PrePaids in Europe this summer.
 

We have been around a bit this summer and I have tried out as many PrePaids as possible.

Estonia: 3 cards, ZEN from Elisa, Smart from Tele2 and Simpel from EMT. They're just a users dream, to buy, to understand and to use. On top of that they all are very cheap.

Latvia: 5 cards, Amigo and OKarte from LMT, Ura and Zelta Zivtina from Tele2, Toxic from Bite. The same as with the Estonian cards. Just perfect!

Estonia and Latvia: Tele2 has ho roaming charges at all within the three Baltic states. From this spring they have even included Sweden Tele2 in this cooperation (but not bilateral).

Denmark: 1 card, Telia Just Talk. Good in every sense but the price list which I never could figure out.

Germany: 7 cards, Loop and Tchibo from O2, Medion Mobile from Rewe (E-Plus), Ja! from Aldi (T-mobile), Xtra from T-mobile, CallYa from Vodafone, Smobile from Schlecker (Vodafone). All cards were ok but I had difficulties buying them. Many shops demanded that my address must be in my passport?!?!?! I though that dissapeared with the Soviet Union.

Italy: cards, Tim card from TIM, a prepaid from Three (the operator), a Vodafone prepaid.
My experiences were all negative! Aboslutely noone speaks English (or German, French, Dutch or whatever) in the customers service. I tried to get the grps-settings from TIM. They demanded 10 euros!!!! I have never heard of any company that SELLS settings!!!! Three counldn't provide me with the settings. The answer was "there isn't any". Vodafone couldn't sell me a credits recharge for less than 25 euro, which was to much for me in this situation.

Well, this is my Italy :wall: Usually no one speaks anything... :P not only in a customer service but everywhere... :(

You were (almost) lukcy... I know dealers selling that settings for 25 € ... anyway using Google (or this forum) you can find all the italian APNs :)

A lot of "smart" dealers in Italy... only a question. What area/city did you visit? Just curiosity... :rolleyes:

Germany
 

Thanks for the report. Hope it helps some people.

FYI...........

You can purchase both SIMYO and SUNSIM prepaid via internet and non-German credit card; I did so. Mailed to hotel where I was staying.

Medion is from Aldi or Aldi is Medion. Ja! is not sold at Aldi AFAIR.

I believe you can buy an ALDI-talk in ALDI stores. Now I did not do this myself, but I cannot imagine they would require you to show identification in the grocery store checkout line.

A few years ago I purchased 2 Xtra cards (T-Mobile) via eBay.de and simply mailed in the registrations to my contact address in Germany. I believe that included my passport number. I used my USA address. I am going to imagine that one could do the same with many of the prepaid cards on eBay where the seller states he will ship outside Germany.

As a sideline, I went into a TABAK store in Benrath-Duesseldorf that supposedly sold SIMYO refills - per the SIMYO website. They wanted to sell me a brand new SIM card for 19.95 and knew nothing about refills. I walked 1 minute up the street to another TABAK store and they knew exactly what I wanted and sold me a 15 Euro refill card. I do speak German.

Last year I was tempted to to buy a Penneymobile card or two in Penneymarkt. I did not. Again, I cannot imagine they would question you in the grocery store for a passport or ID. I may be wrong. As I wrote, I avoided any of that buy my internet purchases in advance of my trip.

Stan

I know for sure that Tchibo and Schlecker fill out the registration forms for you at the counter. Including Passport ID. Before you cant quote all they want to know they will not hand you out the cards.

Chris

There are certain aspects of German life that are a bit like the Soviet Union, and one of them is the requirement to register your address with the authorities (which is, in fact, a requirement of most EU states). The address is then printed on your state identity card. While this can be convenient in some ways for proving where you live, some Germans are not used to the idea that other countries do not do this. Once I saw a shopkeeper writing down the "pencil in the name of a friend or family member to contact in case of emergency" section of a UK passport.

However, it is the law in Germany (and a good thing, too, in light of terrorism and organized crime) that a mobile phone SIM can only be registered on presentation of a government-issued ID card or passport. Expect more countries to require this in future -- I certainly hope they do. However, not every store clerk will be familiar with every form of identity issued by every state...

As for Vodafone Italia, they have refills for 3 and 10 euros as well, available everywhere. You don't need to go to an official store to get them (although these are about te only places you can use a credit card to buy these).

Well, this is true. In Italy you can buy a recharge (almost) everywhere, but sometimes more people when meet a tourist think to be... smarter than him.
So they try to sell expensive refill cards, bad wine as good etc etc...

I'll be in the UK and Switzerland (and probably briefly in Germany) next month.

I already have a couple of O2 UK SIMs but I think I'm going to pick up an Orange UK SIM too because of its low rate to call Canada (at least with the Call Abroad SIM - it seems a no-brainer to get it, and I'm a phone geek anyway so why not?).

I'm still debating whether to pick up a SIM in Switzerland or Germany. I don't know if/when I'll get back, and I doubt they will work in Canada so keeping them active might be tricky (O2 works fine here, albeit at expensive rates), so I'm still debating.

