TIM - refills/expiry and account name
 

I see at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italia/tim.php that a refill can be any amount and that the SIM card expires 12 months after the last refill. Does this mean that one can refill by only €0.01 in order to prolong expiry by another 12 months? Does each refill method have a different minimum amount?

Does the ID card or passport used to buy the SIM card dictate the name on the account forever? Or is it a bit like South African RICA where these details are just logged in a database and never referred to again? For example, if someone else buys a SIM card for me, can I subsequently put my own name on the account?

Is it easy to get a nano-SIM?

The minimum top-up is 5€...

Thanks. So are you saying that Carlo/Effendi has published incorrect information on the largest network in his home country? ;)

Do you know the answers to my other two questions?

Well, I think Effendi is a human, he can make mistakes :D (Effendi, non me ne volere :p)

I don't know what he means with "any amount is available", but the available amounts are listed on TIM website (http://www.tim.it/home) in the block "Ricarica Online" ;)

To change the SIM owner (given that someone bought a sim for you and provided his documents, and not yours), you'll have to fax TIM with your documents and the buyer's documents, along with a signed (by both of you) document where you state that you'll be the new owner. This process will take about a week. And yes, it is relatively easy to get a nano sim ;)

Thanks for that.

I am wondering why he specifically wrote "any amount is available" rather than listing the top-up amounts as on the other Italy pages. Perhaps he knows something that most people don't know. For example, with Orange UK the minimum top-up is £5, but it's not well advertised that you can also buy vouchers as small as 10p in Orange/EE shops.

Some time ago you could top-up any amount starting from 5€. So you could top-up 5,01€ or 6,76€, etc. Then TIM removed that possibility...

Forgive me for bringing up this thread again - it looks like TIM still isn't allowing US credit card and US paypal accounts to recharge my SIM. I was hoping for an improvement this year. :)

Is rechargesim.net still the cheapest way to do it? (even at Euro 3.90/transaction)? I have 2 SIMs that I need to recharge - seems kindof silly having to pay 2 x Euro 3.90. Or is another way for me to ask one of you dear members who lives in Italy to get me some Ricarica cards from your local supermarket and I will reimburse you? (they both need to be recharged by end of this month).

Please let me know. And somewhat off-topic, I heard I could get a PosteItalia's Carta PostePay (the next time I'm back in Italy), load up some money on it and then use it on TIM's website (as an Italian debit card). True? (I'm not an Italian resident but have a Codice Fiscale that I "generated" from a website).

Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure if you can get a Postepay prepaid card from Poste Italiane. But if you do you surely can use it to recharge TIM prepaid cards. Anyway, for this year you're ok! ;)

I think I might have spotted another discrepancy at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/italia/tim.php. It says "€ 1.00/day for the first 50MB, after that € 0.50/MB" but at http://www.tim.it/tariffe/ricaricabi...o-scatti?tab=1 and http://www.tim.it/tariffe/ricaricabile/tim-12-new?tab=1 it says "La tariffa base per la navigazione Internet da telefonino, valida in Italia attraverso apn wap.tim.it e applicata in assenza di specifiche offerte Internet attive, è di 4€ al giorno". Am I missing something? Is the €1/50MB deal no longer available?

That was the old "Flat Day" offer on WAP... 1€/day for 50MB. Today it's 4€/day for 500MB.

Thanks. In that case, what's the cheapest way for me to get a reasonable amount of data (e.g. 30MB to 50MB per day) on an iPhone for 3 or 4 days?

A nano-SIM is €10, which includes €5 of credit. I don't want to add an additional €5 credit, as €10 is enough to pay for 3 or 4 days, otherwise it would be cheaper to pay roaming charges with my Orange UK SIM card.

500MB of 4G data costs €6, but I'm guessing I'd have to add another €5 of credit to pay for this, resulting in €4 wasted.

The cheapest (and short-term) offer is TIMxSmartphone: 2,5€/week for 250MB, with speed throttled to 14.4Mbps HSPA.

Thanks again. Is there a link to this offer? It can be useful to quote when I (or a friend) buy the SIM card.

I'm sorry, I forgot that this offer was modified some months ago. It's 3,02€ for 300MB. Same duration. This is the page of the offer: http://www.tim.it/internet/offerte-i...timxsmartphone

It seems that things have become a lot easier with TIM.

An Italian friend from London went to buy my nano-SIM before I arrived in Turin because my flight landed after the shops closed. He went with his father and they ended up registering it in his father's name, probably because they asked for proof of an Italian address. Therefore I thought I had no hope of easily changing it to my own name.

However, this morning I went into a TIM shop in Verona on my own and was expecting to be given the blank form or document which Tux kindly explained about below and to be given lots of bureaucratic tasks to complete. To my surprise, she was able to register the account into my name with just my British ID card and my signature several times. She asked whether I had an address in Italy, and I said no. After logging in to my account online, I see that she made up a codice fiscale for me and registered my address to what, according to Google Street View, appears to be a supermarket in the south of Verona. I subsequently received some survey texts from TIM, so I gave her a top score for her efficient service.

I wonder whether there is a grace period within which they can change the registered name without the consent of the original purchaser, or whether this is a permanent relaxation of policy.

My TIMxSmartphone says "Rinnovata fino al: 04/01/2014". Now that I'm back in London, do I need to click on the "Disattiva" button to prevent a further €3 from being deducted from my balance for another week's data?

The form is usually required when you want to change the owner via fax. However, I had to sign one more paper and TIM required one of my parents to sign, too. It must be a conspiracy against U18s :chair: Good news that they don't require the original owner to be present (except in the above mentioned case).

That's what I meant with "smart shop assistant". Now I know they aren't a metropolitan legend :D Anyway it's great you found one :)
Most probably the latter.

Yes, you have to.

I hope that, apart from the SIM activation (sorry :p), you had a good experience in Italy (and on TIM) :D

Yes, I was particularly impressed with TIM's 3G coverage and bandwidth while I was a passenger in a car on motorways. It wasn't as good on trains, but that's normal given that trains go through cuttings etc. Coverage dropped from 3G to Edge several times in urban areas but not too often. I didn't try the expensive 4G option, mainly because I couldn't top up by the extra €1 required, only by the minimum €5.

Thanks again for all the advice.