I recently damaged my iPhone so I needed to do an insurance claim. The insurance claim was fine and I got my phone within a week (very happy about this). When I picked up my phone from the store I asked them when my contract was up and they said in 3 months and that I could upgrade for free. I was a tad annoyed about this as the insurance claim cost me $250 and I would have upgraded and avoided that cost. Anyway I thought I would give the new phone that I got from insurance to my sister as she was in need of a phone and I upgraded my phone over the phone. AS I was giving the insurance phone to my sister I needed something to tide me over until I get my phone from upgrades in the next 2 weeks. I went into the store in Rundle Mall in Adelaide to grab a cheapie phone. I was served by a young girl and she ran out the back and got me the $20 cheapie phone that I asked for and when she came back she asked for my drivers licence. I asked what she needed it for and she said that she needed to activate the pre-paid sim card that came with the phone. I looked at the board that the phone was on and said that there were other phones that said that tehy came in packs but this one didn't and there was no disclaimer saying that I needed to activate a free sim card that came with the phone let alone hand over my drivers licence to activate it. I said that I had no need for the sim card and seeing as it didn't state that I had to take it I didn't want it. She started talking about how it was by law that they had to activate a sim card with every pre paid phone sold and so on and so forth. I said I would like the literature that states that I need to activate a pre paid number when I just want to buy a pre paid phone. She printed out a form (the one I had to sign) and said that it stated it on there. I informed her that the form talked about activating a pre-paid mobile number, not purchasing a pre paid phone. A young man came to help serve and he got agitated when I pointed out that the form had nothing to do with purchasing a pre paid mobile phone and I would like the literature which said I had to activate a sim card when purchasing a pre paid mobile phone. He said he could not find it and I asked politely if he could dig it up and I would be back in the store in an hour once I had finished work. His response absolutely horrified me. His exact word were, "I would rather be serving customers that have to do this." Now I have 3 post paid accounts with vodafone. One for me, one for my mother and one for my father as they are a bit older and it is getting a bit much for them to deal with bills so I consider myself a customer of vodafone no matter how small my issue is. Before I lost my temper I politely told him that if he could be so kind as to try and find the paperwork regarding activating a pre paid sim card before I returned I would be more than happy to take it.

I returned to the store an hour later as I said that I would. The girls who served me the first time was there and she asked me to wait. She then went to the front of the store, spoke to another girl and the second girl served me. The second girl said that I could have the phone with no sim card but there would be no warranty on the phone. I found that strange and said so. She then changed her story a little and said it was because there was no way of tracking the phone if they sold it to me without a phone number that they activated. I informed her the the first girl told me that I could throw away the activated sim card if I didn't need it and if this was the case if I came back needing the phone repaired without that phone number how would they find it? She then said it would be because they would find me by name.

Now I am not up-to-date with all technology but I do know this from buying other phones outright (without a damn pre paid sim card), to find a phone that a store has sold they always record the imei number. This is what happened why I needed to get my receipt for insurance and I know for a fact my name was not on that receipt because I have just checked it against the pre paid one that I bought.

I decided to test this theory. I called up the Tea Tree Plaza store and told them that I had bought a pre paid phone from a store in another state and I wanted to know if I could get a copy of the receipt from her store. The girl on the phone said, "yes, all we need is the IMEI number in the back of the phone."

I actually then went into the Tea Tree Plaza store and pretended that I wanted to buy a pre paid phone and the same thing happened. A boy said that he needed to activate a pre-paid sim card with my pre paid phone. I went through a similar spiel with what happened at the Rundle Mall store and he refused to sell me the phone and that it was for warranty purposes that he needed to activate the sim card with the pre paid phone.

Strange.....considering that the girl from the Tea Tree Plaza store said earlier that all I needed was the IMEI number for a receipt.

I believe that the girl in the Rundle Mall store along with the boy at the Tea Tree Plaza store were just trying to bump up their quota of pre paid numbers for the month and I am absolutely disgusted.

I have since gone through the Vodafone website thoroughly and cannot find ANYTHING saying that all pre-paid phones have to have a pre-paid sim card activated with them. Vodafone, I am withdrawing my upgrade and am transferring all 3 of my numbers to another carrier as soon as my parents phones come out of contract!

......and all of this because one of your staff members demanded my personal details to sell something that she didn't need