Meteor not honouring free call credit offer?

Stark

Hi,

I had an unpleasant experience with Meteor customer care today.

In November, I availed of this offer: http://www.meteor.ie/personal/switch_to_meteor/free_sim/

In order to avail of the first €10 free call credit, I followed the following instructions to the letter:

"Within the first 2 months of getting your FREE SIM, register your details with us and top up by €10.

You’ll then receive €10 FREE call credit on the 10th of the following month."

However, I since received no credit. So I rang up Meteor today and was told by the person on the phone that the offer didn't apply to me since I didn't buy a handset and I wouldn't be getting the credit. When I told them what was written on the website and what was written on the SIM pack I bought, I was quite rudely told "That's not what's on the screen in front of me so tough. If you want to get your next month's call credit, then top up with €20. Anything else I can help you with?". Needless to say, I won't be giving them anything and will be switching back to O2 tomorrow.

Just wondering if anyone else tried availing of the offer and had the same result? It's extremely frustrating that they won't honour what they have written on their website and what their representative told me when I was in the shop buying the SIM, not to mention getting fobbed off when I try to complain about it :mad:

Sam Vimes

in fairness, switching back to o2 because of one misinformed and rude customer care agent is a bit ridiculous. you wouldn't last a day on 3.

firstly, you are entitled to the credit. did you top up by €20 in the next month? the sentence after the one you quoted specifies that as one of the conditions. afaik, you have to top up x amount each month to get the free credit on all networks now. meteor, 3 and o2 definitely have that condition. not sure about vodafone.

if you did top up by €20 each month and the credit didn't arrive, then call customer care again and explain the situation. if the person says you shouldn't have got the credit, ask to speak to a team leader. i can guarantee you that you are entitled to the credit when you buy a sim pack because i got it.

if you didn't top up by €20 each month, then sorry but you forfeited the credit as per the terms of the offer. and changing back to o2 won't do you any good because they have the same term

Doctor DooM

FYI OP if you return to O2, you won't get any free credit without purchasing a phone- it's a sim reactivation, rather than a new number see. As mentioned above, your best bet is to argue your corner.

TBF I don't know all that much about the specifics of Meteors PAYG options but I knew you needed to top up by 20 euro a month, for the last year or so.

Stark

Commander Vimes wrote: »

firstly, you are entitled to the credit. did you top up by €20 in the next month? the sentence after the one you quoted specifies that as one of the conditions. afaik, you have to top up x amount each month to get the free credit on all networks now. meteor, 3 and o2 definitely have that condition. not sure about vodafone.

if you did top up by €20 each month and the credit didn't arrive, then call customer care again and explain the situation. if the person says you shouldn't have got the credit, ask to speak to a team leader. i can guarantee you that you are entitled to the credit when you buy a sim pack because i got it.

if you didn't top up by €20 each month, then sorry but you forfeited the credit as per the terms of the offer. and changing back to o2 won't do you any good because they have the same term

Okay. I read it as:

3 installments of €10

To qualify for the first installment, top up by €10 the first month
To qualify for second installment, top up by €20 the next month
To qualify for third installment, top up by €20 the month after.

If you have to top up by €20 in the first month, that's certainly not made clear. I'll ring them again tomorrow though to ask them to lay it out to me. Anyway,

Tbh, if it is a case of me being unable to understand their T&Cs, I'm as happy to leave anyway because I never had a problem understanding O2's T&Cs. Also, I have GPRS connection problems with Meteor that I haven't been able to resolve (I downloaded the settings and rang customer care, fortunately getting through to a politer person but no joy) so I'd like to get the option of GPRS back as well.

SDoom wrote:

FYI OP if you return to O2, you won't get any free credit without purchasing a phone- it's a sim reactivation, rather than a new number see. As mentioned above, your best bet is to argue your corner.

Tbh, I'm not pushed about the money itself, it's just the whole principle of the thing.

Sam Vimes

Stark wrote: »

Okay. I read it as:

3 installments of €10

To qualify for the first installment, top up by €10 the first month
To qualify for second installment, top up by €20 the next month
To qualify for third installment, top up by €20 the month after.

that's right. if you did that, then meteor have made a mistake and they can instantly add the credit to your account. before calling, log into the site and make sure were actually registered and there were no technical problems there. or did they ask your name when you called?

Stark wrote: »

I have GPRS connection problems with Meteor that I haven't been able to resolve (I downloaded the settings and rang customer care, fortunately getting through to a politer person but no joy) so I'd like to get the option of GPRS back as well.

i should be able to help you there
what type of phone do you have?

Doctor DooM

Stark wrote: »

Tbh, if it is a case of me being unable to understand their T&Cs, I'm as happy to leave anyway because I never had a problem understanding O2's T&Cs. Also, I have GPRS connection problems with Meteor that I haven't been able to resolve (I downloaded the settings and rang customer care, fortunately getting through to a politer person but no joy) so I'd like to get the option of GPRS back as well.



Tbh, I'm not pushed about the money itself, it's just the whole principle of the thing.

Just giving you the relivant info!

If you have the old sim, O2 will be able to reactivate it for you.

Stark

Commander Vimes wrote: »

i should be able to help you there
what type of phone do you have?

