I was an Orange PAYG customer for about a year and a half, but never had any reason to contact their customer service department.
Last week, I bought a cheap Nokia Lumia 630 (to replace my spare smartphone that I keep in the car) from EE's eBay store for the bargain price of £39.99
- This is for a brand new handset, with a £10 bundle included!
Nokia Lumia 630
I'd heard that EE will unlock PAYG phones for the fixed price of £8.99, and that the £10 bundle could be used to unlock this handset (it is locked to EE), but I was taking a gamble.
I popped in the SIM card and fired up the "My EE" app. When browsing through the options, I quickly found the "unlock my phone" section within the app, and was dismayed to see that to unlock an EE PAYG phone you need to have had an account and SIM with them for at least six months. (You still have to pay the £8.99 unlocking fee.)
I did have a quick look around for EE unlock codes, but these were typically around £12 on eBay, which was an added expense for a cheap phone, so I thought I'd take a chance and phone EE's customer service section.
Whilst navigating the automated options, I eventually got to speak to a lady who guided me through the process and requested the IMEI of the phone. Once she had this, she asked me for my contact details and asked if I wanted to cancel the £10 bundle and convert this into calling credit - which I could then use to pay for the unlocking. This is exactly what I had been hoping for!
She said that the unlock code would be sent to me by email in the next seven days.
So, I was expecting to end up stuck with a locked EE phone for six months, or at least endure a prickly experience trying to convince EE's customer service department that they should unlock my brand new phone using their £10 bundle.
I have been really very pleasantly surprised with the ease and helpfulness that I've experienced from their customer service department.
Well done EE, and thank you.
