Activation issues - Replacement SIM

[sg_cl]

I received message from Visible to upgrade plan and Sim for better network/connectivity. I replaced with new Sim and followed all steps but unable to activate.  Now this is my third day with no service and no solution so far. I spent 3-4 hous in  multiple chats with live agents.

1. First chat ( 2 hours ) - Followed all steps, multiple restarts, multiple time reinserting sim card and and resetting network settings etc but still issue was not resolved and I was been told that this will be escalated as live agent cannot do more than this. After waiting for another day, I tried to contact again through chat

2. Second Chat ( 1 hours) - Again I was been told to follow same steps as this should now fix the issue. I was been told that Visible performed Sim repair steps but still no fix and I told agent to send me new Sim through overnight service as this impacting my work significantly.. He told me that case has been escalated to next level as they cannot do more than this. Also confirmed that new Sim has been ordered as a backup plan. After waiting for another day and no response, I contacted through Chat again.

3. Third Chat ( 1 hour) - Surprised to know from this agent that other agent ( second chat ) lied that Sim order has been placed or case has been escalated as there were no details in Visible support system. I was been told to follow activation steps again. After long discussion I got response that case has been again escalated and I should expect someone to contact in next 48 hours. I asked if I there is way to contact someone who can take action and prioritize then response is to  use this forum as that is monitored by visible managers.

This is quite frustating. I was fine with old sim card and service as that was working fine but visible wanted me to upgrade sim for better connectivity. Now I have no connectivity from long time. I also asked if I can get the wifi calling enabled for my phone so i can take important calls then also there is no solution from Visible support. If I try from my phone, I get message to contact Visible to enable wifi calling.  Staying without phone connection for 4 days and no solution is not acceptable.

I mentioned to agent that I would prefer to explore other options as reliability is very important and response is that we can cancel your service which shows lack of commitment to customer service by Visible.

[sg_cl]

Got email from Visible that issue has  been submitted to network team and this can take another 3-5 days. Not sure if there is any priority and why not sending new Sim if that is causing problem.

Also according to email message, network team will contact through text in next few days for more information and there is no way to respond to email.

If phone is not working from last 3 days , I am not sure how they will contact me through Text message.

[jwfrench89]

The same exact thing has happened to me. Service went down on Wednesday. Now my case is escalated and they said someone would get into contact within a few hours and I've heard nothing. Extremely unprofessional company. I will cancel my plan today if i hear nothing. Terrible business practices 

[sg_cl]

I completely agree to your feelings for customer service. Hope issue is resolved for you.

[sg_cl]

So frustated with the customer service. All agents go through standard steps and buy time by saying we have escalated but nothing happens after that. My issue is still not resolved and seems I need to wait for new Sim till Monday.

Chat 4 ( 1+ hours) - No fix after escalation so contacted again through chat as I got one email with message that everything is fine from Visible side and I should take backup and wipeoff everything and setup as new phone as that will fix the issue. My point was that Visible Sim was working fine on same phone/settings and I just swapped with new one as requested by Visible. Still agent want me to follow all steps before they can assist further. I spent significant time to take all backups and then reset as new phone but still same issue.

Chat 5 ( 1 hour) - Again explained all background of issue and then confirming account through email etc. Now agent told me that my phone may be old and not compatible with our new Sim card. I asked this is supported iphone model and Apple is still supporting with latest OS then how come Visible Sim are not compatible. Moreover this should be informed upfront before insisting customer to upgrade to new Sim/network as all phone details are in Visible account. After long discussion, agent asked me to find another unlocked phone to try this Sim there. I have iphone 14pro but that does not have sim slot so no way to test. So I arranged for another unlocked phone and tried this Visible Sim but still unable to activate Sim on another phone which proved that Sim card is defective. Now agent agreed that Sim card need to be replaced which I requested in the begining but they were not willing and want to try all steps .

Now another challenge that they can send Sim card if I confirm before 4 pm EST today ( Friday ) and that will not arrive before Monday. I requested for overnight to send that by tomorrow ( Saturday ) but according to them there is no way. So need to wait for another 3 days before I can test if that new Sim works. I asked if I can talk to senior/supervisor on my another phone so agent agreed to schedule call but no timeframe expect that someone will call soon. Seems customer service is least priority for this Company. I want to move out to different company but would not be able to port number till my phone is active with Sim card.

