Wirefly frustration

[kornfeld]

Hello all,

I'm new to the forum, and just received my Droid that I purchased through Wirefly.

I wish I could introduce myself under better terms, but unfortunately I'm hoping to get a little help.

I ordered my phone last Saturday, and got the 2-day shipping.

It arrived on Tuesday, as planned. I opened the box, and everything was there, but it didn't contain any activation instructions.

No worries I thought, I'll just plug the phone in, turn it on, and see what happens. It had an activation screen that came on, but the call wouldn't connect to actually activate the phone.

I called Wirefly customer support to try and get it activated on Tuesday afternoon. They said the phone should be activated in the next 24 hours now that it had arrived. My old phone would simply stop working, and the new phone would start working.

I waited until Wednesday afternoon (24 hours), and still no luck. My old phone was still working, and the Droid was not. I went on chat support with Wirefly, and they said it was not activated because they needed a password from me.

This is frustration point number one: if they needed a password from me, why didn't they call or email and ask for it?

They said it should be activated within 48 hours, which leads to frustration ponit number two: I paid for accelerated delivery, and yet it's going to take them three days just to activate the phone. If it takes them that long to activate the phone, there isn't any point in faster delivery.

They reminded me about device protection insurance, and I agreed to sign up for it. Who knows if it'll be useful or not, but it wasn't all that expensive, so I figured why not? Of course, they were on the ball when it came to charging me for that service; but my phone still doesn't work.

I figured I'd check back in that night to see if there was any progress, so I got back on customer support chat. Now they said they needed a PIN from me. Again: if they needed it, why didn't they call and email or ask for it? I gave them the PIN, expressed my frustration, and that was that.

I checked back in this morning to see how things were coming along just to make sure they weren't still missing something. I logged back on to customer support chat, and the person said they still needed a password and PIN from me. I told them I had already given them that information, and then gave it to them again.

We're now at 48 hours that I've had the phone, and it still isn't turned on.

I fully understand that it takes time to do things, particularly if they're missing some key information. The main point of my frustration is that they did nothing to contact me in order to get that information. In fact, they did nothing *twice* when they needed information.

I saw that there is someone from Wirefly on this forum, hopefully he/she can help out.

Sorry to be such a downer on my first post, and for the long rant! Hopefully we can get this figured out.

 

[nphil]

Dial *228 and select option 1. It should then ask for your 10 digit cellphone number. Enter it. Then the last 5 digits of your SSN. Enter that too. Your phone should now be activated.

Also call wirefly and tell them that they're full of crap. Your phone can't automagically activate!

 

[Erron]

Wirefly does have an account here on droidforums. try to PM them and see if they get it resolved. he resolved an issue for me quickly.

I had an activation issue porting a number from ATT that verizon had to fix. They blamed ATT>

 

[kellex]

I KNOW YOUR PAIN EXACTLY.

Same thing happened to me. Bought my Droid through Wirefly, received it, opened it and was told I had to wait for stuff to automatically happen.

I got on their chat probably 12 times in 24 hours and was told 12 different stories as to when my phone would be activated. I also ran into the password issue and was then told it would be an additional 48 hours. Most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with in my life.

Interesting thing is that I've ordered from Amazon Wireless before and they give you instructions to activate yourself. There is no waiting. I'm amazed that as big as Wirefly is that they can't have a self activation service.

Trust me though, I feel your pain. It took 24 hours and 12 chats and 10 more emails before my phone started working. There is no speeding up the process.

My suggestion is to hide your phone in a drawer, leave town for 2 days, come back and it'll be ready.

 

[MiXoLoGiSt]

And this would be the reason i only buy my phones from Verizon. It was activated within 10 mins of me buying it at the store and was playing with it all day that day.

 

[subsynth]

I bought my droid from Wirefly in the begining of March, my old phone stopped working before the droid arrived. I was without a phone for about a day, but had no problems getting it set up when it came.

