eSIM Activation still a nightmare in 2023

[Norge]

Brother got a new phone, upgrading from an iPhone 7 (pSIM) to an iPhone 14 (eSIM) and since trying to upgrade both his network and phone, eSIM has been refusing to activate. We started the process last Thursday, and I’ve been talking with CS for hours on end for the past 5 days. 

I’ve been through multiple CS agents and my case has been escalated 4 times, and yet the eSIM won’t work. It’s frustrating that you can’t have a dedicated person/team to talk with your case about and instead you have to keep speaking with new people that read your case file (and you can tell some of them don’t).

I have been a customer at visible for about 5-6 years now, and there’s always an issue when setting up a new phone. However, it’s never been THIS bad. This has been the absolute worst phone-related experience I’ve had and it’s made me look into MINT mobile so if things don’t work out here- I’m out. 

For the eSIM, it’s always one error after another. With CS we’d make some progress but then a different error will occur. It got to the point where they’re manually having to make changes to his account among other things. The fact that Visible is still having issues with eSIM an entire year after the iPhone 14 came out is ridiculous (and I’m not the only one, I see the posts on here).

Now his old phone is stuck with no service because they had to deactivate his old SIM “for it to work” and his new phone also has no service so he can’t even do his job. He bought the iPhone from Visible ($1000+) I don’t see why they couldn’t update/set up everything for him. CS is going to manually redownload the eSIM today (for the second time), so we’re hoping it pans out. If not, we’re getting a refund on the iPhone 14 and Visible is losing 4 customers. 

[Norge]

Update: Been with support since 8 AM, tried to redownload the e-SIM twice with no luck. Even factory reset the phone. They had to escalate the case again… For the 5th time…

Asked if there was a manager or higher up I could speak to, they said there wasn’t. After they email me with a “solution” I’m gonna ask to refund the phone. 

[Norge]

Update #2

Still trying and failing to download an eSIM. However, I finally got confirmation from the support team that it is not a hardware issue on the iPhone and that it is a network issue on Visible’s part. They finally sent a Step by Step e-mail detailing everything I needed to do to hopefully download the eSIM successfully. However, when I got to steps eight and nine, where they asked me to go to my account overview page and locate the QR code, there was no QR code in sight.

So I had to contact support yet again to ask where the QR code is, but they had no idea, and re-escalated my case to their higher tech team. Again. For the 9th or 10th time now. Why send an email with a step that doesn’t exist on your website?
Now I have to wait an undetermined amount of time to hear from their support team, which probably will take another 24 hours. Utterly ridiculous. Worst support I have ever seen from a phone company- but that’s what I get for trying to save a little bit of money.

[Norge]

Final Update:

I am astonished by Visible’s awful communication and hypocritical practices. Not even mad, just shocked and disappointed.

Every re-download attempt from Visible led to failure to the point where I went to their live chat and asked if I could reactive the old iPhone 7 while the support team worked on the eSIM issue. I’ll quote everything we said, I can add screenshots later if needed:

Me: “I’m wondering if it would be possible to reactivate service on the iPhone 7 while I am waiting for my eSIM to be fixed by your tech team.”

Visible confirmed.

Me: “Just to double check, I will still be able to use the iPhone 7 with a pSIM while support works on my iPhone 14? So I can have 2 phones tied to my account at once?”
Visible: “Yes it will work. No, you won’t be charged.”

Visible: “Yes till the issue is resolved you can use the SIM card in the iPhone 7.”

Great! So I ordered a new pSIM for the iPhone 7. Fast forward a few hours I get an email from the higher tech team saying that because I was switching back to pSIM, they would close my case and stop working on the eSIM issue with the iPhone 14… 

That was NOT what I had discussed with the agent, and support had practically LIED to my face. It seems Visiblr CS is either okay with lying to their customers or they have NO communication with their own team. I would be surprised by either. I’m done fighting this- the fact that Visible thinks they can push around their customers and hide behind the “online only customer support” excuse and their awfully designed support model is deplorable. Well, good job Visible, you lost 4 former-loyal customers and you’re on track for losing many more. Do better.