Chile Forum

Hey, my first thread!

My wife bought a cheap Noki*/Entel mobile phone about 15 months ago. Suddenly last week, it stopped working, with the message "Insert SIM". Swapping cards with a friend's phone verified that the phone works but the SIM card doesn't. So along she goes to Entel for help. They tell her that the SIM card has been "blocked" since last November (though in fact it was working only a week ago). Moreover, they said it is registered with a different RUT number from hers. Presumably it was the RUT of the person in Falabella who activated the telephone when they sold it to us. So after a whole afternoon of going back and forth, calling Entel etc., the outcome was:

1). She had to pay 4000 pesos for a new card.
2). She no longer has the same phone number, in spite of being told earlier that she would have.
3). She has lost her 14,000 pesos of credit.

=> Total cost basically the same as a new phone.

Now, if the card was really blocked as Entel claim (which doesn't seem to tally with the message "Insert SIM"), I am left with 2 possible conclusions. First, Entel screwed up and should have fixed all of the above problems at their own expense or, second, either the retailer or Entel had the number blocked in the hope that my wife would go back and buy a new phone once the guarantee had expired. Maybe that's more paranoid than EEUU . But no-one else has ever had possession of this phone, so I'm not sure how the number would be blocked or registered with anyone's RUT but the Falabella salesman's. It all seems pretty fishy to me.

James.

* (just avoiding the bad word)

About the RUT not being yours:
Salespeople will happily insert their RUT if you do not have one or if you appear to be a foreigner and are unaware of the system. This improves their credit rating as the total volume of heir purchases increases, most likely without "Quotas" as well.
If you have a RUT and are establishing a presence in Chile, keep your card (or "Carnet", as it is sometimes referred to) handy. This will help you in the credit department and show you can support yourself in Chile if you apply for residency.
Remember, most Chileans do not file income tax reports, so spending becomes an indicator of income.

Just keep in mind that if you apply for residency, your temp RUT number will be canceled and new one issued later. Some computer systems seem to have no problem with it, and some of the toy systems seem to treat you as a different person.

Besides a prepaid cell is not going to give you that much of credit boost one way or the other. Cell contracts might be helpful, but you need residency and bunch of other things.

Thanks for the info about the salesmen and RUTs. We have no problems with credit right now (paying credit cards, mortgage etc.) but I dread to think what will happen if my diplomatic RUT number is ever replaced with a normal one.

Perhaps what happened is that the salesman got into some dispute with Entel, eg. over an unpaid bill, and Entel cancelled everything in his name, including our phone? In that case, other people should watch out for salesmen doing this. However, the timing (almost exactly 1 year after buying the phone) still seems dodgy.

Cheers,

James.

This happened to a friend of mine, he went to an Entel service center and they sent him straight downtown - to the tower. There they actually unlocked the SIM, or whatever was wrong with it so he didn´t have to get a new phone or lose alll of his saldo.

fjl307 wrote:This happened to a friend of mine, he went to an Entel service center and they sent him straight downtown - to the tower. There they actually unlocked the SIM, or whatever was wrong with it so he didn´t have to get a new phone or lose alll of his saldo.

Hmmm... I wonder what they do in La Serena. I assume you're talking about Santiago. I would have pushed this further but I had no time and my wife isn't as insistent as me. Thanks for the info anyway.

James.

My husband bought me a Movistar phone a few months back. I have an Entel prepay (I don't use it enough to warrant a plan), and don't want to get rid of it because I have had the number for ages. Even with upping his plan for other companies, it was still getting expensive for us to talk, so he bought the second phone. After a little while of it being fine, it stopped working. I went to Movistar by my house and they sent me to another place near Alto Las Condes. I didn't have time to go there right away. By the time I was able to make the trip there, they told me that since it was more than a month since we bought the phone I had to pay for the new SIM card. We were getting the same message of it not recognizing the card, but it worked if you inserted a different card. They charged somewhere around 3-4,000 pesos for the card, but were able to keep the number and pesos for calls, at least.

Yes, that's basically what happened with the card, but (after starting this thread) I was left with the impression that they had cancelled the phone number on the grounds that they thought the phone had been stolen. That's a bit stupid, since 1) it had certainly never been stolen and 2) if it had they should be contacting the police, not issuing a new card to someone they (mistakenly) believe to be in possession of stolen goods.

James.