My iPhone and me: the happy-ending

Coming back to Europe, planning on staying here for a while and having my cell phone contract expiring, I needed a new phone. Asking around and being a little bit of a nerd, my choice was made quickly: I needed an iPhone. After all, I also have a Mac. I had to wait a while until my financial situation recovered, but then, on March 20, the time had come. Since T-Mobile has an iPhone monopoly in the Netherlands, I went to the T-Mobile store to get a new contract. Being greeted by the friendly host and hostess (why does a shop need a host and a hostess…how about employing more real shop assistants so customers get served faster???) I waited for a long time. Then one of the real shop assistants took care of me, gave me my phone, put all my data into the computer, but oh! I had a German IDcard. It is T-Mobile policy not to accept IDcards, only passports. Even though I told him my passport was in Germany and the German law does not even require people to have a passport, he could not transfer my old number to my new contract without my real german passport. Well, I got my precious phone, went home, connected it to my computer and it immediately worked. I was flabbergasted. So much fun stuff to do with a phone! The next day, I went back to the store with a copy of my real passport, my ID and my temporary other passport. All of a sudden the fact that I didn’t have my real passport with me was not an issue anymore. But oh well, I was happy. Until a few days later I all of a sudden was not able to call or send any text messages anymore. So I carried around my other phone of which the contract just expired on April 1 for calling and texting and my iPhone for all the fun iPhone stuff. I repeatedly called the T-Mobile helpdesk, explaining my problem over and over again. The first time, I had to give the person my name and phone number. She was going to take care of it. It didn’t work. A few days later, another person needed all my personal data, including passport number. Still no effect. When I called for the third time (or maybe it was even later and the people in the meantime just weren’t able to help me at all) I was told I would have to fax my contract. Otherwise they couldn’t activate my SIMcard. That was around Easter. My other contract had expired so the only phone I had was my german phone. Since I was travelling everywhere and nowhere around that time (I believe it was Easter) I did not have my contract on me. It was not possible to retrieve it internally in one way or the other. Makes me wonder what they actually do with the contract…A week later, I emailed and faxed my contract. Still, it didn’t reach the right person. I had already visited the Vodafone website and looked at different Blackberries, planning on returning my iPhone and getting one of those if things wouldn’t work asap. I also told that to one of the people I talked to at the helpdesk. As all the others…he said he was sorry but could not personally help me. Throughout all those weeks I yelled at them, I cried on the phone, I requested to see the supervisor: nothing happened. Then, when I had partly given up and gotten a Prepaid Simcard so I would be able to at least reach my friends and be called, the incredible happened: the day before Queensday (April 29), my iPhone finally started working again.

I was happy the moment, but quickly realized that my old number had not been transferred. Still, I was too tired of the whole thing to take care of that immediately. Then one day, around the end of May (I have stopped to track the dates) I decided it was time to ask what had happened to transferring my number. A very friendly person at the helpdesk (who of course could not help me) told me he would start an internal inquiry to find out what happened. I would be called within five working days with the result of that inquiry. I laughed at him. Maybe that delayed the whole thing. So when I called two weeks later, obviously the reason for my number not being transferred was still unknown. And a solution was nowhere to be seen. I think I tried to call once after that and then just let go.

So two weeks ago, on July 30, I receive a call. I am talking to somebody from T-Mobile who is excusing himself for all the inconveniences I have had, offers me a 20€ discount on my next bill and asks if I would still want my old number back. Of course I wanted that. He told me I would receive further notice about how that would exactly go and again offered his excuses. I told him something was severely wrong with his organization and communication structure.

The day before yesterday, when I called Nelleke she asked me: so what is wrong with my iPhone (she just got the new one). When you called, I saw a number, not your name. I was confused at first, but then quickly realized: T-Mobile secretly gave me my number back. Thanks for not telling me. I don’t think I missed anything important, but just in case. The good thing is, I do have my number back. The one I have always had for more than 3 years. Almost five months after I initially got my phone, everything is working the way it should.

There is another thing that I have always been worried about and that I just solved. I know other people have also been through this: when I just got my iPhone, I had several panic attacks a day about losing it somewhere. And nightmares about it getting destroyed somehow. So this week I finally got a princessy pink shell and a display protector for it. It is not really pretty, especially because without the shell it is, but at least it makes me sleep at night. Finally.