my o2 Pay & Go Sim Card won't work on my o2 iphone 3gs

[RitchieR]

Hi everybody, i'm posting here my issue with O2. I hope it's the right place.
Please, bear with me, as it's a complicate issue.

So, i have been on an O2 contract for 4 years (2+2).
Recently i had to move back to my country, Italy, for work reasons for a long period of time.
So, because my contract was ending anyways before leaving UK, i thought i could keep the number and move to pay as you go.
O2 messed up several times with wrong infos and even sending me a wrong sim for the swap.
So i went to an O2 store, i bought a new sim (with a 10£ prepaid), then called the customer service, and had the swap done at the phone.
The problem arose when they told me that this process (to deactivate the sim on the contract, and to activate the new Pay&Go, plus transferring the number) needed some days, and the 2 sim cards had to be within UK borders for the process to be successfull.

I didn't know this, and i had to leave on the day after. So i left the sim cards to my flatmate, and asked him to send them to my italian address after few days, just the time for the activation to be processed.

All of this happened successfully, but now that i'm in Italy with no ability to call O2 (unless i want to be insanely charged), i discovered that the new Pay&Go sim card is not working on my iphone 3gs that i have been normally using for the last 4 years with the O2 contract. It's perfectly working on an old cheap mobile but not on the iphone. When i put in the Sim, it just shows "no service" and if i do the "airplane mode trick" then it says "sim failure". The iphone is not unlocked, i never modified it. I just used it for all these years with no issues, with the other O2 contract sim card. So now what should i do?
Please, i hope you can help me, as i can't call them or be physically there to go in a shop, the website is slow like hell, and i don't know how to solve this complicate issue. The mobile i'm using now doesn't have all the contacts, messages, documents and bla bla bla that are on the iphone, and i can't waste time copying everything on a horrible cheap mobile that could fail at any moment.

Thank you very much for your attention.

R.

[MI5]

Put the sim in your iPhone and connect phone to iTunes.
That should sort it for you .....

[RitchieR]

Hey thank you very much for your prompt answer. I have already tried it, but nothing happened.

Can you tell me if there are specific steps to do? Maybe i'm missing something.

Thanks,

R.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

Usually syncing the phone and checking that the latest carrier updates are installed does the trick.

[RitchieR]

That solved the problem!!!!

I tried multiple times, but i discovered that the issue was that itunes was blocked from the internet. Once i allowed it to connect, the problem was gone!

You made my day mate! The o2 website is terribly slow, but luckily this forum has great support.

Many thanks again!

R.

[MI5]

Chuffed to bits for you mate

[RitchieR]

Even if Italy is my native country, moving back from London after several years is tough.

I have an infinite list of issues to solve, and this was a really important one!

R.

[Cleoriff]

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@RitchieR wrote:

Even if Italy is my native country, moving back from London after several years is tough.

I have an infinite list of issues to solve, and this was a really important one!

R.

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At least you have a working phone now Ritchie...so that is one issue solved and hopefully things will get easier...:smileywink:

[RitchieR]

Exactly, and i'm really grateful!

Cheers

R.

[Toby]

What a lovely thread

Thanks for the advice everyone and welcome to the community RichieR!