Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Travel and Phones


The youngest returned for Christmas from the UK with a new phone, the eldest had a new phone also, it took 3 trips to Vodacom and cost R100 to perform a SIM swop, which failed and then purchase 2 new SIM cards, which both needed a further visit to get them activated and when I say 'them' I mean only one of them. The kids return to the UK soon and they'll have the same issues when they put their Vodafone SIMs back in.
Every time I travel to the UK I spend a fortune on getting my mobile phone to work.
I have O2 and orange SIM cards for the UK. I arrive at the airport, purchase airtime having swopped the SIM mid flight and turning off everything that uses up the data allowance.  Load the £10 airtime and by the end of the day it’s all gone.

As a result the first thing I do is go without ringing anyone to say I've arrived, try and find a spot of free WiFi to FB, email and message home to say ‘I’m here’ or ‘I’m on my way’

As I fly into London or Birmingham then rely on a train or coach to get to my destination and understandably family do not realise my need to sort my phone out it is usually 2-3 days before I get to a high street store and explain the problem.

And every bloody time...yes you’re on the ‘so and so package, just top up and it’ll be fine’ and every bloody time I end up with 2-3 trips to the store to complain all my allowance went within 2-3 days to be informed ‘that’s because your I phone used up all the data and it takes 2-3 days for your plan to activate’ Well FFS that’s what I said when I came in the store in the first place and asked for your help.

Finally getting the Orange EE phone sorted, I then discover that for some reason when my 1G data allowance runs out I can’t top it up, seriously, the woman in the store in Worcester, then the guy in the branch in Manchester just looked at me and said ‘ooohh it’s very expensive to add more data just for a few days’ and didn’t bloody sell me any and had I been given the price I could have made the choice as to whether I could afford it or not.




1 comment:

  1. I've just had a palaver with MTN - went from PAYG to contract and it took a week of phone calls and visits to the shop... and a fair bit of arguing... to activate the SIM >.<
    Back in the UK I just pop in to 3 and get a prepaid SIM for the phone and iPad and swap them out for the duration. Works perfectly.

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