Buying new phone. What a debacle.
Finally decided I need to upgrade my Sony Xperia ZA which is on Android 9 and constantly threatens to run out of space. With only 32Gb inside, things are tight. Sure, it has an external SD card, but most apps won't support putting their data there! Grr.
Okay, I can spring for a new Pixel 8. Going for a 256Gb one so I don't run into space problems for a long time. Which is only available here in black (aka "obsidian") when I'd like a non-black phone this time. I like the one in "rose", but can only get it in 128Gb unless I buy off Ebay. Well, that was true 3 weeks ago, whilst I waiting for my next pay cycle.
Right, so I can just buy a black one and buy a cover in rose.
I've had adventures with my bank making high value purchases like that in retail (I know the problem but I have to prepare for it to make it work), so I go for buying it online with my credit card. Local Telco has Pixel 8s for sale on their website. Should be easy peasy, yes? No. Checkout process of the website assumes I'm setting up a payment plan and wants to do all these identity checks as it's technically credit. They don't work, which is asinine because I've been a post-paid customer of them for at least a decade!
After talking to the online agent, who either can't tell me or doesn't know why the identity checks failed, or even why they're necessary, he says just go into a local store. That at least will make the staff deal with their system's mistakes. But that takes me back to the payment problem above and I've already put the funds on my credit card.
Decided I didn't really want to fuck with that and ordered off the Google Store instead. Easy peasy. No stupid identity checks. It'll turn up later this week, I'll move my SIM over and I expect Everything Should Just Work.
Couple of comments on Mastodon suggested Telstra has such a knot of systems that don't talk to each other all that well, so of course I had problems. And that they've been the largest telco here for so long they've forgotten how to do a simple retail purchase, albeit for an expensive bit of kit. Kind of wish I had an easy way to collar someone high-ish and say "this is why I didn't buy my new phone off you". Someone high enough they could seriously threaten the job of whichever Product Manager has let this persist.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant.
Wade.
Okay, I can spring for a new Pixel 8. Going for a 256Gb one so I don't run into space problems for a long time. Which is only available here in black (aka "obsidian") when I'd like a non-black phone this time. I like the one in "rose", but can only get it in 128Gb unless I buy off Ebay. Well, that was true 3 weeks ago, whilst I waiting for my next pay cycle.
Right, so I can just buy a black one and buy a cover in rose.
I've had adventures with my bank making high value purchases like that in retail (I know the problem but I have to prepare for it to make it work), so I go for buying it online with my credit card. Local Telco has Pixel 8s for sale on their website. Should be easy peasy, yes? No. Checkout process of the website assumes I'm setting up a payment plan and wants to do all these identity checks as it's technically credit. They don't work, which is asinine because I've been a post-paid customer of them for at least a decade!
After talking to the online agent, who either can't tell me or doesn't know why the identity checks failed, or even why they're necessary, he says just go into a local store. That at least will make the staff deal with their system's mistakes. But that takes me back to the payment problem above and I've already put the funds on my credit card.
Decided I didn't really want to fuck with that and ordered off the Google Store instead. Easy peasy. No stupid identity checks. It'll turn up later this week, I'll move my SIM over and I expect Everything Should Just Work.
Couple of comments on Mastodon suggested Telstra has such a knot of systems that don't talk to each other all that well, so of course I had problems. And that they've been the largest telco here for so long they've forgotten how to do a simple retail purchase, albeit for an expensive bit of kit. Kind of wish I had an easy way to collar someone high-ish and say "this is why I didn't buy my new phone off you". Someone high enough they could seriously threaten the job of whichever Product Manager has let this persist.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant.
Wade.
