Your needs are simple: You need a mobile phone contract because you travel a lot to awful places and your Istanbul friends sometimes send you witty SMS's which demand a response, at 1.5 TL each which uses all your konturs up. You have wanted a contract for years but the Turkish mobile companies have made it nearly impossible for foreigners to get one. Then, a rumor started that Vodafone has made it easier, requiring only a residence permit. You are all over this idea.
After wasting dozens of mental and actual hours that could have been better spent generating income or watching YoutTube, you have learned that this is not true if any of the following are also true:
1. Your foreign phone is not registered in your name. You cannot get it moved to your name without a notarized document (in Turkish) from the person in whose name it is registered, even if that person is your ex-father in-law and doesn't live in Turkey.
2. You do not have a Turkish credit card.
3. It is a day that ends in "Y."
So, let's say that you decide you will get rid of your perfectly fine phone -- because it's not registered in your name and you are a mindless slave to marketing and peer pressure -- and buy an expensive and pointless Turkish I-phone because then you can finally get a contract, can get the phone cheaper than normal with the contract and don't need to get it registered in anyone's name (though you aren't positive you can move your number because it is registered in your ex-father in law's name, but you'd consider getting a new phone number even though it would be a huge pain, but that's the outsized and distorted role this issue has taken in your life. MUST.GET.CONTRACT)
You go to Vodafone with your Turkish friend who has a Turkish credit card and is willing to support the first 6 mos of payments on the contract - because you were told the last time you went to the same Vodafone shop you could do this -- only to be told that the Turkish credit card must be in your name. Also, there are ten other reasons why you can't have a contract but you stopped listening because you have a Turkish bank account, an American bank account, a residence permit and a wallet full of American credit cards that work everywhere in the world for every imaginable product and service, but not, apparently, a contract for a Turkish mobile phone at Vodafone.
You want be a obedient consumer and buy expensive things you don't really need and give a lot of money each month to a mobile phone company without complaining (very much) yet you are thwarted at every turn. What message does this send? Vodafone! Please take my money!