Now they want me to keep waiting and if no one calls by 3 pm ( Another hour ) then start another chat session and request for Sim card replacement for standard delivery of Monday. Ideally they should either call imemdiately or schedule time as customers are not sitting free during work day to wait/take their calls.

[sg_cl]

Also I got to know once you request new Sim for upgraded network then there is no way to go back and use old Sim so no other option for customer. Also this communication was supposed to be monitored by Visible senior leadership as per one of the agent but I don't see any response from them yet.

[sg_cl]

Just received call from Supervisor. Again explained history of issue with all chat communication with hope that this time Visible will do their best to assist Customer who is impacted from last 3-4 days. Again verified account as per process.

So after 15 minutes discussion, I got to know that he understand and apologize for this service and respect my decision if I want to move out to other Company but he would not be able to do more than what other agent explained in chat that order sim before 4pm est and hope to get that delivered by Monday and see if that fix the issue. I asked if there is any option to get sooner then response was if you want us to place order for Sim or stay as is and keep trying troubleshooting steps. Earlier they were not even agreeing that Sim is defective. Worst Customer service.

So no service for another 3 days and keep waiting for shipment.

I asked for reference/tracking number to make sure order was submitted but he has nothing provide and told me to check email after few hours. Same was confirmed by Support in Chat Two above and later found that agent lied and no order was submitted. Hope I will get email this time.

[Doggy-mama]

Being brutally honest, if the moderators are monitoring these posts, I’ve never seen one actually comment here.

[sg_cl]

I totally agree with you. It's been frustrating for me since I created a post hoping for some help, but it seems like nobody's even looking at it from Visble. I'm struggling without service for days, as it affects my work. I found it funny when Visible sent me an email today asking if the issue has been resolved and I should mark as solution in post to help others, but there was no way to reply back to the email.

[sg_cl]

I received email regarding shipment of replacement Sim but no tracking number in email or online account. Again not sure when that will be delivered and still no phone service.

[sg_cl]

Finally I received new Sim card through Fedex and was able to activate in less than 5 minutes. I observed that the sim card that was sent earlier was old lot ( 2019 Visible written on card) and new one now I received seems new lot ( 2022 Visible written on card ). Visible support should at least check in system that Sim card sent is compatible with new network rather than following standard restart/resetting process again and again. Overall painful process and lost time/service for more than week.

[zants]

So what exactly happened once you inserted the new SIM card that led to it finally being activated?

I'm following their gif instructions here: https://www.visible.com/help/how-to-insert-sim-card

Everything has worked for me up until the very last step: "11.) Return to the Visible app and follow the instructions to complete activation." -- returning to the Visible app doesn't show any instructions or anything about completing the activation.  My phone's service shows 'SOS only' and I'm not sure how to proceed.  When you put in the new, working SIM card, did it just instantly connect, or did you have to follow that 11th step and activate it somehow from within the app?

As a side note, my Fedex package actually came with two SIM cards, I assume because this has become such a prominent issue?  They both seem to be identical, however, and both have the date '081622'.  I've tried both with no difference in getting them to work....

EDIT: According to reddit, Verizon's network has been down basically all day, preventing everyone from activating.  I'm hoping this is the reason for me too.  I really chose the worst day to do this - I had the SIM for like 10 days now but procrastinated on doing it.  I guess my learning experience from this was that I should check reddit/forums before ever doing this again, to first check if anything like this is happening; had I done that, I would still have service with my old SIM right now and could have avoided this.

[sg_cl]

Check below bar code on sim card. In my sim card date is 081622 in front but below barcode says 2019 Visible and other one that finally worked has 2022 Visible. If your phone support esim then request that one as that should work.

[Wcomp3611]

I'm having the same issue and my card also said 2019 Visible. I figured it was some licensing thing but if they're actually just sending out old cards that don't work that's ridiculous.

[LethalBassist]

I have the same problem has been hours still no service

[sg_cl]

Check if year listed on Sim card is 2022 or later not old one like 2019 as in my case. Seems old sim cards are not compatible with new network.  Chat support will follow their standard steps to reset/restart without finding the root cause of issues.

[GSXlover]

I just got off chat with Damian.  No resolution.  Ended with this:  We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. We have rectified this technical issue and our backend team is working on it as we speak. At the moment we do not have any estimated timeframe on it. I would suggest you to wait for a couple of hours and it will be automatically resolved and you won't need to chat back for this. I appreciate your understanding on this.

He ended by stating that I should wait 2 hours and the problem will be resolved.

