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Carphone Warehouse and the effing iPhone

If you get the SMS Text News newsletter you’ll have already read this rant from our friend Alex Meisl at Sponge, but we thought we’d post it again for the rest of the masses. Over to Alex!

I’ve been a happy user of a E61i for getting on for a year now and like
the fact that it is not a Blackberry and that my large digits can type
with relative ease. However, as I am the only person at Sponge who has not
got up close and personal with an iPhone, the friendly SMS from CPW…”Dear
Alex, you are now due a fantastic phone upgrade. Call Carphone Warehouse
bla bla…..”. Idiot. I fell for it.

Last Monday, I called CPW and upgraded to Steve Jobs’ new creation – it
was to be delivered to my office in Central London the next day between 9
– 5. NOT. At 5.30, I rang and was reassured that it would be with me by
6. NOT. I rang on the Wednesday morning and was told that they tried to
deliver it to the wrong address but it would definitely be with me the
same day as it was on the van. NOT. When I rang Wednesday late afternoon,
I was told that Mr Nixon from my office had refused to accept it. Now, I
know I am getting on a bit and have been known to be forgetful (That’s why
I volunteered to be Chairman), but I am delighted that I can recite the
names of all 30-odd staff and we don’t have a Mr. Nixon working for us.
Cue first sign of Meisl grumps. As I was leaving on holiday for 2 weeks
the next afternoon at 2, CPW swore blind the iPhone would be with me by
10.30 on the Thursday. NOT.

This is when things took a turn for the worse. O2 made the fatal error of
assuming that I had received my iPhone by now and so started the porting
process and cut off my old SIM. I am now 4 hours away from going on
holiday and my bloody phone does not work and my iPhone finds me so
abhorrent that it doesn’t appear to want to make my acquaintance. I spent
two and a quarter hours (on my last day at work….nice) first speaking to
CPW then pulling in some favours with contacts at O2…..joy…..by 5pm (on
way to catch ferry) my SIM is magically working again, I ring O2 again and
they assure me that everything has been resolved….I can soon relax with
some French booze and the shouting matches with CPW/O2 can wait until I
get home. NOT.

The next morning with a full day’s driving ahead (and planning to speak to
a number of clients whilst my wife shares some of the driving), I notice I
have no network coverage. This persists for the whole day. Late Friday
night I finally have network coverage again. HOWEVER it is only over the
weekend that I discover that the port has taken place again and I am now
the unwilling and unwitting owner of a new number. Even worse (and now my
blood pressure starts rising…) my old number is now unavailable to anyone
who tries to call me (sorry SF, SH and SL).

Today I spent a comical 40 minutes on a conference call with CPW and O2.
The first person I spoke to at CPW said “brilliant” 3 times whilst I was
recounting my woes (response: “no it is not f**king brilliant”). I
eventually ended up speaking to someone sympathetic and helpful (step
forward James McSweeney at CPW). This went downhill again when he patched
in O2 to the call and I was told by Linzi that I can’t get my number
working again on my current SIM until I return to the UK (no matter how
high I escalate the matter in O2). Linzi from O2 had not considered a
simple solution which I proposed of making my number live again and
diverting it to my temporary new number. James then blotted his copybook
by explaining that they could reactivate my number by setting up a new
contract but I would then have to “terminate” it by writing to them and
giving one month’s notice.

I now have to wait a further 2 days before my 15 year old phone number is
awoken from its slumbers and is instructed to divert itself to a rubbish
temporary number (assuming CPW and O2’s systems all work together in
harmony)

We keep hearing that manufacturing is dead in the UK but that we should
feel proud as our service industry is so strong…..but that (to use the
exact French word) is simply COUILLONS.

If anyone at CPW or O2 is reading this, I am looking forward to returning
from my holiday where I will be out for blood. You can expect my call and
a claim for wasted time, phone calls and medication on August 12th. A
bientot.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Sounds really bad, invoice them for everything and claim two months for free! Hope it gets sorted out soon!

    I posted a comment somewhere else about O2 porting issues.

    I'm surprised O2 cannot reactivate your number, as that's what they did in my partner's case. To make the story short, he lost his o2 business phone in Paris on Thursday morning. Called O2 to cancel the number and the handset and asked them to port the number to his personal SIM card. They cancelled inmediately and promise to port the number in 4 hours. It took them little over 24 hours to do that but it was sorted. In the meantime they sent a replacement phone that arrived on Friday evening. A 3G replacement SIM would've taken longer, don't ask why so we went into an O2 store to get one, and it was free, on Saturday. Porting the personal number to the new SIM was done straightaway.

    It took its share of France – UK calls, wasted time and telling off (and effing at) o2 customer services but they managed to sort it out in about 36 hours …….. unfortunately for me as I was hoping to get a free iPhone out of this ;-(

  2. Cheers nacho…amazingly they tell me that until I physically have my iPhone they cannot even port by getting my old number up and running again…….my calls to them will start again tomorrow……and Dale in Customer Care who just emailed me…. glad you will be able to sort it out when I get back to the UK in 10 days but to be honest, I want it working NOW….sorry to be a nuisance and all that, it must be a real pain to you guys to actually offer assiatnce rather than your bland platitudes…

  3. Sounds like this is an apple/iphone issue probably?

    I had my monthly o2 fighting session this week, this time about MMS and data. 3 hours of arguments over two days to get some things sorted out.

    IIt is bizarre that first line customer service people try to sort out technical stuff when it is clear they're not qualified/ no have a clue about anything more complex than sending SMS settings

    I do not have patience to deal with them anymore, all calls with customer service now end up in a shouting match to the amusement of my office colleagues. I normally get things sorted when I use the magic words “I'm dumping you as my mobile provider!”

  4. Sounds like this is an apple/iphone issue probably?

    I had my monthly o2 fighting session this week, this time about MMS and data. 3 hours of arguments over two days to get some things sorted out.

    IIt is bizarre that first line customer service people try to sort out technical stuff when it is clear they're not qualified/ no have a clue about anything more complex than sending SMS settings

    I do not have patience to deal with them anymore, all calls with customer service now end up in a shouting match to the amusement of my office colleagues. I normally get things sorted when I use the magic words “I'm dumping you as my mobile provider!”

  5. Sounds like this is an apple/iphone issue probably?

    I had my monthly o2 fighting session this week, this time about MMS and data. 3 hours of arguments over two days to get some things sorted out.

    IIt is bizarre that first line customer service people try to sort out technical stuff when it is clear they're not qualified/ no have a clue about anything more complex than sending SMS settings

    I do not have patience to deal with them anymore, all calls with customer service now end up in a shouting match to the amusement of my office colleagues. I normally get things sorted when I use the magic words “I'm dumping you as my mobile provider!”

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