Please note: The following is Dan Lane‘s opinion, the opinions of other SMS Text News contributors may vary.
I don’t think there are many people who have tried as hard as I have to become a customer of any company, but as you’ve read recently I’ve tried two different retailers, queued for eight hours and have now waited for four days for O2 to activate my iPhone 3G’s SIM. In the meantime my friends have been buying iPhone 3G’s like no tomorrow and having theirs activated instantly. Last night, while I was at MoMo, someone from O2 called to take all my details again so he could activate my account and get me up and running. He assured me that things would be up and running in 24 hours (“but usually sooner”).
Nothing by 6pm today so I called again and was assured a call back within 24 hours (“but usually sooner”).
Nothing by 8pm, the original 24 hour promise was about to be broken so I called in again, this time I set myself the target of either getting my phone activated while I was on the call or cancelling my entire contract.
To cut a long story (a story mostly filled with hold music) there was nothing the guy on the phone could do to activate my SIM and the people who could do that weren’t answering their phone and were about to go home (it was nearly 9pm by this time).
I have to admit I lost my temper with the poor guy, but I honestly don’t feel guilty. This was four days of O2 generated anger being vented at the only O2 representative unfortunate enough to be available to me at that time.
We ended the conversation with him promising that he’d left a record with my SIM number so that whoever comes to actually create my account knows not to (because I’m still not actually a customer) and I told him that if they’d like their subsidised handset back they are welcome to send a courier to collect it.
I’ve wiped the iPhone 3G and put it back in it’s box.
I spent four days being an O2 non-customer, it was the worst customer experience I’ve ever had and words cannot describe how disgusted I am with them.