One of the most important aspects of buying a product is the after-sales service. From repair, warranty, to the simple help of usage problems through technical support. I just had an interesting experience with Apple support, and I thought I want to share it here.
First, some background, I normally use number X (Telstra prepaid) as my mobile number. I use iPhone 5S with iOS 7.0.3 and iMessage worked just fine, it activated without problem.
On 5 Nov 2013 I bought new SIM card from Telstra, the number is Y. The plan is to use it with my iPad mini when it arrives later in November.
On 7 Nov 2013, I put the Y inside my iPhone 5S just to check whether the SIM card works or not. Immediately my iPhone activated Y as my new number for iMessage.
After knowing that the SIM card of Y works fine, I removed it from my iPhone, and put back the SIM card for X.
When SIM card for X is back to my iPhone, I can no longer activate iMessage to use the number X. I tried activating, waiting 24 hours then it said activation unsuccessful. I tried this for more than 5 times already.
I can still send iMessage using my email address, but not with my mobile number as identity.
In my iPhone, the number Y still appears, greyed, unchecked.
On 11 Nov I called Telstra and they told me to backup, then reset my phone, then restore it. I have done this, twice. Did not solve the problem. They suggested me to contact Apple.
I even tried resetting the phone and set it up as “new phone” and try to activate 0488838689 in “new phone” condition, still didn’t work.
On 12 Nov I contacted Apple support (web chat from https://getsupport.apple.com), followed all their detailed instructions, all failed, then I got referred to a senior advisor.
Within few minutes, a senior advisor called me. He confirmed few details about my problem and what I have done so far. Then he sent me a text message and I have read the code to unlink Y from my Apple ID. It didn’t work. Number Y is STILL linked to my Apple ID, still appeared as greyed and unchecked.
Then he told me he has raised this issue to engineering team to find out the problem and will get back to me before end of that week (15 Nov).
On 15 Nov I upgraded my iOS to 7.0.4. Still have the same issue. While waiting for the next call from Apple, I checked my iMessage status once a day.
On 19 Nov, I received another call from the same senior advisor, asking me few details about serial numbers in my SIM card. Then I was asked to take few screenshots from my iPhone and have them emailed. He apologized for the wait and assured me that the problem will be taken care as soon as possible.
On 24 Nov, I checked my iMessage status as always, and number X was successfully registered to iMessage. Problem solved !
So, it took a while to get my issue solved. The entire experience was not perfect, but it’s quite decent. I am happy that they take my problem seriously and actually trying to solve it instead of just asking me to repeat the steps from their standard guide again and again like a broken machine. I also like the fact that my case was assigned to one person so I don’t have to re-tell the story again in every contact with Apple.
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