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New Zealand Midnight iPhone Launch and U.K. Pre Orders
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I think its a bit pathetic that they're 'out of stock' even before the launch day. How long have they had to prepare for this? Months?
I think its a bit pathetic that they're 'out of stock' even before the launch day. How long have they had to prepare for this? Months?
It's not out of stock for the UK, it's out of stock for online ordering only. The online orders are seperate to the allocated handsets going to stores for friday
That isn't what I said if you read my thread, I am clearly reflecting what I have seen on sites today and it is pretty clear the existing customers have had less success than the new sign-ups - read into that what you like, but you may also want to check out some other sites that reflect this too. By the way I didn't also say I thought I was being treated "unfairly", I'm not that naive
But the failure to deliver on many other commitments is serious enough to cause physical discomfort to you, your family or associates, or to put them in danger. Either that or the failure to deliver causes wasted time which was better spent elsewhere. If however anyones time today was better spent elsewhere, then it is their very own fault for misdirecting it to obtaining something which is so profoundly uncritical as an upgrade to their iphone.
Since when have the current iPhone customers been overlooked on a free deal? They are still able to upgrade in store or online. Just not before the 11th. It is the consumers decadence which makes it unable to detach from dependence on brand promises. It's like a bunch of Veruca Salts from Charlie and the Chocolate factory "Daddy, I want a golden egg.... I want it NOW!"
Absolute farce on O2's part. What was the point in registering early to be shut out from the website like everyone else? I'm going to store to upgrade Friday morning, it will be interesting if they try and say no.
Actually if you read the threads, O2 are not in anyway consistent that they will allow existing iPhone customers to upgrade in-store this Friday, or any other day for that matter.
Oh and I didn't say anything about iPhone customer being overlooked on a "free deal", my post suggested you were not actually being fair in suggesting consumer were "spoiled"
I think I should probably leave this forum, a few contributors seem to mis-interpret others comments just to endeavour to outplay the intellect of others
I wasn't directing my post at anyone with self-awareness to see that their frustrations stemmed from passion (the desire for an iPhone). Other people however, were taking their rage more seriously and in their "pains" where suggesting writing to a bunch of national papers and magazines including (for goodness sake) "The BIG ISSUE" and to their local member of parliament. I mean its ludicrous.
Sorry, I misread your previous post. But 'consumers feeling begrudged after being overlooked on a free deal' about sums up whats been going on here. So by your own definition this seconds them as a bunch of spoilt brats.(?)
Do you really think a new 18-month commitment at a minimum of £30 per month is free? I don't at all
Do you really think a new 18-month commitment at a minimum of £30 per month is free? I don't at all
Technically if it involves money you cannot establish it being free even if it is a gift. Being less pedantic you will see that there is an 'offer' here to cut short your previous 18 month binding contract if you start a new one. So in effect you are being let out early for no fee. I would say that you are definitely getting something here, whether it is technically free or not depends on whether or not most of the people here would get an iPhone 3G anyway at some point if they weren't allowed this 'out'. I'd estimate that most people would. In which case they would be signing a new 18 month agreement at some point. So yes.... I'd say for many people it's something for free.
Not so fast...
1) Gen 1 iPhone users paid full price for their phones - they were not subsidised like they are now. £269 - they OWN their phone - they just pay for the airtime and the data ongoing...
2) An existing user brings in the exact same revenue to o2 as a new user. £100 for the phone + monthly tariff. It costs o2 no more in the long run since they get an additional 8 or so months from the gen 1 iphone customer switching to 3G - ensures they stay with 02 - ensures they upgrade to iPhone 3.0 next year for another £99...It's good business to look after exsisting customers because next year there are going to be about 30 million iphone customers wanting to upgrade to iPhone 3.0 - so they better play it right and fair this time...
Anyone can get an iphone from a store on the friday morning regardless of existing or new customer, this is FACT!
The pre register online scheme was trying to reward existing customers with
a. save them from queuing early in the morning, o2 are going to ship lots of iphones to happy customers on launch day. I think it was a great idea, and o2 did they're best with unprecedented demand.
b. releasing them from they're existing contracts [remember you all signed 18mth contracts in september so in theory your very lucky]
People do not realize that the demand for the iPhone 3g is like nothing the mobile industry has ever experienced. And with interest comes high internet traffic, its the same with every website from banks to ticket websites, only so many people can log on at once.
