Archive for the “Handsets” Category

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Oct 14 2011

How to mess up the iPhone launch – Part 5

Posted by Dave in Handsets, Mobiles, Networks, tags: , ,

Well this one is quite a simple way to mess up the launch of a phone. Fail to deliver it on launch day but instead 3 days late and after performing 2 credit checks. The following email has been sent to 3′s executive office but should summarise the situation

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write with regards the above referenced mobile number and the saga I have had to endure in upgrading my sim only one plan sim to the recently announced iPhone 4S.

Having switched to you from O2 in July this year to benefit from your all you can eat data I was excited when the new iPhone 4S was announced and you announced you would be stocking it and taking pre orders. Whilst I was considering both you and O2 with a slight bias to you given I won a free iPad off you earlier this year, the fact that O2 wanted me to queue up in the cold and rain for my phone made my decision between yourselves and O2 quite easy however after all the problems I have experienced I am beginning to wonder if I made the right decision.

On 07/10/11 you opened pre orders and I telephoned to place my order for a 32GB White iPhone 4S on your £40 a month one plan. Having got through to upgrades to place my order at approx 12:30 I am advised that their systems hadn't updated for the iPhone 4S but I would be called back before 14:00 to place my order. At 14:05 with no callback having appeared and being aware of how in demand this phone would be I called back and my order was taken with a promised delivery date of 14/10/11 which is launch day. At 15:22 I received the callback I was promised before 14:00 and advised that I had called back and placed an order.

On 10/10/11 I receive an SMS survey which I filled out mentioning I never received a callback at the time I was promised.

On 13/10/11 a number of people expressed concerns on your twitter feeds about the status of their pre orders. I therefore enquired as to the status of my order and was told that all phone orders were fine, I would get a SMS message that evening letting me know it had been dispatched and a further SMS on delivery day informing me the approximate time I would receive my order. At 18:01 I receive a phone call which claimed to be in response to the survey I have filled out. During this phone call the person I spoke to stated she would have to credit check me again. Having already undergone a credit check the previous week alarm bells started ringing and I terminated the call but sent a tweet to your twitter feed who had sadly closed for the night. I received no SMS message advising me of dispatch of the order and send further tweets clarifying my concerns and advising I'd received no dispatch or delivery SMS

Today, the day my order was supposed to be delivered, I awoke from a very disturbed nights sleep due the anxiety which I suffer from starting to kick in and found no SMS advising me when my phone would be coming. Shortly after my tweets were picked up and a callback arranged. During this callback it is confirmed that the first time I ordered, I was credit checked for an iPhone 4 and not a 4S. Why this should make any difference and prevent the sending of my order is beyond me as end of day I was credit checked for a pay monthly contract. A further credit check is carried out and it is now arranged that my phone will be delivered on Monday. Having already let me down once, I am reluctant to get my hopes up again only for them to be dashed again but I am assured by your support twitter that my order will be dispatched this time.

Needless to say I am not happy that you failed to get the phone to me on launch day and despite an issue with my order, I receive no contact from you with the exception of a phone call from a foreign lady who initially wanted to discuss a survey but moved on to wanting to credit check me which would ring alarm bells for anyone from a cold call as it could well have been "someone called George calling from my bank". I am also not happy that I have been subjected to two credit checks for the phone when I should have only had one and the presence of additional credit searches in a short period of time can have an adverse affect on my credit rating.

I hope you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me with regards the issues I have raised and give me some reason to remain with 3 as any good graces granted by my free iPad are long gone following this experience. I must also insist under section 10 of the data protection act that any data you are processing with the credit reference agencies with regards the incorrect search carried out on 07/10/11 is removed for the credit reference agencies and all records of the search eliminated on the grounds that processing of it is unwarranted and is causing me damage. Failure to comply with this section 10 notice will result in a complaint being filed with the information commissioner. I trust this will not be necessary.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope that I am not forced to consider cancelling my upgrade and returning to O2 and that our relationship can continue without any further issues.

Kind Regards

Me

Sent from my iPad

Not happy to say the least!

