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Switching mobile service providers

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    2,495

    Switching mobile service providers

    I want to swap from China Mobile to Smartone, and move my number.

    Reading my current contract (which i think has expired, though it's really not at all clear...), it says I have to give 30 days notice in writing to terminate, but doesn't say where i need to write.

    In the UK it's very simple. You call them up, tell them you're leaving and want to port your number, they give you a code which you give to your new provider, then a few days later it's moved across.

    How does the process work here?


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Hong Kong
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    23,205

    Whenever I've done it I've simply gone to the shop of the service provider I want to move to, signed up with them and they've done whatever is necessary. Whether you get any termination charge from the old provider is down to your contract; I think I may have been billed a month's basic package fee once when I did this, but it wasn't from China Mobile.

    dipper likes this.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    359

    I just did yesterday. Moved from People (no contract) to PCCW. As I am using PCCW other services, no address proof is needed. They gave me a SIM card already and the switch will be effective in three days.


  4. #4

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
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    Hong Kong
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    That is what I did. However, yesterday I had a text from Peoples saying I’d have to pay damages as I was breaking my contract. Surprised, as I had a signed contract in front of me quite clearly showing the date it finished, I rang them. Turns out they had auto-renewed my contract by sending me a text with a special offer, that was opt out, rather than opt in. I can’t recall ever receiving that text, but either way I got so much marketing rubbish from them by text I wouldn’t necessarily have read it.

    After a big row they agreed to let me pay the monthly special offer fee to the end of my contract, which is less than the damages would be.

    I had no complaints about them up till now, but this disgusting underhand practice will ensure they never get my business again.


  5. #5

    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Hong Kong
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    15,557
    Quote Originally Posted by Beanieskis:
    That is what I did. However, yesterday I had a text from Peoples saying I’d have to pay damages as I was breaking my contract. Surprised, as I had a signed contract in front of me quite clearly showing the date it finished, I rang them. Turns out they had auto-renewed my contract by sending me a text with a special offer, that was opt out, rather than opt in. I can’t recall ever receiving that text, but either way I got so much marketing rubbish from them by text I wouldn’t necessarily have read it.

    After a big row they agreed to let me pay the monthly special offer fee to the end of my contract, which is less than the damages would be.

    I had no complaints about them up till now, but this disgusting underhand practice will ensure they never get my business again.

    Not surprised at all, this being Hong Kong, Asia's World City hub of hubs for shitty consumer protection laws (TM).