3G HSDPA sim activation taking forever

T

TMoose

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Vodacom3g please help.

Yesterday morning I headed off to the Menlyn Park Vodashop to sign a 3G HSDPA contract including the USB modem. Upon asking the sales guy told me that it could be activated within 3 hours and that he would put in a special request on my behalf to that effect. I was out of the shop by 11AM.

Tried connecting at 6PM but it wasn't working yet. Put my cellphone sim into the modem and it worked. Called up 111, but gave up after 10 minutes. Tried several more times and finally got through at 9:30PM. Was informed that the 3 hour thing was incorrect and that I would have to wait until after midnight when the accounts get reset for the product to be loaded. If it still didn't work then it would work in the morning.

Tried connecting at 12:10am with no success. Woke up this morning, nothing. Again phoned 111, gave up after 15 minutes. Phoned later and used the call back service, only to be called back by somebody that dealt only with prepaid subscribers and told me to call 0821082. Phoned that number, gave up after 12 minutes.

It has been more than a day since I've signed the contract and I have still had no use of the product I will give Vodacom money for at the end of the month. In the meanwhile I am forced to use GPRS at insane rates while I should have been able to surf using the modem since yesterday already.

How do I get this damn thing activated?
 
Well i assume they take as long as with prepaid sims. My prepaid sim took 24 hours to
be activated [that is, to be seen as a user on the network this is NOT data enabled yet] . Then it took ANOTHER 12 hours after i requested my sim be data enabled to actually start browsing.

So i'd say give it 2 days.
 
Well in my case it has been 30 hours already and the sim hasn't even been activated. Inserting it into my cellphone displays "Inactive Sim". This is getting really frustrating. I had my reservations about getting a data contract with Vodacom and it now seems I made the wrong choice after all.
 
Unfortunately it is the responsibility of your service provider to activate the SIM card - in this case represented by Vodashop Menlyn, and if they have not activated the SIM card then there is not much that can be done other than throwing a hissy fit in the general direction of Vodashop Menlyn.

If I were you, I would call Vodacom's Data Helpdesk [155,,3,,0,,# for callback - listen to the callback instructions], and get 155 to double check the status of the new SIM card, at the same time send off an email to [email protected] and complain politely about the lack of service that you have received from Vodashop Menlyn - give the details of the person(s) that you have been dealing with. Remember that Vodashop Menlyn will be an independently owned shop that Vodacom does not have complete control over, but it is still possible for Vodacom to change the weather forecast over Vodashop Menlyn to 'mis-kolle'...
 
Thanks for the info ic. Just spent 22 mins on the phone talking to 0821082 and they basically just confirmed what you said: that there's nothing they can do about it and that I should take the sim back to Vodashop Menlyn. They couldn't activate the sim from their side, the system said they were not authorised to do so.

Why oh why can't anything ever just work right the first time.
 
TMoose said:
Thanks for the info ic. Just spent 22 mins on the phone talking to 0821082 and they basically just confirmed what you said: that there's nothing they can do about it and that I should take the sim back to Vodashop Menlyn. They couldn't activate the sim from their side, the system said they were not authorised to do so.

Why oh why can't anything ever just work right the first time.
Click to expand...

Send anyway a polite email to [email protected] - and assist future subscribers to avoid the same problem.
 
kaspaas said:
Send anyway a polite email to [email protected] - and assist future subscribers to avoid the same problem.
Click to expand...
Don't worry, I will. Just got off the phone with Vodashop Menlyn. They now say I should allow 48 hours and not 24. They also claim that the sim has been active since 12:02PM. When asked why it still says "Sim Inactive" when I put it into my phone they claimed that it was because of network problems and that I should try again at 6PM.

This kind of thing makes me plain moerig. The waiting time has gone up from a supposed 3 hours to a supposed 48. If this thing isn't working by 6PM I'm going over there to throw a hissy fit in the store.

===
Update:

6pm has since come and gone. The sim card is still inactive. Two subsequent calls to Vodashop Menlyn have gone unanswered even though the guy said earlier they are open until 7pm. I have sent an e-mail to [email protected] and will go to Vodashop Menlyn tomorrow. This deal so far has cost me hours of my time, costs in term of phone calls and tomorrow an unplanned trip to the mall and loads of frustration being sent from one person to the next.
 
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I had a 4U contract activated for someone. It took 22 days of begging, calling, gettting promised to be called back, this and that excuses, passing the buck, etc etc. before activation took place. Hellopeter was the last resort. After posting the complaint it took about 24 hours more to get activation.
 
