Replacement SIM inserted for 5hrs - Still "Emergency Calls Only"

[SoufferTheCat]

Hi,
My replacement SIM arrived this morning (This is a straight replacement for a lost SIM - had a sticker with my mobile number on the front, indicating this was a pre-provisioned SIM, ready to go).
It has now been installed in my mobile for the past 5hrs. The phone has been restarted a number of times over that 5hr period, yet it sits as "Emergency Calls Only" and in the SIM Manager it says:
SIM1 - EE - 00000000000

Am I just going to have to keep on waiting for something to happen?
I'd happily pay another 50p to get myself up and running with an eSIM - however I believe there is this completely mad system where you need to receive a text message before an eSIM can be activated - meaning obviously, I cannot do this.

[SoufferTheCat]

Hi,
Having lost my mobile, I contacted EE for a replacement SIM on Saturday this week. It arrived today, 9:00am.
Unfortunately, it has been in my replacement mobile since then and here we are, 5hrs later with "Emergency Calls only". I suspect that I will have to contact EE Support - I guess I should be used to it by now.

Major issue right now, I cannot setup & configure my new mobile as I cannot log into my Gmail account - it needs text confirmation, which I cannot receive as my phone has no voice, data or.....well anything.
Is there any way I can setup a divert without having a working mobile so that I can receive text messages on another device/number instead?
Right now I'm completely dead in the water - no email, no texts, no calls, no mobile data.......

[Katie_B]

Good afternoon @SoufferTheCat.

Welcome back to the EE Community. 

Is your phone still showing Emergency Calls only?

Katie

[bristolian]

There's two likely reasons for this.

1: A local coverage outage - check  on the "status" tool https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-coverage-checker but ask friends & relatives locally.

2: An account issue - lost & stolen replacement SIMs are usually pre-activated but stranger things have happened. Contact EE CS from another phone, or via a web-calling app such as Skype (use +44 800 0798586)

Are you able to use WiFi-calling? Any activated SIM would also use that in the event of no-coverage.

[SoufferTheCat]

At 9:00am this morning the phone remains on "Emergency Calls Only" and "SIM1 Not provisioned" so I had to make contact with your support team.
Maybe you can help me on this? I have now been told that the SIM was not pre-provisioned, it appears nowhere in the system, it hasn't been activated, nothing was done with the SIM, it was just a blank SIM and was never going to work.
So I've waited yet another 24hrs without my mobile for absolutely no reason.

After speaking to support this morning I "think" this SIM has now been activated. It was a pleasant enough conversation, but there didn't seem to be any certainty, a lot of the use of the word "should".
I asked what I should do now - should I just wait and watch the phone, restart it occasionally?
No, apparently I need to wait the 24hrs (yes, another 24hrs) before this will be activated.

I've now been without a working mobile since Friday evening. This is NOT EE's fault. However, getting to an EE store is not convenient for me, so when I pay the rather high fee of £1.50 to have a replacement SIM sent and I'm informed that the replacement SIM will be "ready to go, just put it in and you're off" that is what I expect to happen.
I've waited all of Tuesday for something that was never going to happen - I didn't call because you make it clear that it can take "up to 24hrs". I now have to wait another 24hrs and I do pity the person I get through to if I'm forced to make the same call tomorrow.

EE.
Why don't you sent pre-provisioned, ready to go SIM's out pre-provisioned and ready to go?
Why make us wait 24hrs just to then tell us it was never going to work anyway.
Why, now that I've called and apparently had the SIM activated, do I have yet another 24hr wait?

[Christopher_G]

I'm sorry to hear that, @SoufferTheCat 

The SIM can take 24 hours to activate, but it's usually done within a couple of hours. I recommend periodically restarting your phone and hopefully the network will pop up soon.

Chris