Vodafone AU + iPhone = No Service.

July, 2008.

Thinking about getting one of those new-fangled iPhones by Apple from big, lovable, friendly Vodafone?

Why bother?? Here’s what you can do that is equally fun, but less irritating and requires a lot less effort on your part.

Take your current mobile phone, take a house brick and smash your current phone to pieces by pelting the absolute shit out of it with the brick.

Fetch the sim card from the debris and tape it to the house brick, a small piece of duct tape should do the trick, and then forcibly stuff the house brick into your pocket or handbag.

You’ve effectively emulated the experience of getting an iPhone through Vodafone!

You excited??

I’m not.

I have had no phone for 47 hours now.

I signed up for the iPhone, it came four days later in the mail. Great so far right? I took it out of the box, I called Vodafone, spoke to a lovely girl who helped me activate the iPhone and take all my details to transfer my prepaid number to a postpay account for the iPhone. All fine.

“Just give it about half an hour for the changes to take effect in your account, and then have fun playing with your phone.”

“I will” I chuckled... What a lovely girl.

I waited half an hour. Turned it on. “No Service” it tells me. Fine. Fair enough, probably just needs more time. Turned it off. Left it for an hour. Tried again.

“No Service.”

Never mind, they’re selling lots of iPhones for the very first time. There’s BOUND to be some delay to get it all done. I left it for another six hours. Turned it on. “No Service”.

So now I’m a little peeved. Never mind, I thought, I’ll just pop my sim card back into my old phone and check to see if I have any messages, if anyone has tried to call me.

HAH! what a farce! I put the SIM card back in my old phone and it says to me:

“Unregistered SIM”

Not only has Vodafone failed to activate my account in the iPhone, it’s now turned my old mobile against me.

I started this nightmare at 11AM Tuesday.

I phoned Vodafone Tuesday night and the assured me that the problem would be sorted out ASAP.

All day Wednesday my iPhone kept telling me “No Service”

No service

NO SERVICE
NO SERVICE
NO SERVICE

I called again. This time I thought i may have actually passed out from the rage and dreamt the phone call.

“Hi, I’m just calling about my iPhone, it’s still not working.”

“Okay what’s your mobile number?”

I told him. “Okay, and your name sir?”

I told him.

And then... this: “Thats not your name.”

“I beg your pardon?” To say I was incredulous is a gross understatement.

“That’s not your name”

I really couldn’t control myself: “Ah, I think I would KNOW what my own name is!”

“Yes, sorry I mean thats not the name we have here....”

“AND!?...”

And then the poor fellow did the only thing he could think of to do. He dumped my call back into the queue. Again, “incensed” fails to illustrate my feelings.

I called again. The Vodafone rep explained to me...nothing really, but said that the order would be put through all over again. Great. That was 23 hours after the nightmare had begun.

As I sit here now, FORTY SEVEN hours after I first called them, Vodafone has failed to do anything to help me out, my iPhone is still as good as a BRICK, as is my previous mobile phone.

Thinking about getting an iPhone through Vodafone? Don’t fucking bother.

***

UPDATE: 60 Hours after activating the iPhone.

My iPhone still reads: NO SERVICE. Vodafone has NOT contacted me. No phone call (that would be hard I suppose, although I did give them my mother's home phone number...) no email. Nothing.

I’ve sent them this email:

MY IPHONE HAS BEEN SAYING "NO SERVICE" NOW FOR FIFTY-ONE HOURS. THAT'S 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE WITHOUT A PHONE FOR 51 HOURS? I DON'T HAVE A HOME PHONE, YOU TOLD ME I COULD KEEP MY OLD MOBILE NUMBER BECAUSE I WAS ALREADY A VODAFONE CUSTOMER. I HAVE BEEN WITHOUT A PHONE FOR FIFTY. ONE. HOURS. ASK YOURSELF IF YOU WOULD BE HAPPY IF YOUR PHONE COMPANY TOLD YOU IT WOULD TAKE 30 ***MINUTES*** TO TAKE YOUR OLD NUMBER TO YOUR NEW PHONE AND THEN IT ENDED UP TAKING 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. I JUST WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A WORKING PHONE. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? I'M SENDING AN EMAIL BECAUSE I'VE ALREADY SPOKEN TO FIVE OF YOUR PEOPLE ON THE PHONE FOR A TOTAL OF 80 MINUTES. THANKS FOR NOTHING SO FAR.

Their reply to this provocative, desperate email?

Nothing.

It is now 60 hours since I lost my ability to communicate with my family and friends. I have no phone. Vodafone has not tried to help me one iota. Their call centre staff are unable to tell me what the problem is. They are unable to tell me how long it will take to rectify it. They refuse to let me speak to a technician, those mystical figures who are apparently charged with rectifying the ethereal problem (whatever it might be).

Vodafone are unwilling to contact me regarding my problem. In fact, in the 60 hours since I lost the ability to use my phone, they have contacted me total of zero times. All the communication, all the effort to try and rectify this problem has been mine.

I might be jovial about all this but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it into account when deciding whether or not to do business with Vodafone, my story is, after all, real and taking place right now.

I’ll keep you updated.

UPDATE: 72 Hours without a phone.

Vodafone has not contacted me. At all. My iPhone still says “No Service”.

UPDATE: 77 Hours without a phone.

Called Vodafone Technical support again. Why not? Any excuse to hear a voice over the phone these days... A helpful guy named Steve tells me that it's a system-wide problem and that I'm not the only one. It's a comment designed to make me feel better but it fails. He tells me this system-wide problem cropped up yesterday afternoon. It's been 77 hours since my ordeal began, I reminded him. Perhaps you were the first, he counters. At any rate all he can really tell me is that "they are working on it". The same thing each tech support before him has said.

77 hours and counting, I think I've caught a case of this.

UPDATE: 85 Hours without a phone.

I still have no phone. This is a fucking joke.

UPDATE: 96 Hours without a phone.

Still NO SERVICE. Still no contact from Vodafone.

UPDATE:

It has been six whole days since I tried to activate the iPhone and lost all ability to use my mobile phone. The last time I contacted Vodafone was two days ago. In the whole 6 days Vodafone have made NO attempt to contact me to either apologise or even to apprise me of the situation.

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