In my continuing ex-pat saga, I’d like to update you on my attempts to set up a phone contract over here.

When I was in the UK with the circus in 2019-2020 for a few months, I had a pay as you go SIM card that I would pop into an EE every month, give them £20 and have enough data and minutes to be fine for the month.

When I moved back here in April, I went into an EE on my first day and tried to set up a phone plan.

Of course, I thought this whole system would be very similar to America, but it was not.

OR it was not for me because I’m a mid-thirties adult with a number of credit cards and an excellent American credit score. So generally, I just try to set up something up in the States and it works.

Perhaps this is not true for those with no credit.

Because in the UK, I have no established credit. So this plan did not go smoothly.

I tried to use my Wise card to setup the account (which, incidentally, you pay for the month up front even on contract, so the fact that this was so difficult has been bonkers to me – just shut off my phone plan if the payment doesn’t go through ffs).

This was the only area my Wise card let me down. If you’re moving abroad or even travelling between countries regularly – highly, highly recommend a Wise account. You can read a full review I wrote here.

So on day one, I left with £20 in cash exchanged for a top up on my SIM card and the knowledge that I have 30 days to get it together and figure out how to get a British bank card.

And then… I didn’t really get it together and right before it was time to top up that SIM card, I darted over to a nearby Barclays, hoping that the fact that I’m an American Barclays bank account holder might help (spoiler: it didn’t) and was told that all I had to do was download the Barclays app to apply when I was back at my flat and it would be a piece of cake.

I don’t know what kind of cake that dude was thinking of, but I did not find any of this process to be an enjoyable piece of cake.

To download British apps, you need a British Apple account. I researched a few other banks and it turned out the whole apply using the app thing is pretty common here. So I was going to need to download a bank app.

It turned out that to switch my Apple account from America to the UK, I had to have no recurring subscriptions and a $0.00 balance in my Apple account.

So I bought yet another UK adapter plug to get rid of the gift certificate and then cancelled my Apple + subscription.

But things don’t cancel immediately, so after doing all that, I had three weeks left before I could actually switch my country on my account.

Like a total fool, I didn’t think of just creating a second account.

Thus, another £20 top up.

The three weeks pass, I’m finally able to switch my country, but to switch my country, I need a debit or credit card with a British postal address. I can’t download the app to open the bank account to get the card with the British postal address.

I finally go to an HSBC (same bank I used in Sheffield ages ago) and tell them I need to open an account in person and that I am a student. They tell me I need several papers from my university to do that.

Excellent. The next free day I have, I go get all the papers from the university student center.

And by now, I am at another trip to EE and £20 top up.

I make it back to the bank and they finally help me setup my account.

A week or so later, my debit card arrives in the mail. I get a second letter with a PIN.

I go online and setup my account. I’m able to transfer in £200 from my Wise account.

I’m in business right? In America, I’d be good to go.

I go to EE. I wait for an hour to be seen. I say I want to switch to a contract. We go to run my debit card and – it’s rejected.

The guy tells me to go over to the nearest ATM and just use my card there to activate it.

I put it in the ATM. I enter the PIN. The PIN is rejected.

I do this three times.

I walk to the HSBC branch and they tell me because I did it three times, my account is locked for 24 hours and we can’t do anything till after that.

I go home. Still with no phone contract.

The next day, I log online and look at my account and everything looks fine.

I go to the ATM again and the ATM shuts down my attempts. I begin to think I’ve lost my mind but I wrote the PIN on a flipping Post-It.

I go home, pull out the papers from HSBC and start reading through all of them. There’s the one that came with the card. The others that came with the PIN. …and there’s this other weird telephone security number.

I try the telephone security number in place of the PIN at the ATM and.. it works. I can now access my balance and make withdrawals.

W.T.F., England.

I also reset the PIN and now that’s the number that actually does work to use an ATM. Sure. Makes zero sense, but ok.

I go to EE. Wait another hour or so because that place is always a zoo. Finally set up the plan. Go to run the card and…

Am rejected because I don’t have enough of a history with the bank.

For the account that requires to you pay at the beginning of the month.

Which is entirely illogical.

So… another trip to city centre and a £20 top up.

And my phone contract saga continues. The woman at EE told me to come back in 4-6 months after I’ve been regularly paying bills with my bank account.

I just moved my Internet bill over to there since we’ve all heard me complain about the super weirdness that is my electricity key too.

And hopefully, by this time next year, I’ll be ready for a phone contract. Oof.