In the case of iPhones it is Apple who supplies the code to the networks.
Most contacts with O2 are conducted via online "chats" with their Gurus who listen to what you say and are then supposed to help with advice or answers to problems.
Contact with Three is made by telephone and you actually speak to human beings on a help desk who then help you with advice or answers to problems.
On June 9th my brother-in-law, John, gave me an iPhone which had originally been lost but was found again. The loss had been reported to O2 but not its finding.
I wanted to get this phone working again for Kathie so I inserted an O2 SIM card which would not fire up the phone. I contacted O2 and asked for the phone to be activated. This was on June 10th. The "Guru" from O2 raised no queries about this, told me the phone would be activated and unlocked from the O2 system and all would be complete within 10 days.
After the 10 days were up, and nothing had happened, I contacted them again and was reassured that this time everything would be OK and the phone would be unlocked.
Another THREE calls later I was advised that the phone was on the lost and stolen list and could not be activated until the original owner had called them. I asked John to call them and he on 29th June spoke to another four Gurus before the phone was eventually released and it would work. Here semantics played its part as John only asked for the phone to be unlocked but as it still had the lost and stolen bar on it, nobody advised him of this and the phone stayed barred. In all of this nobody from O2 had the wits to send a simple text or email to us laying out the situation and stating exactly what steps we needed to take.
On the 10 July the lost and stolen bar was finally lifted and the phone became functional but the Gurus had neglected to raise the unlocking request so it would only work on the O2 network.
So now I took over from John again and started the process of having the phone unlocked. Each time I contacted a Guru from O2 I was assured that all was well and that the phone would be unlocked.
By 20th July between us we had spoken to THIRTEEN different Gurus and having absolutely no faith in what they were telling me I asked for a manager to take over the complaint. I received a call from a manager who told me that the advice from numbers twelve and thirteen that the phone would be unlocked within 72 hours was wrong and that it would be 10 days from 20th July.
Finally on 29th July I received a text to say that the phone had been unlocked and could be used with a non-O2 SIM.
Fourteen different people and forty nine days to have a phone activated properly.
I had earlier consulted the O2 website regarding complaints and was invited to send in an email as one of the choices. The complaint would be answered within five days it advised. I sent an email but the automated reply increased the response time to fourteen days.
I have another iPhone and an iPad on the "3" network. On 26th July I telephoned their Help desk asking for both devices to be unlocked from their network so that I may use them in Spain.
On 27th July I received a text saying that they had both been unlocked.
Conclusion
And so Dear Reader I leave you to draw your own conclusion.
All logos (c) O2 and Three
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