Unfotunately, not exactly. I bought the SIM and USB stick on Saturday, and get directed to a page telling me my credit has expired.

When I went back to the Tchibo site, I read the small print:

Bei Kauf des Tchibo Internet Sticks erhalten Sie die Internet-Flatrate 10GB im ersten Monat inklusive. Diese wird Ihnen im Prepaid-Tarif innerhalb von 72 Stunden nach Registrierung aufgeladen.

Although my German is not good at all, I believe that says they have 72 hours to turn on the service. Certainly a problem for a tourist who will not be in Germany for very long.

Just a data point for anybody in the future:

I bought the Tchibo surf stick back in December (well, actually my brother bought it, but I have it now :) )

I arrived in Germany Friday night. Saturday morning I stopped at a Tclibo shop, bought a €20 topup (yes, I realize an O2 one should work). I fired up my laptop (Macbook Air) stuck in the stick and fired up the "Mobile Partner" software. Clicked on "Guthaben verwaltungen" (or something similar), entered the voucher number and I was off. The internet came right up and has worked flawlessly since. It went much more smoothly than I figured (because I am a pessimist :) )

Of course, the landlord of the apartment I use has replaced his crappy WiFi with a fast DSL connection and a good router, so I don't actually need the Tchibo service as much as I had figured.

It sounds like you bought the topup and then opted for the flatrate data. In my case, since the data was included with the USB card, there is the notation about the 72 hours. My guess is that someone needs to manually turn the data on for the zero cash balance card.

Drop them a call at 0179 64242 and ask them to start your free month of internet immediately. Customer care is reachable till 10 pm, so hurry up!

I just did. The first representative I spoke with spoke prefect English but said that she could not help me and would transfer me to a colleague. The second representative spoke no english, I explained the situation to her in my halting German. She took my number, but when the conversation got difficult for me, she hung up.

Then call once more. A friend of mine was in the same situation and they acivated the free month within minutes after we called an explained, that we needed internet access immdediately. If you send me a PM with your Tchibo phone number, your registration details and the security code, which you had to fill in on the registration form below your date of birth, I could try to convince them to activate your free month immediately.

Thanks very much for the offer. However, I am leaving Germany tomorrow morning, so I would get virtually no use.

I think what I will do is write to them after I leave the country, and see if I can get them to credit me 20 EUR so that I can use it next time I come back. It seems teh SIm is good for a year since last charge. I know there is not much of a chance, but I think I would rather take my chances with that than to push for a few hours of service right now.

In any event, I got the USB stick at a good price, so I am not too sad.

BTW, looking at my registration form, there is no personal number after the birthdate, I left it blank and no one said anything.

Just to update as I'm in Germany now using my UK o2 usb stick,this is what I did...after looking for a Tchibo shop,which I couldn't find I ended up going into an o2 one.

The guy in there was incredibly helpful and although it was a little more expensive (I think it cost around €40 for the sim + 10gb data allowance) he got it working with the sim straight away. He was a little unsure if the login (pin) would work on a mac but I've tried it and the software included on the UK stick comes up with a box to input it - no problem.

I'm very happy with it - 3g in most places I've been and certainly much cheaper than hotel wifi (€17 for 24hrs access? - I don't think so!)

Here you could have found a Tchibo shop by postal code. Anyway compared to the WiFi rates at your hotel, you made a good bargain.