New Phone

Well, I have my new phone at last. There's only one problem with it: I can't actually use it. :-(

I finally figured outhow to get around the Vodafone problem of getting a new phone without paying full price and still keep my same number. Seems that while I couldn't go from one account to another on Vodafone and keep my number, I could switch to o2 and keep my number - and then switch back. So, that's what I did, mostly.

So, I rang up vodafone and told them I was leaving to go to O2, and could they cancel my account. Guy on the other end of the phone told me it'd take maybe 2 days to port my number over to O2, but I decided to try it anyway. So, at lunchtime that day, I headed up to grafton st, went onto the 2 shop and asked them could I get as pre-pay account and keep my vodafone number on which I'd just cancelled the account. I told the sales dude waht Vodafone had said about how long it'd take and, he laughed and said that they always said that and it'd be a lot quicker. Sure enough, after I left the shop I decided to drop into the Bagel Bar on Dawson St to grab lunch to bring back, and before I'd even gotten my bagel, beep beep on my phone, "welcome to O2". Easy peasy!

So, I had just bought a O2 pre-pay SIM for €10, and had €10 credit on it, all I had to do was wait til my last vodafone bill cleared and I used up my free tenner's o2 credit, and back I go. THe Vodafone bill duly arrived, so I decided to get my new phone. And this is where Vodafone started to spanners into the works of what was up until then a prefectly simple plan. I ordered the phone online on monday, the new Samsung Tocco Ultra, touch-screen, 8Mp camera, GPS, real fancy like, plus free bluetooth headset, for €99. THen the trouble started. While I could have the phone by tuesday, the web page wouldn't let me swap the numbers over until weds at the earliest. Fair 'nuff, I thought, I have enough credit left til then (I actually got an extra €2.50 off O2 for registering online), so I chose to have the number ported over between 8am and 10am. The order went though, but in the email confirmation I was warned that "We'll strive to switch you to Vodafone at your preferred tine, but on the rare occasions when this is not possible we'll ussually complete the switching process later on your preferred day.". Ok, fair enough.

The new phone arrived early on tuesday afternoon, all shiny and new, so I was all eager to get it up and running and playing with it. Slight snag tho: no signal on my new Vodafone SIM, and the phone is SIM-locked so I can't use my o2 on in it! So, while I could play with it and get used to the menu system, using a touch-screen phone etc, I couldn't actually use it. Is a nice little entertainment system, has a decent enough music player & radio, camera is pretty good as well, but it isn't actually a phone yet. That had to wait until I'm not an O2 member any more.

So, yesterday morning 8am arrived, so any time now I should be back on vodafone. Problem tho: no "beep beep, welcome to vodafone". 10am arrived, still no port out. I decided to ring them at around 3pm, to see was I one of the "rare occasions" and when could I expect it to be done. First thing, to get support on the Vodafone helpline, you have to enter your vodafone number. Oops, didn't really have one yet. Got though to a human after having to wade though several menu options and listen to several "We are pleased to announce vodafone have brought out several new offers X, Y and Z, which you won't have any choice but to hear us talk about, your call may be recorded if you ever get through, but your call is still important to us" messages, I got a human. So, I explained that I was still waiting to be welcomed into the Vodafone fold, and got put on hold a few times while she figured it out. Apparenly Voda had tried to get the number off O2 but o2 had refused to release it as I had only been a customer a short while. Instead of letting me know, Voda had decided to sit on it and do no more about it for a while! I told them to tell O2 I was a genuine port out, and she promised someone would get back to me soon.

That was around 3pm on weds, it's now about 11pm on thurs night and no word. I tried to get through earlier but depending at what stage in the menus I got to, I was told either "All our operators are busy" or "we are experiencing technical difficulties, please call again later". So, I now have 2 useless phones as I'm at my parents house and there's fuck-all signal for anyone except vodafone here, and besides, I'm down to about 20c O2 credit as I was expecting to be swapped over by now and I don't want to buy more as I could be transferred over at any time (yeah, right). So, am going to have to make some rather unfriendly phone calls tomorrow (from a land-line) to get this sorted.