09-13-2023 11:21 PM - edited 09-13-2023 11:22 PM
Hello 🙂
Anyone who's reading these forums likely knows what a disaster the Apple Watch Cellular Plan is with Three at times, leaving many people months without service for months when they get a new device. So I was hoping, considering many people may be upgrading on the 22nd Sep when the new devices come out, what's the proper process or the best way to do it, to achieve a good outcome?
I've heard different approaches:
It would be good to know which of the following approaches (or any others I've missed) worked for people, to successfully transfer the plan without having to spend 10+ hours with the Three Support team and many months and still be unsuccessful? Trying to make the process as smooth as possible - and hopefully this thread can help others too.
@JonathanB - Could you give your input here if possible please?
on 09-14-2023 01:54 PM
I have had this issue for 3 months now, And just got my latest Bill which again is showing the Pairing !
Just been on the phone and they have confirmed the Add on will end on the 3rd October and given me a 7 pounds credit for this month as I was assured I would not have been charged !
Seems the only way round it is to give them 1 months notice and then re add the add on, and there system cannot cope with a simple swap over that the likes of o2 have !
My wife did the same with o2 the same day as me, and hers swapped over instally !
Three continue to try the its Apples fault, when it clearly isn't !!!
on 09-21-2023 12:08 AM
I’ve had to do exactly the same thing, cancel the smartwatch pairing add on and wait a month for it to be deleted from my account. It’s a complete farce and amateurish. The worst part of it is, nobody in technical support had/still has any idea what to do or how to fix the issue so my advice would be not to waste your time. Just call billing and cancel the add on - this can’t be done in the Three app (some advisors will try to fob you off and tell you to go away and use the app to cancel it yourself which you can’t do). When I spoke to an advisor in billing she had absolutely no idea what smartwatch pairing was, let alone how to fix it. So in a few weeks I’ll have to try and re activate a data plan on the Apple Watch app and hope it works. All in all, a scam.
on 09-21-2023 04:31 PM
Hi @Snook,
Sorry for the delay in answering, and thanks for starting this thread, I think it should be really helpful especially with new Apple devices on the way.
To my understanding you'd want to unpair the existing Apple Watch first using the info here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204568
Then once that's completed you should be able to pair the new watch. Your existing add on should still be intact on your Three account so that you don't need to remove this and wait till the next bill cycle.
I wouldn't recommend going straight into pairing a new device, as the IMEI of the watch is stored in the background systems, conflicts with more than one IMEI can cause errors.
And for the factory reset suggestion, this is advised by Apple but only if one of the devices, phone or watch, is lost/stolen, similar to the previous scenario the IMEI may not remove itself from our system.
Please let me know if there's still any errors when following these suggestions.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Mod tip! The author of a post can hit 'Accept as Solution', to highlight a reply that helped solved their query.
on 09-23-2023 01:33 PM
Hi - sent you a DM as both my wife and I are having terrible problems with the swap. She activated but is no service; I'm stuck in an activation loop. Customer service advice is "wait" which doesn't inspire hope!
on 11-01-2023 01:37 AM
After 10 days of lots of calls to Three, numerous resets of my new Apple Watch (and new iPhone) I managed to get it working myself.
The key for me was to reset my Three password to one that did not include characters. I don’t know why this worked (the Apple Watch I replaced was only set up for SmartWatch pairing 12 months ago and the password was fine). Anyway,
One point to note, in the watch app under Mobile Service/ Mobile Plan it was stuck on ‘activating’ for at least 25 mins. I stayed on this screen for the duration. Eventually the message changed from ‘Activating’ to ‘Three’ and the Watch is now paired.
The Watch App still had a red ‘1’ on the message ‘finishing set up this Apple Watch’ or whatever it says. I selected it and closed the App a few times - it would not go, eventually it did. Reminder, set display back to auto-lock.
Hope this helps someone.