 

[kellex]

And this would be the reason i only buy my phones from Verizon. It was activated within 10 mins of me buying it at the store and was playing with it all day that day.

The pain was worth the $100 I saved though.

 

[JCo352]

See? That's what's wrong with this world, people like you, and the need for instant gratific...Oh who am I kidding I would be flipping out, if I didn't have my precious up and running in 48 hours, much less 1 hour. I hope your problem gets resolved really soon. And welcome to Droidforums.

 

[kornfeld]

And that's the thing...I don't want to just whine about it being slow, because, well, sometimes things just take time.

The two main things that irritate me are:

One, I paid for expedited shipping, only to have it take ages to be activated. If they can't activate the phone in a reasonable amount of time, they shouldn't offer expedited shipping.

Two, the process is taking forever due to them not having enough information, and they never contacted me to get that information. I entered all of the necessary information on the order page at Wirefly, only to find out that they needed more, which they never asked for.

I PM'd the user Wirefly on here....I'm hoping this will be resolved today.

And seriously....why isn't there a way for me to activate it myself?

 

[kellex]

And that's the thing...I don't want to just whine about it being slow, because, well, sometimes things just take time.

The two main things that irritate me are:

One, I paid for expedited shipping, only to have it take ages to be activated. If they can't activate the phone in a reasonable amount of time, they shouldn't offer expedited shipping.

Two, the process is taking forever due to them not having enough information, and they never contacted me to get that information. I entered all of the necessary information on the order page at Wirefly, only to find out that they needed more, which they never asked for.

I PM'd the user Wirefly on here....I'm hoping this will be resolved today.

And seriously....why isn't there a way for me to activate it myself?

All the same questions I kept asking my friend. Although yours seems to be taking even longer. I was pretty harsh with them and finally got it taken care of in about 24 hours.

 

[kornfeld]

Dial *228 and select option 1. It should then ask for your 10 digit cellphone number. Enter it. Then the last 5 digits of your SSN. Enter that too. Your phone should now be activated.

Also call wirefly and tell them that they're full of crap. Your phone can't automagically activate!

I don't even know how I would go about doing this. When I turn the phone on, a screen comes up that says "Welcome to Droid" with the Android logo at the center of the screen.

The three options I have at this screen are to "Touch the Android to begin," emergency dial, and change language. When I touch the android, it goes to a second screen that has an activate button, saying that a special call needs to be made to activate the phone. That call goes through, and I enter my phone number and my verizon PIN, and then the call doesn't go any further. It just says the call can't be completed.

Annoying.

 

[kornfeld]

And this would be the reason i only buy my phones from Verizon. It was activated within 10 mins of me buying it at the store and was playing with it all day that day.

The pain was worth the $100 I saved though.

+1. I bought my phone this past weekend when they had a sale going...my phone was $19.99. It was $49 everywhere else, since I'm renewing my verizon contract.

The only other place that had the phone for $19.99 was Wal Mart, but when I was about to finish that order, I noticed that the tax was something like $53. So I went with Wirefly.

 

[JCo352]

Here's what you should do. Call verizon and tell them you want to switch phones, and cut wirefly out. They should be able to do it no problem, just make sure you call them from a phone other than the one you're activating, or the one that is currently activated.

 

[kornfeld]

Here's what you should do. Call verizon and tell them you want to switch phones, and cut wirefly out. They should be able to do it no problem, just make sure you call them from a phone other than the one you're activating, or the one that is currently activated.

Believe me...I want to do that. I can even go to my personal Verizon Wireless account page and access "Activate Your Upgraded Phone" section.

I asked wirefly about it, and they said it will screw up my discount and delay the process even further if I do it.

 

[jsh1120]

A Google search of various consumer sites suggests strongly that Wirefly has a decidedly mixed record in terms of customer service. That is not to say that the firm is dishonest, nor that they do not have positive reviews from many customers. However, there are other firms with considerably stronger consumer ratings. Sometimes it pays to look past the lowest possible price.