Kelly, little late now but just for others. What you could have done is before you got the phone you could have signed up for whatever plan you wanted on the website or through the phone. Then once you got the phone you could have just taken it to a TMobile store and they would have put the nano SIM in for you. I have always had good service from Tmobile and I am sorry it was such a rough go for you.
-----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kelly Pierce Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 9:19 PM To: viphone Subject: My New IPhone 5 On Friday evening after work, I became a proud owner of an iPhone 5, finally joining generation tech in living the ultra-connected, information rich digital lifestyle. I bought a 32 Gb version at Apple's North Michigan Avenue store here in Chicago. The store was a controlled chaos of hundreds of people, most of them swirling around the open floor plan to soak up the Apple vibrancy and catch the buzz. It is hard to get noticed by Apple sales staff, who struggle to decide who is a tourist and who is an actual shopper wanting to buy something. For sighted people, all the Apple employees are wearing bright red shirts. I eventually was connected to a saleswoman. Once I purchased my phone, she brought me to a second floor area where she introduced me to a trainer named Russell. To my amazement, Russell helped me with unboxing the phone for the first time and then provided a 45 minute tutorial on the phone's physical elements, accessibility settings, initial set up, and he showed me how to perform the basic gestures to use the phone. He showed me how to insert a nanno sim card and at one point he attached an audio splitter to the headphone jack and we both listened to voiceover through headphones so I could hear the demonstration and successfully learn the phone's basic gestures while Russell offered iPhone coaching and feedback. He was patient, thorough, and totally knowledgeable about voiceOver for the blind and understanding how helpful it is to our independence. After buying my IPhone and receiving an iPhone tutorial, I then went to a T-Mobile store a couple of blocks away to sign up for service. The monthly unlimited data and texting plan I wanted with 100 minutes of voice for $30 wasn't available in stores, only online. Signing up for service online was useless without a nanno SIM card to run the phone. The store had these, but I needed to buy a plan that they sell. I was now between a useless store and a useless website. What to do? Brian at the T-Mobile store suggested I buy a daily plan and switch it over when I got home. He gave me the address of a website I could visit for the switch. Brian said the money on this plan could be ported to the other plan. Brian installed the nanno SIM into the iPhone and entered the many settings into the device. He was tapping the screen for at least five minutes entering data. Once home, I tried logging onto the website an was completely unsuccessful. I called customer service and learned that new customers are put on ice for two days and have no website access during this time. I told another T-Mobile representative why I wanted to log on so soon: so I can change services to one more affordable. At first, the representative contemplated the silly idea of referring me to a website I could not access to change my account. He then placed me on hold to check into the problem. When he came back, he had switched me to the affordable plan I wanted. I was so relieved and happy. Now that I was switched over, I provided my credit card again to pay the difference between the $10 in daily credit I bought at the store and my new monthly plan. The T-Mobile fiasco ended Saturday morning when I rose to find my paid for service cancelled for lack of payment, which I had paid the night before. Another day and another call to T-Mobile speaking to a representative on the other side of the world. He successfully diagnosed the problem: my account was short $2 from a charge from the daily plan that I never wanted in the first place. In a very graceful gesture, he offered to credit my account for $2 and restore my service to the monthly plan, which took effect a couple of hours later. T-Mobile is quickly getting its act together in supporting the iPhone. The $30 a month plan is super affordable, compared to triple the price for AT&T service. A week and a half ago, super-fast 3G service compatible with the iPhone was turned on in Chicago and other major American cities. Every issue in getting my iPhone up and running on the company's network was greeted by staff with innovative can do solutions that enabled me increasingly greater use of my iPhone. Now, I am set up permanently with T-Mobile. After putting my life savings into a brokerage account for a juicy Apple gift card, I was able to ultimately afford the phone of my dreams by finding an affordable rate plan one-third of the cost of that offered by other carriers. I have been using the phone with full cell service for less than a day and the access is incredible. I fully appreciate the tremendous independence that people say it offers. Kelly -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