The pay and go phone will not be available for quite some time so people should not wait in line on friday expecting it.
Both the 8gb and 16gb will be available [only in black i have heard, no white on launch].
It will be 1st come 1st served, so people cannot argue about preferential treatment, my advice get there early, and bring a debit/credit card as you will need it as i.d! If your an existing customer you may not need a debit/credit card, but you will need a form of id to upgrade like a driving license or passport.
Also, existing accounts will only be upgradable by the named account holder, so no queuing for friends and family!
There will be a limit on how many iphones you can buy [prob one]
And on page or 6 or 7 someone mentioned about not getting enough with the tarriff.
With a £35 normal tariff you get one free bolt of your choice.
With the iphone equivalent tariff you get two for free, i.e unltd web + Wifi saving you £7.50 a month.
This has prob all been said from page 7 onwards but I can't be bothered to read it!
The pre register online scheme was trying to reward existing customers with
a. save them from queuing early in the morning, o2 are going to ship lots of iphones to happy customers on launch day. I think it was a great idea, and o2 did they're best with unprecedented demand.
b. releasing them from they're existing contracts [remember you all signed 18mth contracts in september so in theory your very lucky]
People do not realize that the demand for the iPhone 3g is like nothing the mobile industry has ever experienced. And with interest comes high internet traffic, its the same with every website from banks to ticket websites, only so many people can log on at once.
The pay and go phone will not be available for quite some time so people should not wait in line on friday expecting it.
Both the 8gb and 16gb will be available [only in black i have heard, no white on launch].
It will be 1st come 1st served, so people cannot argue about preferential treatment, my advice get there early, and bring a debit/credit card as you will need it as i.d! If your an existing customer you may not need a debit/credit card, but you will need a form of id to upgrade like a driving license or passport.
Also, existing accounts will only be upgradable by the named account holder, so no queuing for friends and family!
There will be a limit on how many iphones you can buy [prob one]
And on page or 6 or 7 someone mentioned about not getting enough with the tarriff.
With a £35 normal tariff you get one free bolt of your choice.
With the iphone equivalent tariff you get two for free, i.e unltd web + Wifi saving you £7.50 a month.
This has prob all been said from page 7 onwards but I can't be bothered to read it!
Not sure what you mean by "How do you know?" However, lets take it to a vote, are there ANY existing iPhone O2 users today with a confirmation order email in their inbox and reflected under "My Orders" in their O2 billing portal? I suspect not, but more than happy to be proved wrong
Yes!
After about five attempts this morning (at about 10am) I was able to connect to the upgrades.o2.co.uk site and go all the way through it without any problems, including getting a confirmation screen with my order number at the end, a confirmation email and also the order showing up under My Orders on the O2 billing portal. This was for a 16GB iPhone 3G, and I've also received the third 'update' email.
I'm sure there will be lots of people who will be left disappointed by Friday evening. Just called my local O2 store - they don't have the shipment of Iphone in yet, they don't know how many they will get and certainly don't anticipate many coming in.
The fact is if they had a live system to say how many Iphones are available for pre-order left, and one that doesn't crash so consistently, people won't feel so robbed. This applies to those of us upgrading from Iphone 2G. I wished there was a system which once you are in the process, you are on until you finish the transaction.
There is no excuse in saying O2 did not anticipate demand. Afterall, Telefonica did 'show off' to the press that they had 300,000 people registering their interest in Spain and UK. It's more of the attitude that 'let the dogs/customers fight it out and we will sit and watch (and laugh)' that annoys me most.
Not to mention there is a complete lack of comms between O2 branches and the HQ. They will say one thing one moment, and another the next.
While I'm disappointed that I won't get a new toy on Friday (I doubt I'll be staking out any O2 store in the hopes I get one, I'll wait until I can order one online to be delivered), what really gets my goat is O2's utter contempt for me as a customer.
There really is no excuse for not anticipating the demand their server would be under, because existing customers registered their interest. It seems their normal server had more or less enough capacity for all new purchases, it was just the update server that failed spectacularly, and it did so constantly throughout the day.
Why bother making me register if that information isn't used to anticipate demand? Why spam me for weeks if there is nowhere near enough supply to meet demand, and an allocation system that actually favours new buyers?
And why, exactly, can we not continue to order now for the next batch of phones to come in? Again, new owners can still pre-order for units, but us existing customers will have to wait for O2 to remember we exist.