Oh cheers. It's a Nokia 6230i. The person the phone was able to fix something on their end so the standard web browser works again, but I have a load of java apps that I still can't get connectivity on (Opera Mini and gmail app are the ones I really want to be able to use). Tried downloading them all again and scouring the phone for any configuration settings I could find and applying them to "all applications" but no joy. Tried putting my sim in a Motorola V3 razr phone (again downloading settings from Meteor site) and couldn't get internet on that at all.

Commander Vines wrote:

before calling, log into the site and make sure were actually registered and there were no technical problems there. or did they ask your name when you called?

Yeah the registration details are all fine. They asked for my name and address when I called, assumed that was just a security thing.

Sam Vimes

Stark wrote: »

Oh cheers. It's a Nokia 6230i. The person the phone was able to fix something on their end so the standard web browser works again, but I have a load of java apps that I still can't get connectivity on.

yeah i've seen that a few times but never got a satisfactory solution from my end. i've determined that the problem is most likely at their end. but try this anyway: go into settings->configuration and make sure the default is meteor, then select "activate default in all applications". that should work.

if not, try your sim in a different meteor phone and see if the same apps work. if they do, there's something wrong with your phone, if not (and they do with the other person's sim in) its a problem at their end so give them a call and get them to log a ticket with the technical team


do any apps work?

Stark wrote: »

Yeah the registration details are all fine. They asked for my name and address when I called, assumed that was just a security thing.

it is. i just wanted to make sure they had them, ie the registration was successful

chrislad

Go to Nokia.com, and go to Support and then Get Settings. You should see WAP, Internet and MMS. Send the Internet settings to your phone. These are the settings Opera needs. It should work as long as Meteor CC has Internet enabled on your profile (ring them and tell them you want to use to phone as a modem for a laptop)

MOH

I use Opera on my Meteor phone (Sony W330) and it's fine, although I do remember doing some messing around myself with the internet settings.

On your original point, did you buy the SIM in a Meteor shop? I only ask because I went in to upgrade a phone once in a non-Meteor shop and they didn't have a clue about what credit I was entitled to.

But if it says it on the SIM pack then you should definitely be entitled to it. I've always found them very good to deal with on any issues like this. Either call back and talk to someone else, or pop into a Meteor shop.

Stark

MOH wrote: »

On your original point, did you buy the SIM in a Meteor shop?

Yup.

Stark

Hmm, rang twice today.

The first time they confirmed that my understanding of the offer was correct but that the system had no record of my topups. So I said thank you, hung up and rang again to get through to someone else. Explained the situation to the second person and told them that I had to have made topups, or I couldn't have made all the calls that were detailed in my account. He seemed quite positive and said "Oh yes, we have made a mistake. I can rectify that and have the money credited to your account". Then he put me on hold to go ask someone to make the credit, only to come back and tell me I that no, I have to top up by €20 to claim the credit Tried clarifying the process but I was just left more confused He said something about 4 remaining months which I didn't understand, as there's only supposed to be 3 installments. Maybe he meant 4 month hard cut off point, after which point I had forfeited the credit entirely.

Didn't manage to get the internet sorted out either, they said there was nothing needed on their side to enable that functionality.

I did get a text today though saying I'd be getting my number porting bonus so that's some bit of good news.

Sam Vimes

right, here's what you need to do to get opera mini working. i just got it working on my 6230i so unless your phone or sim is faulty it should be the same

1. unless you've manually got the isp access point (APN) activated on your account, then its not turned on. none of the agents i've called have ever heard of it so ask them to say it to a member of the technical team and they'll know what you're talking about. if they suggest that you have to do anything, stop them right there. the only reason you're phoning is to get them to switch it on and nothing else. it might be worth saying you're trying to use your phone as a modem with your laptop because they seem to know what to do then

and don't let them tell you you're wrong either. i've done it dozens of times

2. what you need to do to the phone:
go to settings->configurations->Default configuration settings
delete everything in there, including all meteor stuff


go to personal configuration settings on the same menu and select add->web

Account name:Met web
Homepage:http://wap.mymeteor.ie
user name:my
password:isp
Use preferred access point:yes

go back to personal config settings, highlight met web and press options->activate

press options->add new->access point
Account name:Met isp

press "access point settings"
data bearer:GPRS

press "bearer settings"
GPRS access point:isp.mymeteor.ie
Authentication:normal
user name:my
password:isp

go back to personal config settings, highlight met isp and press options->activate

go back to opera mini and it should connect fine. when you grant it network access a message should pop up saying "access point:met isp" or similar

i just followed those steps as i was writing them and it worked. the only difference is i deleted opera and installed a fresh copy to make sure it wasn't saving any wrong settings so it might be worth doing that.


also, i found that the meteor homepage won't load, ie when i go to the normal browser and press home it says "connection not available" but if i select "go to address", the rest of the internet works. and sure who needs their ringtones anyway

and there's no point doing any of this until you get the ISP APN activated

Sam Vimes

unfortunately, doing that will also stop picture messages working because meteor sends both wap and mms settings in one and there's no way to get rid of one without the other. if you need them back, i can post a quick guide


edit:thank you for calling meteor customer care. Have a nice day

MOH

Commander Vimes wrote: »

unfortunately, doing that will also stop picture messages working because meteor sends both wap and mms settings in one and there's no way to get rid of one without the other. if you need them back, i can post a quick guide

You sure about that? I've two settings on my Sony Ericsson, one for WAP GPRS and one for MMS GPRS.