Bed, Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, there is just so much to
do I am not sure if we will have time.
Well if you need a cellphone in Singapore, it might take you
awhile. What follows if the story of
getting Amy a local cellphone. I wouldn't recommend going about it the way that
we did.
The first decision that must be made, which carrier to
use. There is M1, Starhub and
SingTel. Most people felt that there was
not much difference so we opted for Starhub since that was going to be our
cable provider and we get a corporate discount.
So when we arrived in Sing almost a month ago, we stopped at the Starhub
outlet in the mall to ask about getting a cellphone. They basically said that if you wanted a
contract phone you had to have an EP (employment pass.) If you didn’t do this
you could do a top up (pay as you go) phone, but then to get an iPhone it was full price… like
$800 bucks. So we decided that I would
give Amy my U.S. phone until we got the EP. (Side note, everyone here uses
Samsung phones...iPhones are not as popular as they are in the States.)
Skip forward 3 weeks and I have my authorized EP paperwork,
but not the card. Not having the card is
a critical issue of this story. The
super nice ladies at the employment pass place pretty much said that with this
paper I could do basically anything, including go in and out of the country. With paper in hand were off to the closest Starhub. After meeting at the first mall location the
rep told me that he could not help me since I did not have the physical EP
card; that we had to go to the Starhub Customer Service Center… there are only
3 on the whole island.
The Saturday adventure would start with a cab ride to the
mall that had customer service center.
Once walking into the mall we saw a loads of people sitting around and
we knew we were in the right place.
Instead of waiting in line to see if they could help me, I asked a
representative if they could get me a phone without the physical EP card. After about 10 minutes of this girl running
around she said they could, but there would be a large deposit on the
phone. I said that was fine, despite her
telling me that it was not a good idea.
So Amy and I get in line and right as we do they put up a
sign right next to us in line that says “approximate wait time is 3
hours.” At this point there were only
about 20 people in front of us and line seemed to move pretty quickly. After about 40 minutes we finally get to the
counter. “Three hours my rear end,” I think.
Sure enough the counter we were at was the counter in order to get the
number that they would then call for you to be helped. (Think Motor Vehicle Department).
So we got a nice piece of paper that said A1018 and we waited with a revolving
door of 50 of our favorite neighbors.
Now my description will not give the scene justice, but all around
us are displays of phones available for purchase. People are coming and
going and playing with them you so have all these annoying rings, buzzers, they all had an alarm that went off every time someone picked it up and on top
of that there was a doorbell noise that was sounding off every time a new
number was called. In the waiting room the
first depressing movie that was on, Iron
Lady (in Mandarin subtitles nonetheless) ends and they begin to play
another “uplifting” movie, Les Miserables...I found this all too ironic because around this point there were mass amounts
of people in the waiting room and it was hot, so I was pretty miserable.
After getting through three quarters of Les Mis they finally
called our number. For the next 43
minutes 28 seconds (but who’s counting?) we worked on getting a phone. While most things in Singapore are unbelievably
efficient, this was not. $1,086 Singapore dollars later ($800 of it that is a
refundable deposit since I didn’t have my official EP card) we had a brand new
gold iPhone for use in Singapore!
So a word to new arrivals in Singapore who want a cell phone- wait till you get your physical EP card then you don’t have to go to one of
only 3 customer service centers where everyone in Singapore is waiting in
line. I am sure at this point you are
wondering why didn’t I wait… well I have a 2 week work trip that started Monday and I didn’t have my card in time and since Amy has a long term visitor pass,
she is basically a second class citizen (her words, not mine) and they won’t
allow her to sign a contract on a phone. During the time I am gone we hope to be moving
into our new place and getting our furniture and other home items delivered. No one here will call an international number so we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. The big question is how easy will it be to
get the $800 Singapore dollar deposit back? I love Miss Amy, but I think she’s
going to have to sort that out!
Until Then,
Amy & Raegen
 |
| The waiting time when we were done and ready to leave was up to 4 hours! |
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