I can add to this thread when I'm in Europe or when I get home, if anyone cares.

Firstly you cant really expect everybody to speak every language, or even any language other than their own. It's good if they do.

Secondly, having travelled across the mediteranean from Portugal to Sicily, Italy is the only place where I have been knowingly ripped off by people with smiles on their faces. We paid 25 euros to a professional marina based operation, (Yacht Services, Riposto), for a taxi ride to the station. We got out of the taxi 5 minutes after getting into it, less than a mile down the road. In Vulcano, we were charged 50 euros to spend a night on a buoy, (in a boat), when elsewhere this tends to cost about 10 euros. I didnt argue or kick up a fuss as i had needed what was on offer, but I wont be going back to either operation - which kind of shoots themselves in the foot..

Thirdly, I have found all the apn settings I have ever need on this forum, or by a quick google - Ross Barkmans page has a list of loads.

But why should they? Learning foreign languages isn't easy. And Italy is and will always be one of the the world's most imporant travelling destinations so people will arrive there even if they will not be able to communicate :-D

Don't you like when your compatriots make so great businesses :-P?

@richard10002

In an internationalized part of the world, as Europe is today, a multi million Euro company like the operators, you should OF CORSE have personel speaking foreign languages!!!

As for using internet finding APNs, it's not always easy to find a internet connected computers when you need one.

@Motel75

Yes, there other notations of the recharge cards, but really doesn't help very much if very few shop are carrying them.

As for the Passport, you commented on something else. Of course I had a valid passport issued by the officals in my home country, but it is not valid in shops in Germany. Only passports from Germany and some former Soviet Union states are valid in German shop. These are the only ones with an address in.

You've got to be kidding -- you didn't see a Tabacchi or a kiosk anywhere in Italy?

That's not true at all, although there are always going to be difficult and poorly-informed shop clerks, who are the rule, rather than the exception, in Germany.

If you want a postpaid account, and you are a non-German citizen, you need to present your foreign passport and police registration to prove your address in Germany. It doesn't make any difference if the foreign passport has an address or not (as it would be a foreign address).

But for prepaid there's no such requirement for police registration, only that you show a foreign passport (and sometimes a bank card). They do ask for an address, but your hotel will do. If you were told something else, it was wrong. (When the World Cup was on, Vodafone and T-Mobile both advertised prepaid SIMs to foreign visitors, not something they would do if these were not available to non-residents.)

I bought a Vodafone Germany SIM, showing my passport. They wanted an address, but not actual proof of it.

But Sunsim is better value since then, ordered online with a foreign credit card, delivered anywhere in Germany in a day or two.

Actually passports from Germany don't contain the full address only the city of residence. Only German national ID cards contain the full address. So it should be no problem buying a sim card with a passport that doesn't contain the address as long as you can give them an address where you stay.
But as Motel75 said there are probably a lot of poorly informed shop clerks who never had such a situation before because most germans use their id card.

Of course I saw them, theese are also shops that sell recharges! but only large. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Is my English THAT bad?

Well, if it is a law or not doesn't really make any difference if they still refuse to sell me what I'm asking for, because my address is not in the passport.

With what are you disagreeing?

The fact that they didn't sell me?
The fact that my passport is valid?
The fact that my address is not in my passport?
or...?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand at all with what you are disagreeing...

This of course is not true -- at least not yet. So far, Telecoms (not just mobile operators) just have to register their customers' names and addresses, but that's it. There is no legal requirement for having to present official ID. Of course an operator or merchant may require you to do so, but that's a different story.

On a related note, it is quite naive to believe that registration of cards will actually make some sort of difference when it comes to terrorism or organized crime. :rolleyes: But that's a political discussion and thus quite off-topic here.

Regards,
Chris.

PrePaids in Europe this summer.
 

Well, actually for next summer!
If I - resident in the UK - wanted to buy a pre-paid SIM from say Vodafone,
(their CallNow card) for use in France, can I do this from the UK? If so - How?
Scan in page of passport/ pensioner's bus pass - what?
Any advice would be welcome as a means for complying with essential bureacracy.
Cheers,
roj

Never had problems buying a German card just with my Italian ID, not even passport... I just discovered I live in a former Soviet Union country: Italiastan! :D

BTW Tabacchi shops also sell small refills, at leat the 10€ ones. They usually don't have the scratch cards anymore, they just ask you for your number and they refill it automatically.


Bak to the initial purpose of this thread, I bought 2 new prepaid cards this summer as well.
- Georgia: I went to a small shop with Geocell sign and the English speaking girl just asked me for passport and made choose among hundreds of free numbers on a printed page. I chose my number, she gave me the card, all ready to go, very straightforward. The only problem is that instructions are in Georgian only, not even russian. On their website, in English, there are instructions for activating services like data and configurations too. After 1 day I could use also the 3G network.
- Armenia: I went to an Armentel official shop, very nice, in central Yerevan. They asked just for passport and in 5 minutes I had my card, in very nice cd-box, ready to go, with booklet in Armenian and English. No data settings there, but you can find them in their website, in English.