PAYG eSIM and PAYG Plus conflicting information

[ikk]

Hi everyone!

Hope you are all doing well!

First and foremost, I would like to apologize as this will probably be a very long post (I don’t even know where to start if I am being honest, there’s so much to try to out into coherent words!).

So let’s start with some background information. I was with EE and was basically locked into a contract and have been seeking to change for quite some time as I wasn’t happy with their network nor customer service, hence was just waiting for my contract with them to expire. I was using eSIM with them (only reason why I even went with EE and a contract as they were the only ones offering eSIM as an option then) as I also have a phone number from my home country which I wanted to use simultaneously on the same iPhone, hence one of them had to be an eSIM.

Quite recently, more providers started offering eSIMs on PAYG such as giffgaff, yet I was eyeing switching to voxi or vodafone as I heard good things about them. I contacted the voxi customer support who confirmed eSIM support should launch soon as they have apparently been informed by Apple that the next UK model iPhones won’t have physical SIM slots anymore (like the current US models).

And I also had a look at vodafone, and to my surprise, their eSIM help website had instructions specifically for PAYG on activating eSIMs, despite the main paragraph on the same website at the top saying it’s for pay monthly only. (Link: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/esim#1:2 go to the instructions and select switch from physical sim to eSIM and choose PAYG, you will see there are now instructions specifically for PAYG eSIMs when it used to simply say it wasn’t supported before).

So I contacted the vodafone X (twitter) customer support and they confirmed that eSIMs are now available for PAYG customers.

So I was like brilliant! Just in time as my contract with EE is about to expire! So I ordered a blank free SIM with the intention to buying a PAYG Plus bundle, switching to eSIM, and porting my existing number from EE to Vodafone.

I get the physical vodafone sim not that long after, pop it into my phone, create an account using the phone number that came with the physical sim, and not to waste time I immediately went ahead and scheduled a porting request for the nearest date it would give me (which happened to be Feb 5) to move my existing number from EE to Vodafone.

In the mean time, I went and had a look at the plans to add the £15 PAYG Plus plan that included a base of 25GB data (70GB for the first three months as per the offer then), yet the only bundles it was showing me on my account was 20GB for £15 and no extra data, which didn’t match with the PAYG plus bundles at all.

And to top this off, I followed the instructions to request an eSIM (which again, where specifically for PAYG!) yet there was no option at all! And there was an option to activate a physical SIM, and funny enough, clicking on that (which again was only for a physical SIM!) just gave me an error.

So I knew something odd must be happening due to 1) Bundles not matching with PAYG plus, 2) lack of eSIM option, 3) Even the physical sim option is erroring out.

So now I have a multitude of issues, with my phone number scheduled to be ported to vodafone in a few days (from then obviously), so immediately rushed to contact support to get them sorted before my existing number ports over.

And after many many many live chats and X (twitter) DMs (lost count!), here’s basically the summary of what happened (this is split across many chats so didn’t want to bore you with the details):

• I was told I was sent the wrong sim for the old PAYG, hence why I was apparently seeing the old PAYG bundles. And was told I ordered the SIM on their end on Sept 2023, when in reality I ordered it end of Jan 2024. Plus, shouldn’t the plans be in Vodafone’s system and not on the sim card? What does the sim card itself have anything to do with this??? And they told me to go and order another sim (who’s to stop them from sending me the wrong sim again!). So I went to the vodafone store to avoid delays with ordering a new sim as there wasn’t enough time for a new one to be sent out before my number gets ported over. And after explaining the situation to the store staff, they told me it’s impossible to get on PAYG plus with my existing number and I had to basically get a new number to use PAYG plus (what???).
• Half way through this PAYG bundle shenanigans, one of the advisors gave me a free 10GB and 3000 texts and calls bundle to get me by for the time being (which is super kind and I commend them for that! it’s what I am currently using as my number has now been ported over but these issues haven’t been solved, so special thanks to that advisor!).
• Then came this whole eSIM shenanigans. Different support agents kept giving me conflicting information. Some were guiding me through the same steps shown the the eSIM help website for PAYG (which didn’t work as mentioned above as the option simply wasn’t showing), while others kept insisting it’s not available on PAYG (despite their website clearly giving instructions for PAYG and support confirming it’s now available on PAYG when I asked!). And we just kept going back on forth with agents either saying it isn’t available or just giving me the same instructions to choose a non-existent option in my plan settings. Not to mention the error I am getting even with the physical SIM option, as explained above, so something is clearly wrong with my account, not just with eSIMs.

So basically here I am now at a dead end just being given the same conflicting information with no proper solution to neither the PAYG Plus bundle issue nor the eSIM issue (and even physical SIM issue it seems!).

Hence why I wanted to seem help from the community here and the community staff as well, as I can see you tend to be better at keeping track of what’s been done and what hasn’t been done versus the live chat and X (twitter) support who seem to start from 0 every single time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[ikk]

Oh and I also forgot to mention, I am also not getting a 5G connection on vodafone at all despite it showing as available in my area, and my phone supports it (worked fine with EE) and even the physical Vodafone sim has the 5G logo on it. No idea if this has anything to do with the issues I am facing (or possibly the free bundle I was given explained above). 

[Lucy_F]

Hi @ikk Sorry to hear about your recent experience since joining us, this isn't the experience we aim to be providing our customers. Our Pay as you Go plus isn't a bundle on our existing Pay as you Go service, so it is managed a little differently, perhaps why you have faced such trouble with the SIM you've ordered. A lot of information on our Pay as you Go Plus service, how it works and how it's different to our existing Pay as you Go service can be found here.

We'd love to help you and find a suitable resolution to the issues you're facing. In order to do so, we would need to access your account in which we cannot do so over the forum. I can appreciate you have already done so, however as a part of the Social Media Team we'd request you to please reach out to us via the contact information found here and we can get things looked into.

[ikk · Accepted solution]

Update:

I have gone back to the live chat support and was connected to this lovely agent called Chloe.

I was then guided to update the APN settings on my device and basically just had to replace wap.vodafone.co.uk to pp.vodafone.co.uk (and left everything else the same).

Straight after that, the link to switch from a physical sim to eSIM (which used to just redirect me to my account settings) started working and I was now able to finally switch to an eSIM on PAYG!!!

Additionally, as for the issue with the PAYG plus bundles not showing up, Chloe assured me that once my current free 10GB data and 3000 texts and calls allowances expire, I should then be able to select the new PAYG plus bundles, so fingers crossed that all goes smoothly.

BIG BIG  thanks to Chloe from the PAYG live chat support team, she managed to get this all sorted, which no one else has been able to do beforehand! If you see this Chloe, I genuinely can’t thank you enough!

If anyone experiences any similar issues, I highly recommend trying to get ahold of her over the live chat.

Forum mods, feel free to lock this thread as it has now been solved!