Will O2 be backdating the new 18 month contracts to launch day, for anyone unable to buy on the day through O2's own incompetence?
I could excuse a simple case of not having enough units to satisfy demand, and I could accept if others simply got to the front of the queue before me. What I cannot forgive is O2's attitude and handling of the whole affair which cannot entirely be put down to an accident. They screwed over customers without apology apparently safe in the knowledge that they were going to profit massively one way or another and not really caring that somewhere down the line they would lose customers.
I'll buy a 3G phone when I can do so, and no-doubt have to give O2 a pile of cash for a while in the process. But having been treated like this once, I'll be leaving for another provider at the earliest available opportunity - I will reward their lack of respect with a complete lack of loyalty.
There really is no excuse for not anticipating the demand their server would be under, because existing customers registered their interest. It seems their normal server had more or less enough capacity for all new purchases, it was just the update server that failed spectacularly, and it did so constantly throughout the day.
Why bother making me register if that information isn't used to anticipate demand? Why spam me for weeks if there is nowhere near enough supply to meet demand, and an allocation system that actually favours new buyers?
And why, exactly, can we not continue to order now for the next batch of phones to come in? Again, new owners can still pre-order for units, but us existing customers will have to wait for O2 to remember we exist.
Will O2 be backdating the new 18 month contracts to launch day, for anyone unable to buy on the day through O2's own incompetence?
I could excuse a simple case of not having enough units to satisfy demand, and I could accept if others simply got to the front of the queue before me. What I cannot forgive is O2's attitude and handling of the whole affair which cannot entirely be put down to an accident. They screwed over customers without apology apparently safe in the knowledge that they were going to profit massively one way or another and not really caring that somewhere down the line they would lose customers.
I'll buy a 3G phone when I can do so, and no-doubt have to give O2 a pile of cash for a while in the process. But having been treated like this once, I'll be leaving for another provider at the earliest available opportunity - I will reward their lack of respect with a complete lack of loyalty.
Ho ho, missed that bit. How much hyperbolae can there be? Could we compare this to the situation in Zimbabwe?
<turns up music to drown out sound of a million venting spleens>
FACT ?!!! how where? the stuff on o2 site is fairly clear that it is ONLINE only for existing iphone customers. there helpline says the same thing.
BUT my local CPW says I will be able to buy in store on Fri. I have emailed o2 for clarification but judging by their incompetence today I am not holding my breath.
For info they could have avoided much of their problems simply by staggering the sms sent this morning or sending upgrade codes at various points during the day.
What 'stuff'? I have never seen anywhere stating it is 'online only'.
The closest reference I have seen is 'existing customers upgrade online'....meaning click this link and you can upgrade online, nothing like 'existing customers must upgrade online:click here'
It is true that up till this afternoon, O2 stated that existing Iphone customers can ONLY upgrade online. But they have changed this and I've been on the phone with my local O2 store who said that they 'just' received a email to say it's allowing Iphone users to upgrade in store from Friday onwards.
The 'bias towards new buyers' assumption came from the fact that the system which was used by new customers were smooth while the upgrade website for existing Iphone users kept crashing.
It was biased due to the fact that the link for new customers and existing 02 non-iPhone customers actually worked.
Those of us that bought a full-priced original iPhone to help subsidise its expansion were locked out by a website that simply did not work. Whether this was by accident or design is probably a matter that the telecoms watchdog or the Office of Fair Trading should investigate.
That's exactly my point. There were two systems - one worked well enough for a lot of people to get orders in, and one most certainly did not.
And the one that didn't was the one whose demand should have been utterly predictable. You don't even need to look at the anecdotal evidence of how many people got through the upgrade site versus the ones that were able to pre-order a new phone.
Why couldn't everyone simply order a phone using the same system? Why couldn't the system for upgrades meet demand? Why did O2 bother asking us to pre-register?
It reeks of O2 prioritising for new customers over upgrades, but even if it's incompetence, the effect is the same.
No, it's not. You just happen to like a product that only one seller has in stock. You could buy that corvette, but you're willing to bend over a little further for the porsche. This is part of the fun and excitement of supply not meeting demand.
At least it's not boring.
If you love your girlfriend, you need to camp out in front of the Apple store cause other people are thinking the same thing you are. good luck ob1