Day Two: We Attempt the Impossible

Here in the UK, one cannot obtain anything at all without a local debit card. That’s right. Local. Debit. Card.

US Credit cards will not get allow you to : pay your “Council Tax” (schools, rubbish removal, elder services, etc.). All utilities must be paid by direct debit: British Telecom, EDF Energy (electricity), Thames Water, a TV license (yes, you have to have a license to watch TV—fortunately, no test is required). You also cannot get a cell phone plan. At all. It requires a credit check. They only check your credit in the UK. If you have just moved here, you do not have any credit history. At all. You cannot get the “free phone” that comes with the 12- or 18-month “mobile” phone plan. So you cannot get a cell phone. At all.

So, we go to the bank closest to the American School to open an account. The young man there is very very helpful, getting us set up with a new account, complete with debit card numbers and bank routing numbers.

In addition to needing phones so Teen can keep in touch regarding her movements going to and from school, we thought it would be good to have them since the “lettings agent” only provided us with one set of keys to the flat. This includes a super-secure key to the front door of the building that cannot be duplicated by any locksmith anywhere without receiving the super-secret key code which no one at the Lettings Agent can determine. There were purported to be three sets of keys on their key rack at one time, but they gave one set to the Landlord’s daughter and she does not know where they are.

So we either all have to go out together, or determine a precise time and place to rendezvous, or leave someone at home to buzz us in through the video entry system, which includes a plastic box near the door of the flat in which appears a floating head of the person ringing the buzzer. One can then either talk to them on the intercom-phone or just buzz the building’s front door open.

A trip to two mobile phone stores on the St. John’s Wood High Street produces more frustration. In addition to direct debit information, they also need proof of residency, such as a utility bill (note that one should not be able to obtain that without direct debit capabilities). Hubster goes back to the flat for the electric bill. Although we have our debit details, we do not have the actual CARDS to swipe through the machine, and the man insists that they can only do a “CHIP and PIN” transaction (all debit cards here have a microchip in them instead of or in addition to the magnetic strip, and of course we hadn’t received our PINS yet, either).

While he is out of the store, the fellow explains to Teen and I another way to get phone service. It is to BUY a phone and sign up for a plan that is pay-as-you-go; i.e. you pay cash to “load” minutes onto the phone. Meanwhile, Hubster returns and we go through the rigamarole of providing all of our details to the gentleman, who puts them into a computer and VOILA!! Credit denied!! We don’t exist yet!

So we take the gentleman’s last suggestion and purchase three ultra-cheap phones for only 9.99 GBP each. Except those are not available. Why are they still in the display rack? Hubster would like to know. We wind up with three cheap phones for 14.99 GBP, plus three 20-pound sim cards with 20 pounds worth of minutes on each (minutes at approx 12 p per each, except if you call during peak times or out of the country, in which case they are…. Oh, forget it. AND Hubster had to provide a photo ID to be copied by the nice gentleman because they only allow two cheapo phones per customer. I had to buy the third one in my name. ?????????????????????? Remember, we’re still jet-lagged here.

Of course, these phones all look exactly alike, so I mark two of them with our initials using a Sharpie pen. Then comes the installation of the sim cards, which are the size of a thumbnail. One pokes them out of a plastic credit-card sized thingy and opens up the back of the phone, removes the battery, lifts up a little metal plate, and voila! Inserts the sim card into the phone. I had heard of the mysterious sim card, but never realized they were so tiny.

Meanwhile, Teen had taken a boxed phone and a sleeved sim card into her room to set up her new phone, except the sim card she took out of the shopping bag was not the one which “belonged” to her new phone number, according to the printout from the helpful gentleman.
So I had to revoke her phone, take out that sim card, figure out to which phone it belonged, reinstall the proper sim card, return the phone to Teen, insert the right sim card into my phone, and then work on Hubster’s. By this time, the third sim card has gone missing, AND I had already punched it out from the credit-card thingy. So you may picture me on my hands and knees looking for a thumb-nail sized piece of plastic under the rug, the sofa cushions, etc. I wound up in tears, moaning and banging my head on the floor in utter frustration.

All of this was exascerbated by the fact that Hubster was on the phone with British Telecom, trying to get them to fix our broadband signal, which was not working properly on my laptop, despite the fact that Teen was online successfully from the comfort of her room. He spent a total of 27 minutes on hold and speaking to different people in a warm country far away before I sat down at the table and noticed that the “wireless” activation switch had been turned off by someone.

Day Two’s good news is that Teen got up at 8 am (3 am body-clock time) and we all went over to the School at 9 am, where she took a Math Placement Exam and met some other new 9th graders during a tour of the school. After our marathon phone-buying session, we returned to the school for our conference about course selection. The results of the placement test indicate moving on to take Geometry, as all 9th graders do in Mass, so she’s on track there in case we return to BHS. She’s also signed up for Molecular Biology (having really enjoyed science last year, including frog dissection), World History, English, Chinese 2, Drama, Choir, and an 8th course that escapes me here at 11:39 pm. While waiting for our appointment with the advisor, I chatted with the extremely helpful 9th grade young men who were assisting with orientation. All of them had been in the choir and recommended it, but Teen didn’t want to give up Drama. The advisor said it would certainly be OK to take both and not have a “free” period in 9th grade. This means Teen will be able to go on the Choir trip in March to whatever European destination has been chosen (it’s a secret)

In addition to acheiving the impossible, which was bagging some mobile phones, we also succeeded in opening a bank account, and getting Teen registered for school. All in a day’s fun here at A Flat on Abbey Road.