Originally Posted by GadgetKen (Post 25679)

Originally was sent the MaxRoam Israeli card with a "Yackie" discount for switching. Didn't work properly so they sent a Belgian replacement. It does work for send/receive text messaging and for outgoing calls (haven't tried incoming yet). Call placed on T-Mobile did not work with standard direct dial with + or 001 code, but did work with alternate *182*001*******# command on T-Mobile USA to dial my office voicemail. Callback was fairly quick, had very good voice quality, and I was charged 1.01 Euros for a short USA to USA call under a minute. Error message or incomplete calls were charged half a Euro each. Cumbersome dialing method but I can program a few common numbers into the sim phonebook.
Reason for switching sims was given on their zendesk csr system as "We have had a failure of our SIM toolkit on a select batch of SIMs, this is the software on the SIM card that allows you to make cheap and receive cheap roaming calls. Unfortunately your SIM was part of this batch and we will ship you a new SIM, free of charge. If you could please email us with your current address we will see that a new SIM is shipped out to you immediately" rather than a problem with the underlying Israeli carrier.
Most recent zendesk csr response gives some hints on dialing and switching carrier that I found helpful:
"I'm afraid that due to upgrades to our system some parts of the website are unavailable. Unfortunately this includes the reactivation page. The sim card was preactivated though so you can use it to make and receive calls and sms messages. You can also top up by using the following link: https://www.maxroam.com/MyMAXroam/TopUpExternal.asp
I'm afraid that these upgrades are essential as there are some changes to our service. For example, you now have one number for voice and text. On the reverse of your card you will see a number beginning 048. If you put a +32 and remove the 0 from this number you will have +32489XXXXXX. This is your new sms number which you can also take calls on.
We have dropped our priced in 55 countries by 50%. We now cover 26 new countries and your sim is now data enabled.
We aim to have the website running as normal as normal as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.
With regard to your issue making calls, Please check your credit balance first of all. If you have enough credit to make a call, then please turn your phone off for 90 seconds. Turn it back on and allow it another 90 seconds to start up fully. Then try to make a call using the *182*phonenumber# format. If this still does not work, please try select an alternative network and place a call. If none of this works, please contact us again."
Bottom line is that the new sim is functional but they really need to do more work to get everything working properly. We'll see whether they can pull this off...

Originally Posted by CellRider (Post 25746)

Curious with other SIM cards has the direct dial worked for you or have you always had to use an alternate *182* type method. Trying to figure out if the issue is my Moto V551 or this lovely Maxroam SIM card.

Originally Posted by Bossman (Post 25747)

Direct dial has always worked for me with other sim cards. Not a problem with your V551. Even when the UM+ card will not dial directly from the contacts on a couple of my phones, my V551 was always able to dial direct. Not sure if users in other countries are having this issue, or is it just a USA network thing though.

Originally Posted by CellRider (Post 25772)

Anyone get any updates on this over 3 week old problem now? I still have no access to the website or my account. I still need to assign a US number to my card for my upcoming travels. Not even sure how we can add credit at this point. Maxroam has been quiet and still has nothing on their site saying many of their features are not available. If this was in the US we would could at least have the BBB on their case.

Originally Posted by Bossman (Post 25779)

Hope your travels are not real soon. If so, you may want to lok into a backup sim card. Most of us here, that do a little bit of travelling, have more than one international sim.

At this point, I can care less what Maxroam does. I am going on a cruise to the Caribbean tomorrow. I will depend on my UM+ sim and if neccesary my AT&T sim.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 25778)

I got an email that new cards are on the way, and then yesterday I got this:

Dear MAXroam customers,

We are making incredible advances in this upgrade.
We would seriously like to thank you for your patience.
If you weren’t aware you can now recredit/top-up your account/sim easily by going here (link).

You will notice a new MAXroam over the next few days. Rates/data rates and lots of other new features.

Again thanks for your patience we really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Niamh Hartery


I haven't tried the link -- it would be throwing good money after bad at this point.

Originally Posted by andy (Post 25725)

A Euro for 10 seconds? No, presumably the minimum charge is longer. Over a year ago, they were hoping for 15 cents in the near future.

