EE Harrier Mini grounded by errant Wi-Fi calling upgrade An official upgrade to EE Harrier Mini mobes is bricking them. The upgrade, which was pushed out to customers last week, requires a back-to-base fix. Comments on the EE community forum indicate that the devices will not get past the power-on screen after they have been upgraded. Some people say that they have been given a …
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Do we want "tight integration" of everything?
No.
Do we want a little button which says "reset to factory defaults"
Yes.
Do we want to be able to open the phone and press a little button which allows a TFTP/USB/Serial Line boot?
Yes. Hey, if you used a light/LED interface, you could just fill a whole room with phones and flash the whole lot in one go.
"on the one hand we have stories about how bad it is telcos don't push out updates"
No we don't. We have stories about how bad it is telcos don't make updates available. There's a huge difference between allowing people to update things, and forcing any and all software modifications on them with no regard for whether anyone wants them or if they actually work at all.
The risk of living with security threats is often deemed better than risking the device being bricked or borked. Plus the inconvenience, time, cost and effort of trying to get things fixed when it does go wrong. And even if it does go well it usually means something changing for the worse with no way back to what one was happy with.
If we want users to upgrade we have to give them the confidence to do so along with being able to easily rescue themselves when things inevitably go wrong. Unfortunately that's rarely the case and endless stories like these simply convince people to turn updates off.
I'm afraid that would be my attitude in cases like this.
And no, you CAN'T have the old one back - it's got personal data on it, and I'm not releasing it until I can securely delete all of it. I've come all the way to one of your lousy stores to prove to you it's borked - now gimmie a new one. Now. Please.
If you insist, I'll happily pound the borked one to bits - and I mean tiny bits - on your showroom floor with this lump hammer I happen to have on me if you really, really want it back - but I'm sure you would not be so unreasonable as to want me to do that, would you?
No deal? well, as I see it you have denied me phone service by your unreasonable attitude, so we'll just have to end our cosy little relationship called a contract ....
I'll just call Sue Grabbit and Runne from the nearest landline....
Rule 1 -- Bring your own phone.
Rule 2 -- Stay away from Explosions Everywhere.
Rule 3 -- There is no rule 3.
Not wholly in jest - They deserve it.
I have undfortunately been an EE customer for a week now, and i cannot find any way to contact them atall about anything..
Call 150 they say, but there is no humans on that line, you can go to tech support and pay 25p per call... which is nice, but you can't actually get to a real person.
EE are terrible, i don't even have problems (yet) but they refuse to help in any way .... with anything.. they also text me daily (4 times) to tell me i need to buy more credit... something a PAYG phone would need like a car needs fuel... so rather redundant and annoying. F**k ee.. fortunately, i can put a second sim in my (Samsung) phone because i bought it in Asia where the phone is always separate so the models available reflect consumer requirements, not telco requirements.
Ridiculously, they refuse to deal with customers by e-mail.
Solution of sorts is to use their Twitter site and when the hacks on there feel unable to help they'll put you on an interactive webchat with a real person (or Siri's cousin ?). This has resolved things for me with EE/TMobile in the past.
Last resort, look up the name of a board member responsible for customer relations and write them an actual letter.
Last resort, look up the name of a board member responsible for customer relations and write them an actual letter.
I wrote to the boss of Sainsbury's, Lord Whatsisname, when their phone billing system cocked-up. I received a nice letter back with a voucher for £25. That was of not much use, their nearest store is 120 miles away. Then they set the bailiffs on me. I never paid the bastards!
Your experience of Sainsbury's; at least they offered the voucher !
Though counter-intuitive, it's often smart to buy tech stuff from supermarkets. Okay, the available sales advice is zero and the range limited, but special offers are often bargains thanks to the big stores' buying power on end-of-ranges etc.
More crucially, if things go wrong, the supermarkets rely on goodwill to keep you coming in for the weekly food shop.
By contrast, a specialist retailer is lucky to see you once in 5 years when you replace TV/washing machine/ fridge -- so do they care if you never return ?
Speaking from personal experience of EEs help with bricked phones, you have little to no chance in getting hold of a replacement unit when you visit a store to get this issue solved.
They are more than happy to sell you a phone as a temporary replacement for the one they broke though. I'm not joking, two stores tried to sell me a replacement phone while mine went away for repair to fix an issue they caused.
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