[sg_cl]

In my experience, they want you to deal with other agent or keep waiting. Better to start another chat with Live agent rather than just waiting.

[sajee]

I've been through this hassle for the last two days. I've been a Visible customer for 3 years, and after some hesitation, I decided to heed the emails encouraging me to upgrade to the new network, so I went ahead. The result was that two new SIMs failed to activate, and I spent hours on chat with numerous agents, many of them offering conflicting information. Finally got it resolved this morning when my second attempt at eSIM activation worked with the latest Visible app update.

Details:

Received a SIM Monday, and it didn't activate on my iPhone 13 Pro, and didn't activate on an old iPhone 7. Received another SIM Tuesday, same result. Two SIM, neither one will activate, ending in error: "iPhone is not Activated Contact your carrier if this problem continues to occur." Visible wanted to ship me yet another SIM. I couldn't get a straight answer as to why the first two didn't work, and why a third would work. One agent said "It doesn't work because the ICCID is not the same as the one on your account". He couldn't offer an explanation as to why this could have happened.

Then I remembered my iPhone 13 Pro supports eSIM. Instead of shipping physical SIM, Visible should just provision eligible phones with eSIM. Sadly, none of the agents suggested eSIM when my physical SIMs failed to activate.

With Visible chat on Facebook Messenger (I recommend this option versus the chat on the Visible website), I tried installing an eSIM late yesterday afternoon, and it failed. Visible chat couldn't offer an explanation, but told me things would be fixed in the morning. "We've analyzed the whole situation. We’ve got our network experts and engineers working hard to resolve this issue. We understand your frustration, and we’re currently putting all our resources into resolving the outage. Thank you for your patience! This issue has our full attention, and our team is working hard to fix it. We’re sorry it’s impacting your service, but hang tight while our experts and engineers address the problem. Tomorrow morning, the activation will take effect with no other effort."

I was very skeptical. My chats with Visible agents left me very disheartened and I assumed this problem would linger for days. I made contingency plans on abandoning Visible and porting my number to another carrier if this problem wasn't resolved by the end of today.

This morning I opened the Visible app, and it said there was a new version that needed to be downloaded. When the app started again, it went right into eSIM installation, and within 5 minutes, I had cellular service again, and all is good. 

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome but this was a frustrating experience. Visible chat is pretty awful when it comes to fixing tough problems. The agents seem understaffed (responses took upwards of 5 minutes sometimes), I had to repeat myself many times, no one read the case notes/history, and they seem ill trained. I have two more iPhones to upgrade, so I hope that goes smoother.

Good luck to the rest of you.

[sg_cl]

I think eSim is better option if supported as in my case they sent me  sim from old lot ( 2019 ) which may not be compatible with upgraded network. Unfortunately no one in support know about compatability of Sim card shipped. They keep on following standard process for restart or reset.

[MGrant]

I’m posting this on multiple threads as it appears to be common problem.  Another Community User provided the following, which I tried and it worked!  1) Turn Off Roaming; 2) Turn Off Bluetooth; 3) Make sure phone has latest update; 4) Turn ON Airplane Mode, wait at least 30 seconds, Turn OFF Airplane Mode.  I followed these steps, status changed to VISIBLE but no bars.  As I was waiting, received message “Phone Activated” and it is now working.  Hope this helps others!  Good Luck!

[sumira]

Same issue; iphone 11 here; had visible for years; upgraded from 7 to 11 about 1.5 years ago with old sim card just fine in moments; have turned phone on and off a dozen times now but still nothing; do not "upgrade" to the "improved" network... it does not exist...

[sumira]

My phone stopped working 03.01.2022 @ 21:15 from your network update. You let me proceed with the update event though you knew it was not working. Then you promised me that the network would be restored within 24 hours. It has been 39 hours and still nothing. When will you fix this and how will you reimburse me for the lies you have told, the inconvenience you have caused, and my time that you have wasted?

[VisibleSUCKS100]

Anyone that has had Visible for any length of time knows that when it (network) works, it's pretty good, typical Verizon level of service.  When there is a problem, it is going to be he11.  Never have the friendly AI bots or actual people on chat been able to resolve anything IME expediently.  Very sad.  If they are doing a FORCED upgrade, and send out a new SIM card to a phone that is ON THEIR NETWORK ... it should works and should NOT be difficult.  The incompetence in the upper management and higher levels of IT is beyond belief.