Virgin Mobile off to a bad start

So I arrived back in the country from the UK on Friday, and needed to get a SIM card for calls and checking my mail from my phone. So yesterday I figured that Virgin Mobile have the best no-commitment GPRS rates, I'd pick up a VM sim. I'd heard that they'd been having data problems, via the mybroadband forums, but it seemed to be mostly in outlying areas, and I hoped that it'd be fine here in Cape Town, at least as a temporary measure.

Well, I can't say whether it will be or not, because I haven't managed to get it to work yet.

I bought the sim yesterday; and I think their marketing strategy needs to be rethought because at first glance, when you're browsing the Cell C/MTN/Vodacom/VM sims, you notice that all the others are R4.99 while the VM sim is R55. Then you realise that it's because R50 airtime is included, so it's fine, but my first reaction was "never mind, I'll get a vodacom one".

Anyway, I bought the sim, opened the pack, took out the free lanyard and business card holder, read through the Virgin Family specials, noted that you get R100 airtime if you get a Virgin Money credit card (which I was considering, but if Virgin Mobile is typical of Virgin in general, maybe not), read the instruction booklet. Okay. Took out the sim, inserted in my phone - brilliant, it connects to the Virgin network. Then I tried a test call to make sure it works, and got a message saying "you have been automatically redirected to this message because your connection to the network has been cancelled. Please call customer service." Huh? Okay, I think, maybe the sim has to be activated first? But they don't mention in the instruction booklet, nor does the message really make sense. But okay, I'll phone customer service. So I phone 123, only to get a message saying "You have been automatically redirected...".

Nice. So I can't use my sim, and I can't even call them to find out why I can't use my sim. The first is bad enough, the second is downright pathetic. Sure, you can call their customer service line from a landline, but charged at mobile rates. And not everyone has a landline or internet access, which is the route I chose - I emailed them to find out what's going on. 24 hours later, I'm still waiting for a response. Maybe they don't work over weekends?

I did some more testing and found that I did get the Virgin Mobile menu added to the phone, but not the WAP/MMS settings. When choosing 'check prepaid balance' from the menu, I get a message saying 'subscriber locked'. When I request the settings, I get told they're in the pipeline and I'll receive an SMS shortly... 12 hours later, I'm still waiting.

Maybe when it's all up and running it'll work great. But it certainly doesn't seem to be a quick solution. I expect to buy a sim, pop it in the phone, and be able to make and receive calls, send and receive sms's, and use the net, all within a few minutes. But at this rate it looks like it might be a few days, and that's pathetic.

Update: Ok, partly my fault. The back of the sim card holder has activation instructions, which I didn't see. I looked at the side with the PIN number and the cell number, but not the reverse. But it's still partly their fault, because: (1) the getting started guide doesn't mention activation at all, even though it goes into excruciating detail about how to get started, (2) I couldn't get through to customer service, (3) customer service never replied to my email, and (4) even though I've now activated the sim and can call customer service, I get told that my account is locked if I try to phone any other number or check my balance; and I can't send SMSs, even in reply to their WAP/MMS settings (they send one, then you have to reply with 'Y' before they send the next batch). Hopefully the sim just isn't fully activated yet; we'll see.

Update: A hour or two later it was working fine; and this morning I got a call from customer services. I guess they don't work over the weekend. I guess they also don't realise that if I couldn't make any calls, even to 123, I probably wouldn't be able to check my voicemail either. And I guess that they don't realise that if I email them, I probably want a reply via email, not a phone call. Oh well, at least it's working now - I still need to get GPRS working, because they can't automatically push the settings to my Vario, but that's a separate issue.

Update: Got GPRS working on my Vario, but it seems *really* slow. Don't know if that's Virgin Mobile, or just South Africa. Still need to get it working as a modem so I can connect my laptop to the net using GPRS; hate using dial up!