Skip to main content

How hard can it be to pay for something? My experience with EE

I'm truly sick of Vodafone (after having been sicker of O2). Both networks aren't networks in that a network is meant to connect things - and my phone doesn't connect to anything most of the time. Vast swathes of the UK are invisible to it, but especially the barren unpopulated wastes (not) of Surrey. My biggest gromble is about the lack of signal (3G especially) that I experience on the train between Guildford (county town of Surrey) and London - a distance of around 35 miles through some of the most densely populated parts of the planet. Wealthy too. At best you get a Vodafone signal for half the journey and perhaps only 5% of it is usable for data (ie 3G).

This independent comparison research explains why I decided to experiment with a new network, EE (Everything Everywhere), who have combined the masts of Orange and T-Mobile:


I have an iPhone 4S on a Vodafone contract which recently expired. So I'm due either an upgrade from them or I can easily move to a new network and a new phone, if I want one, without penalty. The 4S is OK for most needs, so there's no sense in paying for another iPhone. I was therefore looking for a SIM-Only deal. But first I wanted to make sure I wasn't yet again jumping from frying pan into fire.

EE's website offered a free-SIM. Just fill in a form with name and address, and you'll get a couple of 'top-up' SIMs posted to you to try them out. They arrived the next day. I also discovered that there's a hidden page on the Vodafone website to request for your phone to be 'unlocked' (ie enabling it to use a SIM from another network). Needless to say that didn't work. Vodafone are in a hopeless mess as far as my company account is concerned, so I wasn't surprised this automated route failed. But what always does seem to work with them is speaking to a human... if you can find the right number to call, and are prepared for endless horrid IVR menus - usually ending in oblivion... deep breath, try again. Finally I spoke to a friendly voice and got my phone 'unlocked' (via itunes oddly). I could now pop an EE SIM into it and use it like a proper phone... well almost...

I got a signal!! 5 bars no less. And 3G most places I tried it - including for the WHOLE of my train journey. Bliss...ish. Although I could see the signal strength, I couldn't use it until I put credit on the SIM.

So I went to the web address they gave me in the letter that arrived with the SIM to top it up with credit. After many many attempts to give them my credit card details, the system kept crashing, doing nothing, or, weirdly, confirming that I couldn't top up because I already had maximum credit of £0 on the account.

Could I find a number to call to speak to a human. Oh no. There simply isn't one. There are helpline numbers, but all you get are endless automated IVR services. There is no way to speak to a human to explain my problem with their frustrating nonsense system. Don't you just love screaming profanities at IVR systems! By the way, did you know that these are recorded. I know of a company who offers a service to analyse customer experiences by listening to such recordings. Evidently EE don't use them. Or maybe they do, just that this outfit can't speak to anyone there about the results.

So I downloaded  the EE app in the hope that having tried every other way to give them money, this might work. The app recognised everything, went online, and then said 'You can't top up because there's no money in your account'. Huh?! I'm already bald, but if I hadn't been, clumps of my hair would have surrounded my chair by now. No clues in the app either as to how I can contact anyone to get out of this impossible loop... You can't add money until you add money.

Imagine my frustration. Having at last found a network operator who knew how to make my phone work, I couldn't use them because the idiots won't let me pay! DO NOT buy shares in EE.

Finally I went into an EE shop. The weary looking chap there took my phone and asked if it was an EE SIM. I said yes and he said "We don't do top ups for EE SIMs here". WHAT! The shop was plastered with EE logos. It was painted pale green - the EE colours. He and his gonky assistant were wearing EE branded shirts. "It's new and we can't do it yet. If you were with Orange or T-Mobile, no problem. Here's a number to call. They might be able to help". "A human?" I asked, timidly. "If you can find the route through the IVR, it might be possible", he suggested.

My legendary patience was once again being tested to its extreme. So having put the Vodafone SIM back in the phone (fiddly business with tiny little bits of plastic), I called the number. On the third experiment with an IVR 'press 1 for...' combination, I finally, oh yes, spoke to a human! Inevitably he was at an Indian call centre. To be honest, I was relieved. I've always found the chaps at Indian call centres to be vastly more competent and intelligent than many local call centres. I guess you need PhDs and the like to stand a chance of working in one there. Good luck to them all, I say. Anyway, the chap explained that there is a glitch in their idiot system which means I need to register my card with them manually first before I can use it... and that there's no way of doing this other than by calling him... who is INCREDIBLY difficult to find. The number I had been given in the shop was written on a scrap of paper - not even printed for other poor souls like me - and was not an 08-style call centre number. If you need it, it's +44 (0)1707 315000. Gold-dust info from Grombler. Just Google 'Amazed EE are still trading' and you'll find my blog again should you need it.

So Everything Everywhere evidently doesn't include paying, speaking to humans, or buying their products from their shops. But it does finally mean that I can type this on my phone on a train. #gettingthere #sigh.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo

Addictions. Porn, Drugs, Alcohol and Sex. Don't prevent it, make it safer.

In 1926 New York, during Prohibition, 1,200 people were poisoned by whiskey containing small quantities of wood alcohol (methanol). Around 400 died, the rest were blinded. The methanol they drank was in the moonshine they had bought illegally. In fact it had been added by law to industrial ethanol in order to make it undrinkable. Prohibition existed to protect everyone from the 'evils of the demon drink'. However, people still wanted to enjoy alcohol. So bootleggers bought cheap industrial alcohol and attempted to distill it to remove the impurities the state had added, but the process wasn't regulated. The state was inadvertently responsible for the suffering - although it was easy for them to blame the bootleggers and to justify escalating the war. This didn't stop the bootleggers. In fact it forced them to become more violent to protect their operations, and even less cautious about their production standards. Volumes of illicit alcohol, and therefore proportionat

The Secrets of Hacker Golf

Social media is awash with professional golfers selling video training courses to help you perfect your swing, gain 50 yards on your drive and cut your handicap. They might help a few desperate souls, but the rest of us hackers already know everything we need to complete a round of golf without worrying the handicap committee or appearing on a competition winner's list. What those pros don't realise is that for us hacking golfers who very occasionally hit shots that if you hadn't seen how they were hit, end up where the pros might have put them, we already know everything we need to know - and more. Unlike pros who know how to time the perfect swing in order to caress a ball 350 yards down the centre of a fairway, we hackers need to assemble a far wider set of skills and know-how to complete 18 holes, about which pros have no comprehension, need, or desire to learn. Here are some of them: Never select your shot until after you've hit it. A variation on this is to alway