iPhone 3G pre-order catastrophe: O2 buckles under pressure

UPDATE: O2’s site is still struggling, but The Carphone Warehouse is now accepting pre-orders, and their website is working just fine. Find out more here.

O2 set fanboy hearts racing this morning, with an announcement it would take pre-orders for the iPhone 3G from 8am. There was just one snag: their website went live late, and buckled under pressure from anxious customers, who then faced lengthy delays on the phone to O2’s customer service call centre.

Our own crack team of iPhone upgraders spent over an hour on hold, waiting for O2 to pick up the phone and take away our cash.

Meanwhile, O2’s dedicated iPhone upgrade site lasted just 45 minutes, before grinding to a halt, and re-directing customers to a “failover” alternative, with less snazzy upgrade codes, and a more simplistic text entry boxes. Later on, even that was removed, with a holding page simply stating: “Our upgrade shop is currently unavailable.”

Worst of all, those who had managed to type credit card details into O2’s system found themselves re-directed to unresponsive pages, and receiving no e-mail confirmation. After eventually speaking to O2’s customer service department, we discovered that orders can only be placed online, leaving those eager to get their hands on an iPhone 3G with an agonising wait for the problems to be fixed.

The confusion caused by O2’s bungling will no doubt displease Apple, which prides itself on the quality of its customer services. Keep it here for more updates as we get them.

Out July 11 | From £free | O2 upgrades

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