Well I've broken my own record for my shortest mobile phone contract - 1 day - with Vodafone.

Ordered my Omnia and it arrived yesterday...all well and good. That's until I rang Vodafone to give them my PAC code to transfer my number from T-Mob. Not sure if Voda are living in the dark ages or not but I was told quite abruptly that I couldn't transfer my number! Apparently I should have entered my PAC code on the website when I ordered....and because I didn't I now can't. The only way to transfer my number is to cancel my contract, send the phone and SIM back then re-order and enter my PAC during the order process.

Now I've never had any trouble transferring my number (been with T-Mob, Orange and O2 - this is my first experience with Vodafone) always calling the network with my PAC code once I've received the Phone and SIM. Anyone else had this trouble with Voda before? Don't think I need to say it but this will be my last dealings with Vodafone so it's off to O2 for the Omnia then!

That is seriously backward...

I have ported my number Between Orange and o2 and always done it by phoning up after i've got the phone....

This did indeed happen to me once, but this was with the then airtime provider "Singlepoint" which was eventually bought out proper by Vodafone sometime back.

To be fair to them, they made it clear that the PAC request MUST be included as part of the online ordering process.

But in my case THEY were at fault, in that they missed/overlooked/generally dropped a clanger over the request to PAC.

And as a result, in that case, I actually got to keep the shiny new Nokia 6100 entirely for free that they had issued as part of the new contract and account that was cancelled, in order to start a new one so the PAC could correctly be done, with which a new phone was issued anyway.

Nice to see it sounds like nothing has changed in all those many years over at the Big Red.

Oh er.

Can I just confirm that you are saying that I could start a new contract with o2, then ring o2 as soon as I have the phone and give them a PAC code to port my old number from T-Mobile to o2?

Yes you can. I had to change to o2 when I moved to Devon for reception reasons.

I bought the phone from Direct sales and called them afterwards with my PAC from Orange and they transferred the number over.

Thanks Mark, that's very helpful.