Recently had a two and a half week week stay in Vancouver and Victoria BC Canada and wanted a prepaid SIM card versus paying roaming/long distance charges. I went through T-mobile customer services to get my unlock code and I chose to get a prepaid SIM from Fido, a Canadian cell provider because of their reasonable costs. I got their cheapest prepaid plan and did not need data since I was able to access wifi hotspots easily where I was staying at. I mistakenly forgot to add international texting and wanted to add it. Normally at T-mobile or any other cell carrier, it's as easy as contacting or going to their customer service webpage and adding it to your prepaid plan.
Not so with Fido. After going to their website, I was not able use my credit card in my account. I called their customer service. An agent was able to add it but told me I needed to add the $10 necessary to activate international texting on my prepaid account so OK, so far so good. So the next day I log into my account on their website and was not able to use my credit card. I call one of their local offices and was told that they do not accept non-canadian credit cards on their website. I would need to come in and have it done at their office. So the next day I go to one of their local offices and was told that their prepaid customer services was down. The sales rep was able to use my American credit card so I could purchase a $10 voucher with a code that I can use over the phone to add my $10 when the service is back up. I asked when was the expected time for the service to be back up and was told it may be back up the next day. So far three days since my initial purchase of the prepaid SIM card. So I wait till the next day and their prepaid customer services were still down.
So its going to 4 days that I am not able to do international texting, then 5, then 6. On the 7th day I was already so pissed I went to one of their local offices and complained about why was it taking so long to fix their technical problem with their prepaid customer services. The service rep was able to show me how to directly contact their customer service since there was no option to directly reach a real human through their regular customer service. I was put on hold for 20 minutes. When someone finally answered I was asked what my phone number was. I thought wouldn't they know this already and be able to access my account another way? I guess my bad that I did not remember So I access my settings to get it but then get cut off from my phone call. I call again, get put on hold for 23 minutes and get a phone rep who I hardly could understand at all and had to keep repeating what i said and what I was told to do, so what would be a simple conversation to add $10 to my prepaid account took another 15+ minutes to do. So all in all it took 7 days and 53+ minutes to add my prepaid international texting and to add the $10 for it and it took over a third of my stay in Canada.
The next time I feel the need to complain about t-mobile customer service I will remember this short stint with Fido in Canada. I don't know if this is common with other Canadian cell carriers but beware Fido Prepaid services, because they suck big time! T-Mobile customer service is awesome compared with Fido. I guess that's why their logo is a dog house because that's where they are based on my experience with them.
