eSIM Activation is a NIGHTMARE

[ambermayalden]

I am so frustrated with the whole eSIM thing that Apple has done. I had an iPhone 12 with a physical SIM card from Visible. I just got an iPhone 14 Pro yesterday which only has eSIM. So I tried activating it on the app, and then the request got "stuck" so when I would hit the "activate" button again, it would say "you already initiated this request". I waited in chat queues for multiple hours, just to be booted or ghosted by the agent. 

24 hours later, I finally get ahold of someone who tells me there is nothing he can do because the request is "stuck" and I have to wait for their "advanced triage team" to reach out via email. When I asked for a timeline he was unable to give me one. I am so upset because before this I never had an issue with Visible. I have had them as a provider for 2 years now. 

I have no idea when Visible's "triage team" will reach out to me (if ever) and I have to send my old iPhone back to Apple soon to get my trade-in offer. If I don't...Visible will owe me like $400 lol. 

Just really poor planning on their part, not equipped with the resources to handle a massive issue like this which is clearly affecting thousands of users. 

[evanyau]

Why there is no official statement and apology so far, the problem of esim activation has troubled many people

[8FiddyMil]

I don't get the option to transfer sim in app. I've been waiting for hours for someone to come on chat and they are totally unresponsive on chat, twitter, messenger. On chat I got to next in line then the chat suddenly ended and I had to start over. I am so frustrated with the poor customer service that I'm about to just go back to ATT. You get what you pay for. This poor level of customer service is totally unacceptable. 

[roberthmendez80]

I am facing the same problem, i got yesterday the Iphone 14 and cant put it to work with visible. I am thinking to move to another company, visible is not helping at all

[8FiddyMil]

I feel you.

I don't get the option to transfer sim in app. I've been waiting for hours for someone to come on chat and they are totally unresponsive on chat, twitter, messenger. On chat I got to next in line then the chat suddenly ended and I had to start over. I am so frustrated with the poor customer service that I'm about to just go back to ATT. You get what you pay for. This poor level of customer service is totally unacceptable. 

[Vianca24]

Have they helped you with the iPhone ? I’m having same issue 

[Vianca24]

Have they fixed your problem? I’m having same issue 

[evanyau]

Contact online customer service to provide imei to solve the problem

[Vianca24]

Yeah I have they said in 24 hours they would get to me 

[8FiddyMil]

They will never get to you. Poorest customer service EVER. I’m glad to be gone. You get what you pay for. 

[8FiddyMil]

I tried to reach them Saturday to Monday. Totally non responsive. I get to first in line in queue then suddenly disconnected after waiting 2 hours. That happened 3 times. I switched to ATT on Monday. You get what you pay for. And I put Visible on blast on my YouTube channel with 6.2M followers. 

[Vianca24]

Did you have to send your phone back to switch to att. ?

[8FiddyMil]

I bought my iPhone 14 Pro from Apple and paid cash. so it’s mine.

[alanfromeburg]

The hardest part for me was getting a hold of a rep to activate my iPhone 14. 5 hours later I finally got a rep to activate it on my new phone. The only bad part now is that everyone can see my messages I send them but I can't Receive text messages from android users.  It's strange.

[TheCellTower]

Did you try basic troubleshooting steps that will usually fix the problem 

[ambermayalden · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: Literally gave up on their horrible customer service. Cancelled my phone plan, tot Mint. Hope you lost tons of customers Visible 🙂 you are the worst

[8FiddyMil]

I've been with Mint before. Poor network service and speed. 

[salessaiv]

How is Mint? I am looking to port out elsewhere since I can port my phone elsewhere before they will activate it. 

[nolasbaby]

well i would like to go somewhere else but since my number was ported to visible and it’s not active no one will port my number over

[salessaiv]

I am in the middle of porting out myself. They told me that Apple needs to due an iOS update for eSIM to work on their network. I have not had a phone in 3 days. They cannot even reactivate my old phone that I used on their network for years. 

[8FiddyMil]

Sounds like they are blame shifting again. Visible has the worst customer service. Take your phone into an AT&T store along with the port out PIN and walk out happy. It will cost a little more each month but you’ll be happy. And you’ll be on a premium data plan. I switched weeks ago. I’m happy!!! Visible is a looser, will drive you crazy, and keep you frustrated.

I’ve tried Cricket, Mint, and now Visible. I’m done with all of these third rate providers. 

[EAM]

I’m also switching because of this. My Visible support person told me that many people are canceling because of this issue. I have been without any cell service for days because of this error. It’s hard to express how bad this company has become since the Verizon takeover. I’m switching NOW. Goodbye and good riddance Visible!!

[danielscogan]

My Visible nightmare. I travel a lot and so I do not have home wi-fi. I wanted to port my number from Tello to Visible because Visible offered more "unlimited" data than Tello (50GB vs 35GB). All seemed to go well, my SIM arrived in the mail and then I tried to activate my new service with Visible. Keep in mind, unlike Tello, Visible has NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. It is IMPOSSIBLE TO SPEAK WITH A HUMAN BEING. The chatbot gives you the same useless answers no matter how you formulate your problem. Their server is slow. Their FAQs are full of questions and no answers. Anyway, I struggled to get my new service activated for three days, and having no phone service, until I said forget this, I need a telephone. So I went to Verizon, paid a lot more, and got 100GB of data, no strings attached. In the process I LOST MY TELEPHONE NUMBER because Verizon was unable to get it away from Visible. Somehow Visible had locked it. And remember Visible is a Verizon company as their advertising says, "Visible by Verizon".

