Seeing that I was only using a fraction of the allowance on my pay monthly contract, I decided to downgrade to a pay as you go tariff on my iPhone. I opted for the text and web plan because that made more sense for me. I wanted to keep my mobile number and o2 said that they would send me another sim card through the post as the other one would not work when it was time for the switch over.
Couple of days after the call to 02 to switch plans, I received the Pay as you go sim card. I was told that I would need to switch the sim cards on the date that the switch over would happen which was 2 weeks from my initial call to 02. All they told me was that I would just need to remove my old sim card and insert the new one and everything would work fine. They also mentioned that it could take several hours before I would be able to use the new sim card.
On the switchover date which was yesterday, I changed sim cards because my pay monthly sim showed “No service” at the top instead of showing me the 02 mobile service operator. I tried to call my cell phone but I received “The person you are calling is not accepting anonymous calls” message. I thought that the new sim card was not ready to use. Since the switch over happens at midnight, I expected things to start working back to normal within 12 hours but I still could not get through at 7pm in the evening.
So my mobile phone was not working and I was getting nervous now. I tried switching it off and back on a couple of times but that did not work. Although I knew I couldn’t make calls because I have not topped up yet, I tried that as well and it prompted me to top up which I denied. I wanted to know that everything was working fine before I spend my money. O2 send me a couple of messages and they said that switching the mobile on and off until it connects is the way to go but obviously that did not work. I decided I was going to call 02 the next day if it does not work because if I call them on the same day, they would just say that it needs time and the switchover would happen sometime soon.
Well the next morning, the mobile was not working and I gave 02 a call and the agent told me that I need to top up first before I can use the phone. She said that it’s only when you top up for the first time that the pay as you go sim card gets activated. Well why did 02 not tell me anything about this in the first place? For a whole day I was not reachable, I could not make/receive calls and text messages and spent time looking on the net for a solution to the problem when o2 could just have told me this.
Instead of sending me text messages for extras that I can get, I would prefer them to tell me how to get my sim card to work. Anyway there was a new number on the new pay as you go sim card but that was overriden with my previous mobile phone number. For now everything is fine and I’ve associated my bank card with the sim for easy top up.