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MATHA531 · 19-07-2006, 16:11

Karen:

You understand correctly...if you open up a callbackworld account, which by the way is free to open and has no maintenance charges, you can get a US toll free number for $1.50/month and key it to whatever number you want via the web or by calling them. They're very helpful. If you key it to a United Mobile account, as long as you are in free United Mobile receiving turf which is, as we noted, all of Western and Central Europe as well as much of Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia and China to boot, you will be paying 14?/minute for their calls to this number...they will pay whatever it costs them to call a US toll free number which in the US is of course nothing.

You are not wed to callbackworld...use them to call on united mobile only if yu want...they have other than the optional $1.50/month for a US toll free number no other recurring charges. You don't want to use them to make calls, you don't have to...they are not inalienably tied to the phone.

As far as the double call back on united mobile, well simply program your trigger number into your phone with 1 touch dialing.....bravo next to nothing for you to do...use the 1 touch dialing to call the trigger number wait for the first call back, answer and hang up and then wait for the second call back, answer and follow the directions. Once you've done it once or twice...well my 16 year old daughter is on a teen tour of Europe and I taught her to do it and in 25 seconds she figured it out.

As far as getting your French number from the rip off artists at Telestial, note that when I bought my first French sim (before United Mobile existed), it did not come with the number on the sim card...I had to call a number in France and at that point they texted me my number...so getting a French sim card in advance might not do what you want it to do. But you can make local calls in France with united mobile for 20?/minute (to landlines, something like 40? to mobile) via callback world...when the female voice sayd, "Please enter phone number followed by the number sign key now" simply type the French number with the prefix 33 and omit the first 0 in the number...it will go through. Incidentally these rates are even cheaper than you would pay on most French local sims!

Yes you can use the French local sim if you go in that direction and the Italian local sim to dial directly to the United States but right now that will cost you an arm and a leg (well maybe just a leg) as compared to callback world...I don't know if the "inconvenience" of the double call back is so terrible given the amount of money it will save.

And when you order a United Mobile sim card through United Mobile on its web site, you will know your Liechtenstein number which you can key into callbackworld before you leave.

The only thing to be careful about, as noted, is the difficulty in getting a real world tri band phone in the United States anymore...almost all the US sellers on ebay on their triband phones only sell the next to useless USA tri band phones from either Cingular or T Mobile that have substituted 850 frequency for 900...going to Europe without both 900 and 1800 on the phone might leave you up the creek without a cell phone in some countries and also restrict your choice of local sims...somebody on one forum lamented the fact she bought a cell phone from an ebay vendor in the USA went to Croatia and found it didn't work. The idiots at the cell phone store and her tour director (she was on a tour) told her the phone was locked which was absolutely untrue...the problem was, she later discovered, was the vendor claiming he was selling her a true world tri band phone sold her a stripped down US tri band cell phone without 900 and the Croatian sim card she bought was on a company which only used 900....the obvious solution being, of course, quad band phones.

Hope that helps.

	(#12)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	19-07-2006, 16:11 Karen: You understand correctly...if you open up a callbackworld account, which by the way is free to open and has no maintenance charges, you can get a US toll free number for $1.50/month and key it to whatever number you want via the web or by calling them. They're very helpful. If you key it to a United Mobile account, as long as you are in free United Mobile receiving turf which is, as we noted, all of Western and Central Europe as well as much of Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia and China to boot, you will be paying 14?/minute for their calls to this number...they will pay whatever it costs them to call a US toll free number which in the US is of course nothing. You are not wed to callbackworld...use them to call on united mobile only if yu want...they have other than the optional $1.50/month for a US toll free number no other recurring charges. You don't want to use them to make calls, you don't have to...they are not inalienably tied to the phone. As far as the double call back on united mobile, well simply program your trigger number into your phone with 1 touch dialing.....bravo next to nothing for you to do...use the 1 touch dialing to call the trigger number wait for the first call back, answer and hang up and then wait for the second call back, answer and follow the directions. Once you've done it once or twice...well my 16 year old daughter is on a teen tour of Europe and I taught her to do it and in 25 seconds she figured it out. As far as getting your French number from the rip off artists at Telestial, note that when I bought my first French sim (before United Mobile existed), it did not come with the number on the sim card...I had to call a number in France and at that point they texted me my number...so getting a French sim card in advance might not do what you want it to do. But you can make local calls in France with united mobile for 20?/minute (to landlines, something like 40? to mobile) via callback world...when the female voice sayd, "Please enter phone number followed by the number sign key now" simply type the French number with the prefix 33 and omit the first 0 in the number...it will go through. Incidentally these rates are even cheaper than you would pay on most French local sims! Yes you can use the French local sim if you go in that direction and the Italian local sim to dial directly to the United States but right now that will cost you an arm and a leg (well maybe just a leg) as compared to callback world...I don't know if the "inconvenience" of the double call back is so terrible given the amount of money it will save. And when you order a United Mobile sim card through United Mobile on its web site, you will know your Liechtenstein number which you can key into callbackworld before you leave. The only thing to be careful about, as noted, is the difficulty in getting a real world tri band phone in the United States anymore...almost all the US sellers on ebay on their triband phones only sell the next to useless USA tri band phones from either Cingular or T Mobile that have substituted 850 frequency for 900...going to Europe without both 900 and 1800 on the phone might leave you up the creek without a cell phone in some countries and also restrict your choice of local sims...somebody on one forum lamented the fact she bought a cell phone from an ebay vendor in the USA went to Croatia and found it didn't work. The idiots at the cell phone store and her tour director (she was on a tour) told her the phone was locked which was absolutely untrue...the problem was, she later discovered, was the vendor claiming he was selling her a true world tri band phone sold her a stripped down US tri band cell phone without 900 and the Croatian sim card she bought was on a company which only used 900....the obvious solution being, of course, quad band phones. Hope that helps.