We purchased an Orange Pocket Wifi (Airbox 2) in Paris on 03/09/2019 at the Champs Elysees store. We explained we would be travelling through many countries in Europe over several weeks. The device was set up for us in store and we were told it was ready to go for our travels.
We leave the store and the device does not work. Further investigation found the sim had been put in upside down - no big deal.
The wifi works that day, and half the next. Until we crossed the border into Switzerland (04/09/2019). The device stops, displaying a red dot next to the wifi signal. We email Orange, who tell us to visit a store in France. A back and forth continues with them saying we should call the international number or refer to the website (in french).
The website, even after translation offers no solutions. We figure it must be a Switzerland thing and wait until we arrive in Italy (07/09/2019). The device still does not work. We email again and they offer various solutions such as turn off then turn back on the device. Failing that they stop replying again.
Finally we arrive in Nice, so back in France. The wifi works again! We visit an Orange store in the evening (11/09/2019) and the customer service man says "I dont know". He says it should work. The solutions he offers are:
1. Wait and see. Maybe it will work next time.
2. Buy a different sim in every country.
Obviously neither are an option, finally he relents and says if we come back the following day he will call customer service for us.
We go in the next day (12/09/2019), wait in queue for the 3rd time. He starts calling, speaking french the whole time. He starts to get visibly frustrated as time goes on. He gets transferred, given other numbers to call. After about 20 minutes he hangs up. He says we need to activate roaming. Grabs our phone and we tell him turning off flight mode will charge us, but he waves us off and activates our Australian data which charges us $10. He says that is all he can do.
We continue to email Orange, who offer no response or poor solutions. We use a webchat, where they deliberately disconnect us (we have photo evidence), telling us we need to call the international number. We call the international number and they say they still cant help us - call the french number - then hang up. We call the french number and they dont speak english, giving us the international number. We go back to webchat and they disconnect us again saying to call the international number.
Finally a helpful email comes through, showing us how to activate roaming on the device. We follow the steps. But it is very sporadic. We need to log on to 192.168.1.1 and follow the email steps. We try this with a samsung galaxy, an iphone and an ipad. We also try using safari, firefox and chrome. We cant get past the "change password" section. 2 hours later an attempt finally works. We folow the steps and activate roaming.
We leave France and arrive in Rome on 18/09/19. After a few days we see we are going to need to top up. We try to load via the website but the transactions do not go through. We email. We call. We use webchat. We get the same run around. We finally get assistance, but the website will not accept australian credit cards. We try a 28 degrees card. We try an american express, a visa and a mastercard. Apparently you need a French credit card! Nothing works. We get further email run around, further phone calls where they transfer us around and then hang up on us, further webchat drop outs.
Fortunately for us, we started logging this. To this point we have spent:
- 2.5 hours in 3 seperate stores.
- 3 hours writing emails (there are 43 at present).
- 6 hours on webchat (including queue times).
- 4.5 hours on phone calls (being transferred, hung up on etc).
- 2 hours trying to translate their website and make payments.
- 2 hours trying to log into the device to activate roaming.
Thats a legitimate 20 hours of our holiday. By the way they refused to offer a refund despite the device not doing what it said it would. Customer service has been nice at times, exceptionally rude at others - but overall extremely unhelpful.
So much unnecessary stress. And it is still unresolved a full 3 weeks after purchase.
All we we need is to know how to refill the device with more data if we don’t have a French credit card. Can you please assist?
