As I’ve pointed out here and here, Bell has certainly earned its reputation of having Canada’s worst customer service. The company seems to have decided it would be more profitable to deceive drain the life out of its customers rather than make them happy.
So when a friend bought a new iPhone through Bell yesterday, I had to laugh when he told me he had to wait 24 hours for activation. 24 hours came and passed today, and his iPhone is still not fully functional. He was given a temporary number, but told not to use it by customer service. Which kinda sorta defeats the purpose of giving out a temporary number, but I digress. A search on Twitter just now revealed another new Bell iPhone user with the same problem:
I remember getting my original grey market iPhone in 2007, my iPhone 3G in 208, and my iPhone 3GS this year, all with Rogers, and being activated within 15 minutes. Is this 24 hour+ wait normal for Bell minions customers? Or is a hiccup caused by the switch to Bell’s new HSPA+ network? Come to think of it, when I got my first cell phone, a Qualcomm QCP 2760 with Bell in the late 90s, it took forever to activate it, but it was Christmas day.
If you’ve bought a Bell or Telus iPhone, let me know how it’s going, and if you also had to wait a day for activation.
Elias Makos 
7 replies on “Is Bell screwing up your iPhone activation?”
It has been 28 hours and waiting with Telus so far. The worst part is that I’m replacing a Blackberry Pearl. I’ve been carrying around the Pearl for “telephone” duty, and carrying the iPhone with the hope of sudden activation. BRUTAL. Can’t wait to play with the 3G s, though… I’m sure the wait will be well worth it.
Alright! Here’s an update!
It’s been 93 1/2 hours and my phone is still not activated. Apparently there was an error, and I am in cue to have my problem assesed. I was told it would be running within 12-48 hours, so the fact that it still operates as a very expensive iPod touch is very annoying.
I wonder how many of these activations were screwed up for my place in the cue to be so far back from the front… damn you, Telus!
i just purchased an iphone with bell, and they told it would take 24-48 hours to activate 😐 im 20 hours into, i may call bell and see whats going on. however when you called did they shed any light or tell you what was the problem?
I received my iPhone on Wednesday the 6th of January 2010,
When activation to Telus network took place an error occured.
At first they told me the problem would be fixed in 24 to 48 hours.
They issued a ticket for that problem and they mentioned it was resolved
when I called in on the 8th of January. But still no service so they checked again
only to find out there was a new error so opened another ticket.
I have been calling everyday since to find out the status of my ticket just to
find out the problem is still unresolved and keep on beeing promised it woud be solved in
24 hours. Its now the 12th of January 2010 and still no service.
Are they taking customers for fools. How can it take over a week to fix a problem. Why dont they just cancel my number make a new number and resolve this.
Anyhow I am starting to loose my patience and my next move will be to cancel my contract with Telus and waiving the 500$ cancelation fee as they are not able to provide service to my phone wich makes them not fufill their obligations to my contract wth them.
So far all I have to say is Telus really sucks.
ok well i just got the iphone 3gs with bell and feel the need to bitch about their horrible service.
First of all, to simply change my price plan I had to call 6 times to get 6 different representatives until one knew what they where doing.
After going through the long steps of explaining the retarded representative the plan I wanted they tell me since I am with IBM i have to activate it and change the plan through them. So now im getting frustrated.
I call ibm/bell and they activate the phone. ( Still waiting 3 hours laterr for it to activate) and they tell me to call bell customer service to change the rate plan!!!!!
This is ridiculus and we should simply boycutt bell!
***Solution to Bell iphone problem***
I work for Bell and they are a shit company; my phone is free and I’m thinking of canceling.
To all of you who have no service on your iphone check your SIM card for a number starting with BM if it ends with 007 the store is supposed to replace it for you for free with a SIM card version BM….009.
If you call Bell you will probably not be told this because most of the workers are idiots and the ones who know what they are doing don’t get the information sent to them by the retards who are in charge.
if you are thinking of getting an iphone go with rogers, bell does not have fell GPS support yet on any of their HSPA devices and no coverage with HSPA phones in Thunderbay, poor coverage up north, no service in Manitoba or Saskatchewan and a problem roaming in the Caribbean just to name a few.
I too have been ripped off by this whole Bell Mobility scam.
I understand it is the job of all corporations to make our lives difficult, but this one really takes the cake. After a humiliating experience in the store where I was treated with suspicion as a new resident, I was finally “awarded” the Iphone 4 after paying a down deposit of 500 + the price of phone. Wtf.
Anyway its been 24 hours and still waiting.