Hi Leanne, as I had an email from you reminding me to update the post I have done so below, but you might not like the result.
To cut a long story short I wasted a lot of time on phone calls to support and ended up making a complaint to EE. I include the basic text of it below for anyone interested in the outcome.
"I have an old Nokia 5500d phone with Orange SIM card which was working fine until I was sent a new EE SIM, probably related to 3G switchoff, I did not request one. I inserted the SIM and got the message 'SIM card not valid'. I called EE and was told the new SIM required activation. This was done but the message 'SIM card not valid' remains. However, I can no longer use my old Orange SIM either as this now gives a message 'SIM card registration failed'. So I am now disconnected totally.
I put up a forum post and was advised the phone might be locked to Orange. I tried the on-line unlocking page but it would not accept the IMEI number. I called EE again to get an unlock code but the adviser was evasive and due to the language problem it was not entirely clear what he was saying. He seemed to be saying the phone was not locked but it was unclear and as he seemed very keen on trying to sell me an 'upgrade' I'm not sure he was that interested. He did say though that he thought the new SIM was fundamentally incompatible with my older phone.
I do not wish to waste any more time and potentially money on calls to expensive 07953 numbers as of course I no longer have a working mobile phone and have to call from a landline. So in order to resolve the complaint please do the following.
1) Reverse the SIM card switchover that was done and re-enable my original Orange SIM. Then I will at least have a working phone and let me know this has been done.
2) Either unlock the phone from Orange and confirm this or confirm to me that it is already unlocked so that I can use any working SIM card in it if necessary.
3) Ensure that any future SIM cards you send me are suitable for use with the phone. After all you have had this phone on your records for years if not decades"
