Trying to buy a mobile phone online... when you don't have access to a mobile phone

EchoLocation

Not sure if this is strictly a Techie topic, but I'm at a loss where else to put it.

Okay, my mobile phone has broken and needs to be sent away for repair. Meantime I would like to buy a relatively cheap one to tide me over until then. Trouble is, buying anything online you are usually required to receive a text message passcode sent to your mobile phone. I had this problem last year when buying my now broken phone, trying to sign in and buy from Amazon was impossible as I was unable to get in because I had no way to get the passcode from the text message. I'm now faced with a similar problem trying to buy from Argos. It all goes though until the transaction, an then I'm told to go into the banking app on my phone and approve the transaction. It's so frustrating trying to buy a phone when you don't have a phone.

Can anybody offer any suggestions? I have access to my emails, so a passcode sent there would be fine, but that not offered as an option.

Neil_Jones

Go to Argos?

EchoLocation

Click & Collect only. Apparently there's some sort of lockdown on at the moment.

RumRat

Pay with a credit card or get someone else to purchase it for you.

EchoLocation

Only have a debit card.

Prefer not to, but somebody else purchasing it is the back up option I guess.

debitcardmayhem

Huh , have you still got the sim card from your broken phone? Buy a phone from amazon insert old sim job done

EchoLocation

Yes I still have my sim, but I won't be able to sign in to my Amazon account without the passcode sent by text. That's the issue I had last time. So my only option then was to create a new account and just not supply a phone number, so any passcode went via email. That worked, but subsequently the phone that I ordered never arrived, just an empty phone box.. which Amazon refused to refund and demanded I file a police report. I did that, and still had to pester them, until I eventually got a refund. And I was told a the refund refusal was likely down to the fact that it was a purchase on a new account. I'd always been wary buying tech from Amazon, and I really don't want to go through all that again.

[Deleted User]

Contact the bank, they can approve your transaction or change it to email notification instead - might depend on which bank you are with but some do this.

debitcardmayhem

Strange I have bought 3 unlocked phones from Amazon and never had a problem , but buy one from argos that should be the same solution.

EchoLocation

I think that will have to be my first action tomorrow tallmansix. If they can change the confirmation to a code sent via email that would be fine, but as this is an approval via the banking app that's preventing the transaction I really don't know what they can do. Perhaps I can log in to online banking and approve it there maybe.

EchoLocation

It just seems such a stupid oversight to not consider that you might not have access to a phone all the time. Particularly if you are trying to buy a phone!