Dear 3,

I'm staying in the UK for a few weeks, and decided to get a Pay as you go mobile broadband sim for my iPad. I originally got one with 1 GB, and now I would like to top it up. However, this has turned out to be practically impossible. I've tried several times to top up online via the my3 page, but I always get a technical error at one of the later stages of payment, the Verified by Visa bit. I've tried several different cards, all of which normally work, but to no avail.

I then decided to try registering, in order to try a top up from my laptop, as I generally assume that when something isn't working on the iPad, it's because it's an iPad. However, after I had dug out the sim card and found both the phone number and the sim number, I was told I would receive the password via text. I am at a complete loss to understand how I'm supposed to read a text sent to my iPad, as one of the device's many shortcomings is that it can't act as a phone. "But ah", you say "How could we know you have an iPad, instead of some actually useful device, like a sensible person would?". Well, when I bought the sim card, it came in a tiny cardboard folder which said "iPad" on the front, so if someone had thought to write down which sim cards you put in the packs labeled "iPad", you would have known to send the password to those numbers via email or postcard or some other method supported by the iPad.

I note that your email form says you will get back to me in 10 days, by which time I will have left the UK, so you may consider this email a helpful suggestion to change your password-delivery practice, and not an actual cry for help.

Cheers,
Tor Nordam