Over 72hrs without a successful SIM Swap

[KR94]

My wife's phone was lost on Thursday. We went in-store to get the phone blocked a few hours later, and request a replacement SIM to swap her number over.

In-store rep said they would process the SIM swap for us first, before blocking the phone/account, as otherwise they'd be prevented from processing the swap. Somehow, within the next 15mins, they still ended up locking the account first, and being unable to even activate the replacement SIM.

She told us to wait a couple hours and phone customer services to have them activate the replacement SIM and do the swap.

We called customer services as such, we were told they cannot activate in-store SIMs, that we have to go back in to do so.

We went back in store that same evening just to be told that my wife's entire account was locked due to too many changes, and we had to wait 24hrs before being able to do anything.

We went back in store on Saturday, in-store rep told us Customer Service should have been able to activate the SIM for us over the phone. He activated it for us and processed the SIM swap, told us it could take up to 24hrs to work, and to call Customer Services if it wasn't.

24hours later, the SIM still wasn't receiving any service, so we called customer services as instructed. Customer services refused to help again, spouting the same reasoning, that because it was an in-store SIM, only the store could look at the problem. We asked for a manager, and were told all managers were busy.

We went back in store to relay how we were getting messed about, again. The in store staff point blank told us that customer services were lying when telling us they can't do anything on their end. They also could not see any issues in-store, on the account, preventing the SIM from working. They jumped on web chat to their service reps, explained what had gone on, and the service rep simply suggested putting a bar on the replacement SIM, and removing it to reset the SIM. Leaving us with another 24hr wait, which will take us to 5:30pm today.

The SIM still shows absolutely zero signs of doing anything. We still have no service on it, and I doubt that's going to change.

Has anyone come across this before? How hard can it be to process a simple SIM swap. We've now waited over 72hrs and been bounced between in-store and over the phone customer services for days with no one seemingly able to do anything useful.

Who is telling the truth?

This is the worst service and support I could've imagined.

As a final note, do you know if customer services can directly provide us with a PAC code so we can circumvent all this nonsense and pass my wife's old number to a new carrier?

We have already received a new phone + SIM contract from EE for her, all the while O2 haven't been able to process a simple SIM swap...

[madasaf1sh]

@KR94 

Customer Services can give you the PAC, full details can be found here Guide: Migration & porting into O2  

Also not if you are still in Minimum term or have any device plan balance left these will need paying before being issued to you

[KR94]

Thanks for your input so promptly.

That link only explains how to port into O2 from another carrier, not the other way round, although I assume it is the same process. As long as Customer Services can provide us a PAC since my wife still doesn't have access to her number, then that's fine.

In terms of the minimum term/device plan balance, she does have a balance outstanding. However, in store we were told that we could request the PAC first, and when we give it to EE, O2 will automatically begin the process of closing down her account, and any remaining balance will be taken directly with her next bill. Is that also not true?

[jimthing0]

Don't know the answer, but I concur with how clueless O2 phone staff can be on even basic things like this. Worse, they are also very often completely obtuse and refuse to understand your frustration of simply getting basic things set-up correctly after DAYS of being mucked about. 

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

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@KR94 wrote:

In terms of the minimum term/device plan balance, she does have a balance outstanding. However, in store we were told that we could request the PAC first, and when we give it to EE, O2 will automatically begin the process of closing down her account, and any remaining balance will be taken directly with her next bill. Is that also not true?

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This is correct.

How to get PAC here Guide: How to get your PAC [June 2021 Update]