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Oct 10 2011

How to mess up the iPhone launch – Part 4

Posted by Dave in Handsets, Mobiles, Networks, tags:

It’s that time of the year again where the networks demonstrate complete ineptitude in handling the launch of arguably the most important handset launch of the year, the recently announced iPhone 4S. Now this year I’ll forgive the 3 day delay in getting pricing information out to us which was a major improvement on last year but instead I’ll be talking about O2′s inexplicable policy of not allowing pre-orders and cancelling their fast track upgrade program for all but the very highest spenders.

On Friday 7th October every major network announced their pricing for the iPhone 4S and opened up pre ordering for new and existing customers to order the phone for either store pickup or delivery on launch day. Every network except O2 that is. Not only were they last to announce pricing but they have also made it only available to existing customers (which in itself isn’t a bad thing) but they are also treating those existing customers like second class citizens by making them queue up in the cold and rain at stupid O’Clock to be able to guarantee getting the handset on launch day and even then it isn’t guaranteed when every single other UK network will happily post one out to you. O2′s twitter feed have been bombarded with complaints about this with their response basically being that doing it this way ensure the maximum number of people can get it on launch day which frankly is complete and utter bollocks!

We then move on to the fast track upgrade issue. Over the course of this weekend a number of O2 customers who have obtained quotes to upgrade early have suddenly found themselves no longer eligible to upgrade. After doing some digging it seems that these customers are no longer eligible due to a change in the terms of upgrading early now requiring customers to be on a £40 or higher tariff. This is another example of O2 altering terms and conditions to suit themselves on a whim such as when they removed unlimited data from tariffs and tried to retroactively alter the terms of existing customers to prevent them from changing tariff. It’s also an example of O2′s short sightedness as to who counts as a high spender as my monthly spend with them is over £40 but is spread over 4 accounts.

Thankfully this is one O2 customer who won’t be queuing in the rain for my iPhone 4S. Three have already confirmed my pre-order with them will be arriving on Friday on launch day. As for O2, despite having bought every iPhone from them since iPhone 3G, they will not be getting a sale from me for 4S. Plus over the course of the next 8 months I’ll be terminating all but one of my accounts with them. Which is a pity as if they hadn’t started to lose their way over the last year or so they would still have many happy customers and not the horde of customers ready to jump ship they currently have.

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Jun 09 2010

How to mess up the iPhone launch – part 3

Posted by Dave in Handsets, Mobiles, Networks, Technology, tags: ,

Mere hours after I posted blasting the networks for the lack of information on the UK pricing for the iPhone 4 a little snippet of information has come to light. Not from the networks who are still remaining deathly silent as the game of chicken continues into a 3rd day but from an anonymous tipster e-mailing pocket lint. Now for reasons that will become clear in this post I am taking this information with an extremely large pinch of salt as I cannot believe O2 would demonstrate such stupidity as to offer an early upgrade offer that isn’t actually an offer (again as you will see later in this post)

The rumoured £20 per month remaining of contract to upgrade looks good on paper sure. Most iPhone customers are on tariffs ranging from £25 to £75 per month so this is great no? NO it’s not great!!!

Most iPhone customers probably believe the iPhone tariffs are the full range of tariffs available to them. They aren’t. I changed 2 months ago from an iPhone tariff over to the standard set of tariffs as I was starting to use my iPhone sim in a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. And being on the standard tariffs makes me aware of two more additional tariffs below the £25 level priced at £15 and £10.

So I will be on the £25 a month tariff with 12 months left to run when the iPhone 4 comes out. So assuming this taken with a pinch of salt report is correct upgrading to the iPhone 4 using the early upgrade offer will cost me £240.

Alternatively I can either try and get an additional contract or if that fails I’ll have to wait 2 months, downgrade to £15 and then to £10 a month and then pay off my contract. That will cost me £25 for the first month, £15 for the second and then £10 months at £10 which is a total of £140 saving £100.

If the report does turn out to be accurate and that really is the O2 upgrade “offer” I’d strongly suggest people take a good hard look at it and work out if it will be significantly less expensive to do it another way

EDIT – The details are now up on the O2 website regarding the early upgrade offer and as feared its the fantastic £20 a month offer that works out more expensive than dropping down to the lowest tariff and then buying out the remaining months of the contract. Nice one O2

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