I'm interested to hear that they are the first network in the world to have affordable prepaid data. Though I'm slightly sceptical that it will be more affordable in 100k steps than using my home network which for years has been aggregating it in fractions of k at a time. And other global SIMs have smaller steps, without a new SIM needed, as announced recently. I suppose it depends on the price ...

I'm also interested to hear about their excellent feedback from many customers about the new SIM card. The last person I asked said that the old one is still working, hadn't been aware of a new one, and hasn't replied to my news that it may have a number from a different country.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 25800)

The card hasn't come yet, but I'll post when I know. The old MAXRoam card had a very long list of places it would forward to for free, as well as a long list of DIDs you could choose. I was even able to forward to my (cellular) UM card for free. :)

I have two cards. I was able to set them up so that a friend in the US and his parents in Europe could call back and forth to each other for free. Because the credits didn't expire, this was a great use for the cards when I wasn't traveling.

I've been trying to get information on these features in the new card ever since the old cards died. If MAXRoam continues to support these features, it is worth keeping the cards alive. If not, I think I'm done with prepaid roaming cards.

Originally Posted by bbob (Post 25816)

Do you really believe a provider can keep up allowing to make free call and free forwards if you don't use the card. I can only assume that their system did not really work. You could use a did number and forward that for free to a cellphone. As a company you can never make money on this.

Sure you will support maxroam if they continue to offer these features but be realistic do you really think they can do this and make money. They need some money to stay alive.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 25829)

I didn't say it was a good business plan. I said their forwarding feature was a great way to use the card between travels (when traveling, I do use the card -- or did).

The reason I'm giving up on prepaid cards is not because MAXRoam might drop this feature. It's because the entire industry seems to be falling apart, and I don't want to take the risk of prepaying for something that has a good chance of not being available when I need it.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 25925)

My MAXRoam cards arrived, but like others, I found that they are not working properly. Inbound rings to the Belgium number, but not to my US DID. Outbound works only with the *182* code. Forwarding does not appear to work for either the Belgium number or the US number, irrespective of whether I use the website or the phone to implement the forwarding. I have a support ticket in.

Originally Posted by mingelli (Post 25926)

Hi,

did you try also to check if on outbound calls the caller ID is passed on.

Originally Posted by MATHA531 (Post 25942)

Are they still charging for outbound calls that are not answered i.e. they charge you from the callback on? If so, a no go to me.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 25969)

I do hope that they get the local numbers assigned soon, since that was the main selling point of the card.

Originally Posted by petkow (Post 25998)

I can't understand what the problem is with doing this a bit quicker. Celtrek seemed to have sorted out at least a few DID's for customers! I assume all they have to do is rent a bunch of worldwide DID's and just point them either to the Belgium SIM number or to your chosen forwarding destination. Either way it is done via least cost routing. I suppose there is obviously more to it, to try and get a cut out of it!

Anyhow, I wrote to them, explained the non-existance of the DID's and asked them if there was going to be any advancement soon. I got a ticket and a then a cut-and-paste standard reply saying that due to the problems with the SIM's etc. etc. ... working on it at the moment.... etc. etc.

With the ticket came a statement that my request had been deemed "solved" :mad:

I am off to multiple places in the middle east tommorow, and really could have done with a few European DID's before hand. I suppose I will now have to cobble together a DIY solution as usual!

Originally Posted by Bossman (Post 26004)

Since that (Local DID's) seems to be one of the main selling points of their sim card, as it's advertised on their website, you would think they would take care of it ASAP.

Originally Posted by Grampa (Post 26006)

"The SIM that doesn't know you're travelling (It thinks you're stuck in Belgium)." :)

Originally Posted by vman916 (Post 26017)

Also, if I need to purchase a back-up sim at Heathrow to get me through, anyone recommend a kind to get. I am also going to about 6 other countries around the Mediterranean.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Originally Posted by petkow (Post 26013)

It's the same for everyone as far as I know. The replacement SIM cards are exactly the same as what the new customers get, and the switch on the back end (for diverting the DID's) is the same as well.

Originally Posted by Bossman (Post 26052)

Intially I had to use the alternate dialing method on both of them. Now, direct dial works on the L7.