Posting here for traffic. Apologies for the long post but need to give back story.
I've had a sim only contract with Plusnet for a couple years now - £8 for unlimited calls and 12gb data. They recently put the price up by just over a quid, so my mum (who is on same deal) changed to Talkmobile who were offering 15gb data for £8. Basically a quid a month cheaper and 3gb extra data.
I never use all my data tbh but said I may as well change as it's usually just a case of swapping sims. My mum then calls me to say she's set it up for me with my details so just need to wait for sim. I told her not to set up stuff on my behalf in future but wasn't ultimately too fussed as it's a better deal.
Anyway, sim arrives and when I put it in it's asking for a NCK code. If I dismiss message I can't make any calls. Talkmobile are adamant my phone must be locked but I'm pretty sure this isn't the case as I purchased a nearly new refurbished phone from CEX when I broke last handset and just put old sim in - i.e. I was never in a proper contract with this phone.
This handset worked straight away with last sim and my friend's sim works fine in it. Talkmobile are still saying that handset must be locked and that I must've just been lucky to have a sim from the same provider as previous owner. I don't believe this because places like CEX unlock the phones they sell for the specific reason that people buy them to put their own sim in. Also, I've not met a single person on Plusnet yet so chances are very slim that previous owner was.
Talkmobile are saying I need to take it to a phone shop. Called Plusnet just in case they've somehow locked it and they're saying they never lock phones and thus don't have the capability to unlock them. They also offered to match the Talkmobile deal and chuck in an extra couple of gb data.
I accepted the deal as it's slightly better than the Talkmobile one and doesn't involve faffing around trying to make the new sim work and maybe having to pay somewhere to unlock the handset. However, the real kicker is that when I called to cancel the Talkmobile contract they said my mum had signed me up for a year so would be £82 to cancel - not worth it as the contract was only going to be saving me £12 a year in the first place.
So now I'm seemingly stuck in a contract which is worse off than the upgrade current provider are offering, and the sim doesn't even work. I'd have to faff around visiting phone shops and speaking to handset manufacturer and maybe previous network etc. Maybe even have to pay to unlock handset which may cost as much as I'm actually saving. And all for a worse deal than I can get just by keeping current sim.
I said I wasn't paying the cancellation fee for a contract I didn't agree to/set up and for a sim that doesn't even work, but they're saying they can't cancel as it's still set up with my legitimate details. They still want me to faff around trying sim in other phones and visiting a store. I'm getting pissed off with it all now tbh.