thesingularity
Newbie
This all started over a week ago. I was trying to swap my phone from the blackberry curve to the Evo. A week before I got my Evo in the mail, I had changed my plan from the $25 +$10 plan to the $35 plan. I did this at the end of my billing month so that I wouldn't have to top up my old plan AND my new plan when they force you to switch. Shouldn't be an issue, but it might be worth mentioning. When my Evo arrived, I tried to switch phones online. A few months ago I had swapped my mom's phone to the Motorola Triumph online without a hitch.
Apparently, you MUST call support to switch from blackberries and can't do it online. Instead of getting transferred to the blackberry department, I got a normal tech support flunky. He told me the reason I had to call and couldn't do it online was because I had to pay $10 to switch (incorrect, it was because I had a blackberry). I argued that I had swapped a different phone before online and it hadn't cost me anything. He said that it cost because I was calling a service center instead of doing it online (circular logic anyone?). In fact, they do charge you to swap over the phone, but they're not supposed to for blackberries since you HAVE to call. If I had been transferred to the blackberry department, they would have known that. I argued with him for a while and finally got frustrated and hung up. From that point, my blackberry stopped working and the Evo still wasn't listed on my account. I think this is where the root problem started.
The next day I emailed saveme@thevirginangels.com and they put the Evo on my account. Initially the 3G data worked, but SMS and voice did not. I don't know about the 4G since my work office has no 4G coverage. After calling tech support numerous times, eventually SMS started working, but voice still does not work.
Note: This is not a phone problem or a problem with the provisioning or a problem with the phone talking to the tower, yada yada.
Whenever I try to call ANYTHING on my phone, it rings and I hear a man's voice say "Your account is not authorized to make calls to this number." Additionally, when calling my number from a different phone, there is no dial tone, it doesn't go to voicemail, there is just a busy signal.
Every time I call tech support, they do the same things: Try to push updates to my phone, tell me to go to "update profile" in the menu, reset my account on their end, tell me to take out the battery and wait 20mins. Wash rinse repeat. Still getting nowhere because it isn't a problem with the phone.
They opened an "escalation ticket" for this issue a week ago and I'm still waiting for them to call back. After talking to tech support for the hundredth time and trying to convince them it wasn't a problem with the phone, I had the guy swap me back to the blackberry just to prove a point. Of course the data worked but the calling still didn't. Every single tech support call ends with "I don't know what to tell you sir, everything looks fine on my end"
Finally last night I found through google one of the "secret" numbers to what I assume is Tier 2 tech support. (you can tell because they sound like they actually understand what you're saying and aren't just reading from a script) The girl's first reaction was "Wow, this is amazing." Apparently, I had both the blackberry AND the Evo activated on my account AT THE SAME TIME. So she swapped my phone to a dummy phone MEID and had to purge the MEID for the Evo from the server. The process was supposed to take 2 hrs, and then I would be able to re-activate my Evo to my account and everything should start working. Since it was near closing time for them, she told me to call back in the morning.
Now today I try to call the secret number, but it says it's been disconnected. They must have a pool of these and switch between them every day to keep people from flooding the line. (imagine, people with problems wanting to talk to tech support people with brains) So I resorted to the normal tech support and the guy assured me that the issue was taken care of and all I had to do was turn the phone on.
Obviously, it didn't start magically working or I wouldn't be writing this. My last resort was to try and create a brand new account with a new number, voicemail, everything, and activate my Evo on THAT. Then once I was positive everything was working, try to port my old number over to the new account. After trying to do this with regular tech support and getting transferred back and forth to every single department they have, I've decided I don't want to risk it with these idiots and I need someone higher up the ladder to do this for me.
Has anyone had this problem? Something similar? This is turning into a total nightmare.
Apparently, you MUST call support to switch from blackberries and can't do it online. Instead of getting transferred to the blackberry department, I got a normal tech support flunky. He told me the reason I had to call and couldn't do it online was because I had to pay $10 to switch (incorrect, it was because I had a blackberry). I argued that I had swapped a different phone before online and it hadn't cost me anything. He said that it cost because I was calling a service center instead of doing it online (circular logic anyone?). In fact, they do charge you to swap over the phone, but they're not supposed to for blackberries since you HAVE to call. If I had been transferred to the blackberry department, they would have known that. I argued with him for a while and finally got frustrated and hung up. From that point, my blackberry stopped working and the Evo still wasn't listed on my account. I think this is where the root problem started.
The next day I emailed saveme@thevirginangels.com and they put the Evo on my account. Initially the 3G data worked, but SMS and voice did not. I don't know about the 4G since my work office has no 4G coverage. After calling tech support numerous times, eventually SMS started working, but voice still does not work.
Note: This is not a phone problem or a problem with the provisioning or a problem with the phone talking to the tower, yada yada.
Whenever I try to call ANYTHING on my phone, it rings and I hear a man's voice say "Your account is not authorized to make calls to this number." Additionally, when calling my number from a different phone, there is no dial tone, it doesn't go to voicemail, there is just a busy signal.
Every time I call tech support, they do the same things: Try to push updates to my phone, tell me to go to "update profile" in the menu, reset my account on their end, tell me to take out the battery and wait 20mins. Wash rinse repeat. Still getting nowhere because it isn't a problem with the phone.
They opened an "escalation ticket" for this issue a week ago and I'm still waiting for them to call back. After talking to tech support for the hundredth time and trying to convince them it wasn't a problem with the phone, I had the guy swap me back to the blackberry just to prove a point. Of course the data worked but the calling still didn't. Every single tech support call ends with "I don't know what to tell you sir, everything looks fine on my end"
Finally last night I found through google one of the "secret" numbers to what I assume is Tier 2 tech support. (you can tell because they sound like they actually understand what you're saying and aren't just reading from a script) The girl's first reaction was "Wow, this is amazing." Apparently, I had both the blackberry AND the Evo activated on my account AT THE SAME TIME. So she swapped my phone to a dummy phone MEID and had to purge the MEID for the Evo from the server. The process was supposed to take 2 hrs, and then I would be able to re-activate my Evo to my account and everything should start working. Since it was near closing time for them, she told me to call back in the morning.
Now today I try to call the secret number, but it says it's been disconnected. They must have a pool of these and switch between them every day to keep people from flooding the line. (imagine, people with problems wanting to talk to tech support people with brains) So I resorted to the normal tech support and the guy assured me that the issue was taken care of and all I had to do was turn the phone on.
Obviously, it didn't start magically working or I wouldn't be writing this. My last resort was to try and create a brand new account with a new number, voicemail, everything, and activate my Evo on THAT. Then once I was positive everything was working, try to port my old number over to the new account. After trying to do this with regular tech support and getting transferred back and forth to every single department they have, I've decided I don't want to risk it with these idiots and I need someone higher up the ladder to do this for me.
Has anyone had this problem? Something similar? This is turning into a total nightmare.