Ajax, I sure hope your story doesn't apply to me, but I can't help but get this sinking feeling. Finally got hold of Vodashop Menlyn again. The pretty rude dude that answered the phone informed me that I was obviously wrong because the card was already active. He then told me to phone 155 before putting down the phone in my ear.

Phoned 155 and spoke to a guy named Eric (sounded like Eric anyway) who informed me that he actually doesn't deal with that kind of query but would try to get hold of somebody from activations for me. He sounded quite helpful but unfortunately after holding for about 9 mins the line was dropped. Frankly I'm too tired to phone again and I've had my fill of crap music for the day.

I'm seriously considering trying to cancel the contract at this point, as I haven't even used it in the last two days. I've had no useful feedback from any Vodacom representatives at any point.
 
All i can say is that i feel your pain, they just dont seem to be very service driven the Vodashops.

They love giving you the run around, pointing fingers and not really helping you. its a common excuse by the staff to buy time whilst the managers work off hang overs.
Best thing is to leave the sim card out/ powered off... then physically go there and get them to activate the account, it worked for me, was up and running in four hours after that. The one staff member confirmed that they had forgot to activate the SIM, and on another instance they took the wrong sim card number down and it took them 2 days to work that one out... GO VODACOM...

Good luck
 
i agree with the service received from the Vodashops - I am a victim to that -
these poor sods are confused as well....... the info i got from them was totally not the same as received from Vodacom client care .......

mmmmmmmm. says alot bout service hey:mad:
 
i was told i had to buy a 64k sim card for my usb modem to work. a week later and two trips back to the shop i am still waiting for the sim swap to happen from the 32k card to the 64k card. and the 32k card works just fine. so i'm not even going to bother anymore :confused:
 
Went to Vodashop Menlyn on morning of 2007-04-18. After much head scratching and talking to each other the people there were able to establish that I was, in fact *gasp*, right. Something went wrong with the activation of the sim and activation was locked.

According to them this usually happens when there's some kind of system error. Guy took my number and promised to call me as soon as the activation is done.

As of 7pm no phone call. As of 5:40am on 2007-04-19 still no active sim. It is now day 4 since signing the contract, still no use of what was said I would be able to use within 3 hours.
 
Vodashop Menlyn Park is F*%^$# incompetent!! They need to be shutdown ASAP!!! Is not possible that you could go for help at Voda World. Their service is usually very quick, I was activated within a day.
 
TMoose said:
Went to Vodashop Menlyn on morning of 2007-04-18. After much head scratching and talking to each other the people there were able to establish that I was, in fact *gasp*, right. Something went wrong with the activation of the sim and activation was locked.

According to them this usually happens when there's some kind of system error. Guy took my number and promised to call me as soon as the activation is done.

As of 7pm no phone call. As of 5:40am on 2007-04-19 still no active sim. It is now day 4 since signing the contract, still no use of what was said I would be able to use within 3 hours.
Click to expand...

Won't you PM me the name and number of the people you spoke with at Menlyn. Also the contract number and your details. I'll give them a call.
 
vodacom3g said:
Won't you PM me the name and number of the people you spoke with at Menlyn. Also the contract number and your details. I'll give them a call.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response vodacom3g. The issue is resolved now. Phoned them again today and at around 2pm it started working. Nobody could give me a real explanation for what was wrong and what took so long in the end. I'll pm you the details in any case, I'm not sure if they maybe stuffed up and I'm actually still going at R2 / mb here.
 
If you dial *111# and follow the prompts to check your data bundle balance it should say how many kB's you have left. My friend had to wait 24 hours for it to become active. Before it was active he got some other message, can't remember the details, but it basically said he didn't have a bundle.
 
ajax said:
If you dial *111# and follow the prompts to check your data bundle balance it should say how many kB's you have left. My friend had to wait 24 hours for it to become active. Before it was active he got some other message, can't remember the details, but it basically said he didn't have a bundle.
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Thanks Ajax, I'll check it out. My only problem currently is I seem to be stuck in the 2G zone. When HSDPA kicks in it's a thing of beauty and I get 70KB/s or more, but most of the time I'm getting 6-12KB/s. No idea if that's normal.
 
TMoose said:
Thanks Ajax, I'll check it out. My only problem currently is I seem to be stuck in the 2G zone. When HSDPA kicks in it's a thing of beauty and I get 70KB/s or more, but most of the time I'm getting 6-12KB/s. No idea if that's normal.
Click to expand...

What does the 3G coverage map say about your location?

Glad you (eventually) came right.
 
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