In this day and age, I don't need to tell you how costly and damaging it is to have no phone or internet service for six days and to permanently lose the phone number that you have given to hundreds of contacts, not to mention wasting 18 to 22 hours in frustration, on their website, on their app, and getting nothing and nowhere. I would sue them for damages but I don't want to get into a David and Goliath scenario and waste even more time and money on them.

[8FiddyMil]

***** no! I gave up on Monday and switched to ATT. Visible is a good concept but severely lacking in customer service. You get what you pay for.

[firekat47]

Go here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BlnNppNsz0 

[Sanusis]

I’m stuck in ESIM activation limbo. No response from text support. Seems like the only resolution is to give up on Visible 😞

[jeesau]

Curious if you ended up switching to another carrier? I just switched to Visible today and still don’t have service😠

[lalaland94]

Im having problems receiving and sending texts from my android friends. I can call them but my texts aren’t sending and not receiving from them… it’s very weird and frustrating. Seems like this is a blaring issue that they aren’t able to fix and i wonder why they can’t fix it. 

[salessaiv]

They do not care about their customers period. It is the telecom equivalent of NFT crypto cash grab.

[Greggg]

Posting to show that there is hope, even if it isn't easy to get... I tried to install an eSIM last night after the physical SIM card worked well. To my surprise, my new iPhone 13 became useless unless it was on WiFi. A service rep just helped fix the issue, and I'll share the steps we did below (spoiler alert, you do need a Visible Rep for this).

1. Uninstall Visible App (then map out route for T-Mobile in case this doesn't work. Verizon isn't worth your time since they own Visible and are indirectly responsible for all this crap.)

2. Delete any current eSIMs (I did not have any, but I've seen a few others able to get them on their phone somehow)

2a. This can be done by Settings > Cellular > SIM (usually named "Primary/Personal") > Delete eSIM

3. (done by Visible) Rep needs to cancel current eSIM order and place another. Takes 20 to 30 minutes, sadly.

4. Install Visible App

5. Attempt eSIM install again by clicking "Continue"

5a. During this, make sure to only select Visible's eSIM (not your personal number). If you select your personal number (like I did), you will have to disable the SIM attached to your personal and enable the Visible eSIM. Not impossible, but it took me about an hour to figure out why I had 8 dots instead of 4 at the top right of my phone.

6. Follow all steps on Visible App. They include downloading the eSIM, installing it, and restarting the phone once everything is completed. I won't list them since they are pretty detailed when things finally work.

7. Restart phone and ensure eSIM is working. If you have multiple SIM options, use this step to help.

7a. Setings > Cellular > Cellular Data. One option called 'Primary' should be selected. Make sure this is the one that has a signal by confirming signal bars in the top-right of the phone.

7b. In same menu, make sure your 'Default Voice Line' is the same option as 'Cellular Data'

7c. Under SIMs (big step), make sure to turn off all SIMs except eSIM. This will prevent you from accidentally calling someone on a good eSIM versus a bad SIM option.

The above took about 2 hours speaking with a rep to complete. I'd suggest messaging Visible during weekday hours since I've had some negative experiences with off-hour reps. Here's to saving money with the trade-off of occasionally performing self-needed IT support.

P.S.
Here's another post with steps of someone completing it on a Pixel 6a. I hope this helps!

Pixal 6a Troubleshooting Steps (Seems to work but have not confirmed):
https://community.visible.com/t5/Need-help/eSIM-issue-finally-resolved/m-p/26362/highlight/true#M432...

[sdrehbein]

I am having the exact same issue! Was on chat with someone for 2.5 hours and nothing was resolved 😞 only to end abruptly by saying "someone will be in contact with you in 10 to 24 hours". Right as I was in the middle of sending him another question. 😂 I'm like huh? Apparently they just expect us to be without a phone for days. Back to # 45 in the que - It's 11 pm and I am TIRED lol. totally beyond me why they dont offer a costumer service number to call.... could save us all a lot of frustration. And SLEEP! 

[wildweede]

I am an android user, but similar story.  Ordered the service, got the SIM, went thru the procedure and when I got to activation it is not allowed.  Shut the phone down and now I cannot get into the phone at all.  Great system.

[nolasbaby]

I had a similar issue and was told 48 hrs ago it would be fixed in 24 so I have an iphone brick now

[Dmorton75]

It’s disappointing that we’re 2 years out from the original post and Visible STILL hasn’t figured out this issue. I’m switching from a 12 Pro Max to a 15 and it’s ridiculous. They act like it’s so simple, but it quickly devolves to an hour on with a sales agent who tells you it will be fixed by the escalation team in “20 minutes to an hour,” then after another chat 10 hours later, advises you that the team will send an email and it’s nowtwenty four to forty eight hours (I had to change that from numbers because it was flagged as a “bad word” by the system). 
Now I’ve received 3 emails from 3 different people on different days stating the same timeframe, but no indication it is reset each time.

No way to reply or contact anyone directly who knows ANYTHING. 
I was concerned when I saw Verizon purchased Visible, and now those fears are being realized. It’s sad, because I’ve been a customer for years and have urged others to join. I’m now on my way out. 😕