Forum Discussion
Failure to activate new SIM
I am a Smarty customer who lost my phone whilst abroad. A new SIM card was ordered and sent, although time passed whilst I arrived home and replaced my phone. When the SIM card was placed in the phone it never activated. My account was suspended temporarily. When I got in touch with customer service the account seemed to be unsuspended but the SIM card still hasn't activated... for two weeks! For 14 days I've been going round in circles with several customer service reps, some worse than others, one who seemed to think I wanted a new contract and was trying to sell me a new contract, ignoring the fact I was just waiting to get my current contract back online. It has all been reported on the same chat thread. I've had about 6 customer service reps trying to "help" me and I'm still waiting for my card to activate. I'm constantly told it has been passed on to a team for resolution and next thing I know I've got a new customer service rep trying to talk me through the same problem, usually repeating what has already been said.
I think the person, StevenW, who had to go at you for simply asking if anyone else had experienced problem was a bit out of order. Customer service has been very poor and to think that after two weeks I'm still waiting for my service to come back on, just shows an appalling service. No one of any kind of rank, or technical expertise, has attempted to advise or support me and the worst thing about this problem is that my online banking has been screwed up by all this. My online banking is attached to my phone number and requires verification through phone messages it sends me. It's caused a real problem.
I'm stuck in limbo as I don't even think I can move my number across to another service until this problem is resolved. I have no phone, I have no number, but I'm still paying for the service. A few days ago they debited the bank account, that pays for my service, for a month's usage I haven't had! There's no real support here. I'm really stuck and really fed up.
Sid One question......When you received the replacement sim, did you go through the exact activation process that they sent with it?
I think what may have stuck me was that I received the sim quite quickly but was in Switzerland and had bought no replacement phone. That happened two weeks later. I tried to activate the SIM two weeks after it arrived. I'm wondering if that's what stalled the process. That's the only thing I can think that's a problem.
I tried to, but when the card went in, and I logged on to Smarty, no notification came up to activate the card. My homepage told me, on my account, that it was still suspended. They then unsuspended the account and told me to try and activate the SIM again. I've been trying to do that for the last two weeks through both methods of logging in and putting in the last 12 digits of the card where I'm told to. My phone is still displaying emergency calls only. My phone recognizes I have a SIM but no service. Every time I talk to customer service nobody seems to help or explain. They ask the same questions tell me to do the same thing, tell me its been passed on to a team and prioritised, and thrn I just get a new customer service rep and I'm kept going round in circles. Wash, rinse, repeat over and over again!
Sid If you are not getting sufficient help from Support Team, you could raise a complaint to bring it to the attention of more senior staff. https://smarty.co.uk/complaints
This is something that forum moderator Matthew_SMARTY needs to look into for you.
When you lose a phone, your SIM is blocked, to prevent unauthorised usage.
You should have turned off auto renew on your plan, that way you would not have been charged.
I didn't want to lose the contract as I think I'm still getting a good deal from Three's roaming charges, as I've had the account so long. The account seems to be unsuspended but the card still won't activate. They haven't sent me another new card or suggested doing that. They just keep asking me to check if the card is now active. It isn't.
That’s why the technical team at Smarty need to investigate this for you, and why I tagged Matthew_SMARTY
You basically have two choices :
1, Be proactive, let Matthew help, get the activation process re-started
2, Keep posting that you don’t have an active SIM card and get nowhere
Oh, and by the way, you can pause Smarty’s plans for up to six months without losing your account. Yes, Smarty offer great deals and I am very happy I made the switch from EE in June, but even I wouldn’t pay for a service I couldn’t use, see point 1 above.
