YOLO!

On Friday, September 25, I visited the Apple Store yesterday to upgrade to a new iPhone.

It was the first time I ever visited an Apple Store to buy a product on its release day.

Definitely the last time I’ll ever do it.

My timing was perfect, though. It was a beautiful clear sunny day and the store opened at 8 AM. I arrived at 10 AM, hoping the line had thinned out by that point. It had. There were only a handful of people ahead of me waiting for an Apple rep to escort them in the store.

I currently have a refurbished 4s that I bought through AT&T over two years ago. And the 4s was several iterations behind (at the time) the current 5c. So I was ready for an upgrade.

I was ushered in quickly and paired with a very sweet young man, Jesse, who answered my questions. I was really hoping to be able to keep my Walmart Family Mobile Plan ($31 buckeroos a month, peeps! Unlimited text, data and calls!). Because the Family Mobile Plan is advertised as T-Mobile, I thought I was a T-Mobile customer.

No.

The Trip Into Mordor

After 1.5 hours, the Apple rep learned (after calling the Family Mobile Plan number) that my husband’s account (which I joined in June), wasn’t actually a T-Mobile account. The Walmart Family Mobile Plan just uses T-Mobile’s towers but it’s a 3rd party service. So I couldn’t use a new iPhone with the plan (Cue wailing sound. It really is an amazing plan.).

So I finally reluctantly tell Jesse that it looks like I have to join Sauron and sign up with one of the four major carriers in order to get out the door with a new iPhone. We then proceeded to sign up with “the real T-Mobile.”

Somehow, in the midst of everything, Jesse had trouble porting my number and ended up giving me a Cleveland phone number! I didn’t realize what was happening until he told me my new number. Which had a 216 prefix.

Ruh-roh.

I said, “I think this is Cleveland…” He told me it really didn’t matter where I was, the service would work fine (yes). I told him I wanted to keep my current number and by that time, he was tired and so was I. He said I could contact T-Mobile to get that set up. By the time I walked out of that Apple Store, it was 3.5 hours later.

Oh… and just for gits and shiggles, the T-Mobile rep at the Apple Store bailed. It was 10 freaking-o-clock in the morning (the store opened at 8 AM) but the guy was nowhere to be found. AT&T and Verizon had their reps in there helping customers, but no T-Mobile.

Maybe the orcs got him.

AND T-Mobile’s online system (which had to be accessed from an iPad) was experiencing glitches. Yay, me.

There and Back Again

I get home and call T-Mobile to ask them to please assign my regular number to the new phone. Talked to 2 people and the second woman said I’d need to switch out the SIM card. Which didn’t make sense because the new iPhone already had a SIM card and I knew that the old one from my 4s phone wasn’t going to fit a 6s. She told me the process would be faster if I visited a T-Mobile store.

So I hustle out the door to make haste to The Prancing T-Mobile Inn, praying to the Mobile Gods that oh, please… haven’t I suffered enough? Can’t this go by more smoothly?

Alas, the Mobile Gods were evidently still ticked off that I had dared to think bad thoughts about all of this and gave me ample reason to ask Gandalf to just send one of those giant eagles to fly me away. My wish was not granted.

I spoke with a lovely young lady at the T-Mobile store who listened to me and said, “Oh, no problem!”

Now this is an aside but I know that when someone says, “Oh, no problem!” It’s going to be a problem.

She punches in some information in her system and tells me my regular phone number will be ported to the new phone in 2 – 3 hours.

I went home and waited. I didn’t get a text message saying the porting was complete but asked my husband to call my regular number. My old iPhone rang. Of course it did. Why on earth would I believe a T-Mobile rep from their store? Silly me.

I went to bed, desperately hoping that my own personal Comedy of Errors drama was coming to a close. Maybe I’d wake up on Saturday and my regular number would be on my new iPhone! If wishes were horses, I’d have a horse farm by now.

Nothing changed. I tweeted my frustration. I got a response from a T-Mobile rep on Twitter after 40 minutes. Time to visit the store again.

Escaping Moria

Mike at T-Mobile had to call their own customer service line three times (he was disconnected twice) to find out what was going on. My order to port my number was in the system. But he told me they needed my husband to call the Walmart Family Mobile folks to release my number. I told Mike that the young lady yesterday didn’t tell me that and he apologized by saying she didn’t know.

Goodness… what was I thinking? Surely I expected too much to imagine that a store rep would know their company’s business! Ah, well. Mike assured me that if my husband called the Family Mobile Plan within 24 hours, all should go well.

Again. Horses. Wishes.

My husband (who was starting to get almost annoyed as I was), called the Family Mobile people to “release” my number and ask them to out port it. The rep he talked to said that the T-Mobile store steered me wrong and that THEY needed to do the porting.

This time, my dear husband said, “Let’s both go to the T-Mobile store and see if we can get this straightened out.” So we did. The T-Mobile guy (someone new… not Mike) said that yes indeed, the out port needed to be done by the Family Mobile Plan people.

Meanwhile, he looked in the system and said the process to port was in motion. He also seemed to think that because we spoke to the Family Mobile Plan guy, he *probably* released the number. I still have to wait at least 24 hours to see if it goes though. In fact, the T-Mobile guy told me to wait until Monday morning before taking further action.

I could feel the orcs breathing down our necks. I wasn’t sure if we’d get out alive.

He did give me his business card and asked me to call him if I ran into more problems. I wondered if I could call him and ask him to bring me a case of Guinness? Because that’s what I really wanted at that moment.

I discovered that yesterday, T-Mobile experienced problems with their porting system because they were overwhelmed. I guess no one told T-Mobile that this little company called Apple was releasing their new iPhone yesterday.

Finally, at around 1:30 AM early Sunday morning, my regular number was added to my new iPhone. A fantastical journey, indeed. But one I never want to repeat.