Trying to join EE and port my number ... but nothing seems to be working?

[countrycat]

Trying to move my phone number over from Virgin mobile to EE, and it doesn't seem to be going very well.

Timeline -

Bought a pay-as-you-go subscription pack with new SIM from the EE.co.uk website, and filled in the section for porting my number. Got a PAC code from Virgin mobile, and entered that into the EE form. Credit-card payment was accepted, all looked good.

Received the new SIM yesterday, and registered my account. Received a text saying a recurring credit card payment has been set up for the subscription pack.

But the account page is showing 0.00 credit and no payments. Why? The correct subscription pack that I chose is showing.  Do I need to set up a recurring payment again, even though I already did that when I initially bought the SIM? 

And my number has not been ported. When I go to the link to port my old number it refuses to accept the PAC code. Again, why?

Do I just need to wait a few more days?  I had moved from Virgin mobile because of their poor customer service and inability to get roaming working. Not impressed with EE so far either.

[Leanne_T]

Hi there @countrycat 

Thanks for coming here. 

Can you text BALANCE to 150 and let me know the full reply? 

You won't need to enter the PAC again, the number transfer will start when the EE SIM card has been set up, have you made a call or sent a text? 

If so, the transfer will start the next working day if this was before 5:30 PM. 

Leanne.

[countrycat]

Texted "BALANCE" to 150 and got -

"Your current balance as of today (12:11) is £0.00

Shouldn't it be showing the £15 I paid when I bought the SIM + subscription pack?

[Leanne_T]

I would suggest getting in touch with our pay as you care team to get this looked into @countrycat 

You can find ways to contact us on the get in touch page. 

Leanne.

[countrycat]

Sigh.  You would think just buying a SIM and signing up would be simple. 

Just checked credit card and the purchase is showing. Was charged £15 for the subscription pack and SIM. Transaction was made on Sunday 19th March.  The SIM was received in the post on Tuesday 21st.

The SIM appears to be active - I can text to 150 and get balance update etc.

But the account balance is still showing as £0.00 as of end of Wednesday 22nd.  So I can't call or text using this SIM yet.

I guess I'll have to fight with customer services to straighten this out...

Update:   Just tried this page:  https://ee.co.uk/contact-ee/account-billing/mobile

The "Message us" box says a "Start conversation" button will appear. But it doesn't work in Internet Explorer (latest version, which actually is Chrome under the hood). It does appear to work in Google Chrome.  *mutters curses at your web developers*.

Update 2:  Rage intensifying.  Got the chat working. Only to be told that I should just phone the contact centre between 9am and 5.30pm.  Tempted to go back to Virgin mobile at this point.

[countrycat · Accepted solution]

Well, problem eventually resolved.

It appears as if the initial payment made at EE.co.uk when I bought the SIM and subscription pack had just ... disappeared off somewhere.  The money had been charged to my credit card, but was not credited to my pay-as-you-go account. So that was just showing 0.00.  I guess it was floating around in some EE bank account somewhere...

Customer services credited my account, and that fixed things. My number was ported automatically, and I can now call and text. Although I do have to manually add in my card details again, and set up repeating payments.

When I received my order confirmation email, the text contained this delightful bit of breakage --

Your current number will be transferred within 1 working day.
$ctx.order.directDebit.accountHolderName
null - null - null ****null

It seems like no-one is testing anything at the moment.  Let's hope automatic renewal of my subscription pack works...

[James_B]

Thanks for the update @countrycat 

Please let us know if there are any issues with your pack renewal.

James