and give me my old number. And also send me a new sim for my old phone because though I only paid £20 for it and have had it for three years, it still works a treat. Thank you Rio.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

My phone is not really a smartphone, though it could access Facebook and email if I bothered with the right package. However, I have no need to access the internet outside my home or occasionally at a hotel. I also do not make or receive many phone calls, and when I do it is generally on the landline...

I actually got a phone call from EE demanding to know why I didn't make more calls! I told them I only used the damn thing for emergencies and for the occasional "this is on offer do you want me to buy it/I've just arrived at a station come and pick me up" call.

[julesjones]

This is why I have an O2 SIM. I don't know what the current plans are, but whenever I've needed a SIM, they've been offering ones that cost almost double per minute, but where the credit doesn't expire as long as you use the phone at least once every six months. They try very hard to sell me the bundles, but the bundles are not compulsory.

Three also do non-expiring credit, and would have been my choice for my smartphone had I not had a use for O2's incredibly cheap international rates on their International SIM.

I love my MotoG, although it's first generation so not quite the same as yours. I will buy another one or equivalent when it dies. However, I mostly use it as a tiny handbag tablet that can do 3G if needed, and still have my old Nokia candy bar in my pocket for being contacted on.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I would simply tell them that the only way to get me to make more mobile phone calls would be to improve reception at my home.I CAN only use it when I'm out of the house, and since I work from home I'm not out of the house on a regular basis.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I've taken to not carrying a handbag very often. My tiny purse goes in one pocket, with room for my car keys when I'm out, and my phone and a clean tissue in the other. I rarely need anything else. I use a bag when I need to carry my Kindle or tablet (usually at a convention)and that's about it.