Apple Watch Ultra and One Number - Plan being Dropped / not in use

[Crellster]

I went through a tortuous and painful onboarding journey with Vodafone to take out a Sim only (on an existing iphone 13 Pro Max) and add "One Number" so I could share the data with. 

I wasted my life talking to a bot that was completely unhelpful and a webchat service that wasn't much better

I spent hours on the phone to people who had no idea how to fix  the problem with countless resets. Eventually I got through to someone, who through some form of witchcraft managed to get my One Number working on my watch. 

I was also paying for a service that Vodafone couldn't deliver - I expected a pro-rata refund but no notification of such & which never materialised . 

Putting that to one side, I now at least had the working setup I wanted. 

That was then ... this is now. The plan has been dropped from my watch - it's there for very occasional use so I'm not checking the status but I see I have "No Sim" and "no Connection" on the watch. 

I can see by searching the forums this is a recurring complaint from Apple watch customers on One Number and is specific to Vodafone. I want someone to 1) get my watch working again 2) Assure me this won't keep happening 3) compensate me for the non-available service. 

[alitraq]

Sure enough, its the 5th of the month and my watch has dropped again.  social media team on fb messenger are a waste of time. I just want out...

[DougieD]

@alitraq They said a fix is going in on the 7th June so I wouldn’t expect any difference until then. Will be interesting to see how things pan out after. 

[blueblue45]

After experiencing this problem for months and endless calls to tech support, Vodafone has let me go 6 months early from my contract rather than fix the problem. This was on 5th June, so it looks doubtful a fix will then come on 7th, otherwise surely they would have not let me do this. I've been with Vodafone for 10 years and this issue has led me to leave them, as nothing anyone can do and terrible customer service.

But fingers crossed I am wrong!

[Crellster]

Out of interest, are / were you on one of the basic sim packages? Leaving looks like my only option as well as the basic sim apparently can’t use One Number - not true as it worked, and the exclusion has only just been added to the site. 

[smnasn]

Absolutely furious about this issue, which I discovered last night night when out on a bike ride - the whole idea was to be able to leave phone behind when cycling and still have comms, I discovered mid ride last night no comms at all.

Is there a reliable process to go through to reinstate the service or am I going to have to waste my time with Vodafone support to resolve.

TIA

[alitraq]

I have the same problem every month on around the 4th / 5th and my apple watch ultra drops the sim plan.  After 3 months of messing about and the total lack of clear or correct instructions on the vodafone website or via tech support I've got a quick way to reinstate it.  Frankly vodafone tech support are absolutely useless.

Here is how to re-instate (without the need to reset your watch like vodfone told me to do).

1) Go to the apple watch app on your iphone.  If the data plan is listed as not in use / not connected. then you have the issue.  remove the plan using the the watch app.

2) Then go to the vodafone iphone app and go to settings (bottom right) then account, then sim swap.  chose your watch from the device list,  then choose 'other watch'.   (for some reason vodofone doesn't recognise my eid number as an apple watch on the next step, hence why i choose 'other watch'.  Enter the eid number which you can find in the watch app.  Then complete the transfer. sometime if you copy / paste you need to delete a space for it to recognise the eid as valid.  

3) go back to the apple watch app on your phone and just click on add a new data plan and it should kick in without any further input.  

Still not happy that I need to do this monthly, but at least I don't need to reset my watch like Vodafone tell me to do.

[DougieD]

Just noticed my watch plan was dropped. I went through this and it told me "Something went wrong".

Guess I'll have to endure a painful phone call now.

[jonnyp43]

I gave up, they admitted it’s an issue for many customers and released me from my commitment as there was nothing else they could realistically do. 

[havenwarrior]

Had the same issues here since Oct, today is the 4th time we have had to reconnect. The Instagram Social Team got me sorted with an hour.

Having tried the phone and FB team, they will be my first port of call in the future.

[Mark]

I'm glad to hear we managed to get this sorted for you @havenwarrior. Apologies it took so long though.