I'll just take you through chronologically:
1. Went to the O2 store, spoke to the agent there, showed him my phone HTC One Black, asked if the 4g in my area is good and confirmed that everything will work on my phone. Listened to their tarriffs and decided to take my time.
2. Went home, browsed the internet for O2 tarriffs and actually found one on the website called o2 4g simplicity 12 months plan with 1gb data for a discounted 16gbp. Great!
3. Purchased the plan, entered all my details and set up my account. Purchase was made on 26th February.
4. On the 27th February my order was marked as "Complete", so obviously I went to check my post - nothing there.
5. On the 28th February I went to check the post - nothing there. What the hell i thought, First Class Mail taking 2 days after dispatch? Weird. Went to see my account and guess what? I've already been billed on the 28th. Talked to the O2 support via the Chat, complaied about not getting the sim card, was promised I'll get it next day.
6. On the 1st of March, Saturday, there was obviously no sign of the sim card in the post. I contacted O2 again, and finally they dispatched a new sim card.
7. On Monday, 3rd of March, i got the new sim card, but since it was a replacement I had to go through the procedure of sim swap. No problem, done that. Noticed that my phone doesn't connect to 4G. Went to the O2 4G setup page which after 50 attempts and 3 days always returned with a 500 error.
8. Contacted the O2 support again, explained that I can't seem to activate 4G on the phone and the website setup is broken. They told me - don't worry, we activated it on our end and you'll get 4G tomorrow. During the conversation I also noticed I can add 5gb of data bolt-on for 5 pounds! Awesome, lets do it i thought!
9. Sigh, tomorrow again... On 4th of March... guess what? No 4G. And I'm getting familiar with all the O2 staff at the chat. Contacted the Guru's. First one told me to reboot the device, eject the sim and so on. Duh. After I told him what the problem was I suggested maybe there's something with the APN settings. So this Guru goes - I'm sending the APN settings to your email, goodbye. Awesome.
10. APN wasn't the problem. So I contacted another Guru. Thank God this person was tech savvy and we could talk rather quickly without stupid suggestions like "turn it off and on again". So we're trying to figure out the whole LTE (4G) not working and I notice 1 curious thing: if i force my phone to LTE Only (via 4636 menu) - I don't get any network at all. Guru suggested me to go and search manually and there I can only see two other mobile companies (wont name them, you can guess). Guru says its probably a sim card issue and we say goodbye.
Now, interesting fact I thought - I can see other networks, except O2 and Voda. And guess what? These two networks both work on LTE 800Mhz frequency, while others have 1800 or 2600mhz. I've contacted another Guru and explained this to him, suggesting its probably not a sim card issue (didnt want to wait another two days). Unfortunately this persons tech knowledge was at my grandmothers level. Alright then i thought, ill wait for the sim.
But this issue with LTE has been bugging me. So I went through all my phone documentation and data, Model ID's and serial numbers. I've been able to find that my HTC is actually from Australia. (Surprise). And its model is actually 801s. After another hour I've been able to confirm that this phone's LTE bands are actually only 1800 and 2600mhz. Explains the whole network thing.
So I quickly contacted the O2 support (again. i think they hate me there). I explained that due to some technological misunderstandings I wont be able to get 4G on my phone, and I've explained to the person everything I've written above. We tried to figure out a better tarriff with only 3G on it, but nah - nothing better. So I kindly asked if i can cancel my contract for obvious reasons. After the support spoke to his advisors, they suggested I call 202 and cancel, since I have that option during the 7 day period. I quickly realized that today is 5th of March, my order was on the 26th and this is my last day! It was 7-30pm when I called 202, was told there is a 50min queue and I've waited for 1 hour and 40 minutes listening to some bad music. It was 9-15pm when I hung up, obviously nobody was working after they close (lines close at 9).
* when i heard about the 50min queue I actually asked the support if it is possible to cancel contract via chat or any other option as I'll probably not get through, but the reply was negative. Only via 202 he said.
and what really gets me is that even though i made the order on 26th february i only got it on 3rd of march! lost 4 days right on the spot.
I dont know what to do, probably will go to the store tomorrow and try to get this settled the civilized way.
Maybe there are people on the forum who can help me too?
Please understand that I chose O2 for a reason after lots of research, but, unfortunately, my phone doesnt work with its LTE band. Therefore I want to cancel, wanted to, but couldn't because of the huge waiting times, delays, and many misleading advices.
Best Regards,
D
