O2
Or, more accurately, Telefonica O2.
Being a series of related bullet points.
- I was in Austin for SXSW, and subsequently Toronto for IN09. If you follow my Twitters, this would’ve been painfully evident.
- My (i)phone stopped working.
- It stopped working on the day I was due to fly up from Austin to Toronto via Houston, and on to my next conference.
- I rebooted it.
- I “turned it off and on again”.
- I wiped it and restored it.
- I reset the network settings.
- I had Lisa from work call O2 (on Tuesday 17th March), and they said there was nothing wrong with the account, and that while I could take it in for repair in the US, I’d have to pay for it myself.
- When I say stopped working I mean like this and this.
- It didn’t start working when I got to Houston.
- Or when I got to Toronto.
- I used Skype to make calls through my laptop over WiFi though. That was quite cheap, and the quality was entirely adequate.
- My phone did “activate” as soon as I landed at Heathrow this morning, though.
- And then later today, I got a text message.
- It said this: “Your mobile usage is unusually high. A call restriction may be placed on your line. Please call the Customer Services number on your invoice to discuss.”
- I got that message when I was in the office.
- I called the number, and spoke to someone in accounts/billing.
- My phone had indeed been deactivated. They had sent me a text message to tell me so.
- I pointed out that they might want to look into the order in which they take those two actions, as there does appear to be a more optimal one.
- She apologised.
- I pointed out that someone had called on Tuesday and spoken at great length to find out if anything was wrong with my phone.
- She checked the records and said they had no record of anyone calling.
- I pointed out that that was a bit silly really.
- She apologised.
- I said: “It’s all very well you sending a text message, but you could also send an email. I can get emails.”
- She said: “Well, it’s an automatic system, you see. There’s not people sending out text messages.”
- I bit my tongue and decided not to say what I thought of their automatic system.
- I pointed out, again, that I had a non-working phone for a pretty important business trip, and the whole thing could’ve been easily fixed.
- She apologised.
- I asked if she could remove the block. She said she would, and that my phone should work again within the hour.
- I asked how we might prevent this sad series of events from reoccurring.
- She said that I should let O2 know of my travel plans in advance, so they can make sure my phone works.
- I went out to lunch.
- When I came back from lunch, there was a letter for me in the mail.
- Apparently, my phone usage has been unusually high…
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