The Peoples Operator 4G Swap Porting Problems

Oh dear.
After a few posts in these forums about TPO too.

Four phones in our (extended) household with TPO.
Three temporary numbers registered yesterday and PAC codes given, new accounts sorted and due to switch over today (the final one due tomorrow). Service on the existing EE-based SIMs is due to end on the 28th July.

The card which comes with the 4G sim is entitled "Important Guide..." and takes you step-by-step through the process.
In this it clearly says "While your number is swapping from your old SIM card to the new 4G Sim card, you may lose service for a few hours (normally between 8am to around 1pm, however it can take up to 6pm)."
Er, not today it hasn't.
Not on even one out of three.

Having just been on their online chat (which is now so busy they seem to have stopped the service - I wonder why?:p ) the reply was that they have been so busy with the thousands of transfers all due today. But please keep your 4G sim in this evening - it IS due to transfer over.

Well, no poop Sherlock as the saying goes, who'd have thought it eh?
If you have thousands of customers and you decide to transfer all of these in a few days before the existing service finishes shouldn't you be prepared?

The first time I have found TPO's service to be poor.
Provided the transfers do (eventually) happen, if that is all we have to grumble about we will stay because otherwise the service from TPO has been good.
Well, better than we found Vodafone or GiffGaff. ;)
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Comments

  • I'm waiting for my number to move too. Have had no interruption in service all day, and had an email from support saying the PAC had been successfully used.

    Still, I'm slightly concerned I'm going to lose a 14 year old number!

    While their service over the past couple of years has been great, this switchover has been marred by misinformation and slow communication. Shame, really. Fingers crossed hopefully everyone gets sorted.
  • From their own blog ( https://tpo.com/groups/tpo-help-uk ) ; from Facebook & Twitter it does look pretty much as if no-one has had their number ported over to 4G. :mad:

    Has anyone (or does anyone know of someone who has) ported their number over to TPO's 4G service yet?
  • Ferris
    Ferris Posts: 471 Forumite
    In the case of my elderly mother, TPO were late informing her of how to order a new SIM, late to send the SIM out, delayed issuing the PAC until Monday (i.e. giving a maximum of 3 days to use it), did not let her choose a porting date, and then messed up the port so that the original SIM with her number disconnected yesterday and the new SIM is stuck on the 'temporary' number. They are ignoring all emails begging them to get this fixed in time to keep the number, presumably so they can shrug and say "nothing we can do" tomorrow.

    Absolute shambles of a company :mad:
  • RHemmings
    RHemmings Posts: 3,424
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    They do answer facebook messages, eventually.

    Earlier in the day, both my temporary and long-term numbers were not recognised. Now I can ring my long-term number, but it goes straight to voicemail even though the phone is on and charged. I can phone out from my phone, and the number is reported to be my long-term number.

    So, it appears that the switchover is in progress, but not complete.

    I learnt my lesson about leaving things close to the deadline when I switched from Sainsbury's when it closed down. Things got very unresponsive near the end, and even though I left days, I ran out of time trying to keep my old number.
  • Ferris
    Ferris Posts: 471 Forumite
    edited 27 July 2016 at 2:46PM
    RHemmings wrote: »
    They do answer facebook messages, eventually.

    Earlier in the day, both my temporary and long-term numbers were not recognised. Now I can ring my long-term number, but it goes straight to voicemail even though the phone is on and charged. I can phone out from my phone, and the number is reported to be my long-term number.

    So, it appears that the switchover is in progress, but not complete.

    I learnt my lesson about leaving things close to the deadline when I switched from Sainsbury's when it closed down. Things got very unresponsive near the end, and even though I left days, I ran out of time trying to keep my old number.

    :D Same thing with me with Sainsbury's. That was even weirder though, as the number failed to port to EE, and then EE (somehow) revived the number a month or two later... and then lost it again. Bizarre.

    This situation is not comparable, however, because at least Sainsbury's gave us plenty of notice and opportunity to switch - we did not even receive the PAC until Monday, and now they seem to have lost the number.

    I was half tempted to just port out of TPO for good once it became clear how massively they'd screwed up, but I would imagine that as the old SIM is dead, a port attempt even by another network will be no use whatsoever.

    EDIT: TPO are in cloudcuckooland. Apparently my mum's number has ported, even though the 4G SIM is still displaying the temporary number when I call out, and the original number is still unreachable ("not been recognised"). Yet still they insist the port has gone through. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
  • TPO would save themselves a bucketload of problems if only they would release a statement & keep customers updated.

    I can see them facing an Ofcom investigation because there are sure to be complaints - and LOTS of them from what I am seeing on social media and their own help blog.
    Whenever I do get a reply (almost 2 days via FB message) I am fobbed-off with "please bare with us" and "thank you for your patience".
  • Ferris
    Ferris Posts: 471 Forumite
    TPO would save themselves a bucketload of problems if only they would release a statement & keep customers updated.

    I can see them facing an Ofcom investigation because there are sure to be complaints - and LOTS of them from what I am seeing on social media and their own help blog.
    Whenever I do get a reply (almost 2 days via FB message) I am fobbed-off with "please bare with us" and "thank you for your patience".

    Someone on the TPO help thread suggested they'd received another text with a new deadline for porting out (5th August instead of tomorrow). Can anyone with an active TPO SIM confirm this?
  • RHemmings
    RHemmings Posts: 3,424
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    edited 27 July 2016 at 3:55PM
    I received the text. It says 5th of August.

    My phone is now working with the proper number. So, everything has been solved. In my case nothing really went wrong except for the long period when the phone wasn't working. I don't know how much of that was TPO's fault, and how much of that was the phone needing a factory reset.

    TPO's communication has been generally poor. Even the text I just received assumes that I haven't yet started the process of porting the number and asks me to do so. There was a long period of time when things weren't working and I didn't know why. This has, I think, caused the problem. But, the bottom line is that they did sort it out. So, I am (perhaps the only?) a person who has had their number ported to 4G.

    My number was saying that 'number has not been recognised' bit this morning, so the phone described above might be somewhere in the same process that I was.

    I thought of posting my number so that people can actually phone me and see a working TPO 4G number. But perhaps a public forum is a bad place for that :)
  • RHemmings
    RHemmings Posts: 3,424
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    TPO would save themselves a bucketload of problems if only they would release a statement & keep customers updated.

    Quoted for truth.
  • smsm1
    smsm1 Posts: 13 Forumite
    I'm also waiting on my number to port over which started about 3pm yesterday, and is still giving unrecognised to my long term number at 5pm today. Another annoying thing is that they've somehow moved me from pay monthly to pay as you go.

    I'm surprised that they've given such a short time for the transfer. To the point that if you are away for a week's holiday you could lose your phone number.
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