09 Mobile - Another International Card (!)

[andy]

Just a couple of observations on that ...

The number of countries is slightly indeterminate at the moment - somewhere between 150 and 170

On the life of the SIM - the man at CS told me this 9 months top-up version, but the FAQ on the site mentions to keep it valid, either top up or make a call in 9 months.
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Note that Orate add 17.5% vat to the 25 euro recharge, so if you use an EU billing address you'd need to add 17.5% to the quoted per-minute prices. It's not clear if this applies to phone/online top-ups (or even if such top-ups exist yet).

The vague question of VAT added again in UK seems to apply to Riiing as well; either that or the dealers here like charging more (so a ?15 Riiing top-up costs ?12.80 from Oneroam).

I spoke to the Customs and Excise about this months ago, when I was thinking of buying 20 to 40 for friends; because Switzerland (and Iceland now) is not in the EU, VAT gets added, but can you buy at source for export without Swiss or Iceland VAT, and why doesn't something similar apply to Germany? - so it's cheaper (or it was) for UK users to buy from a German dealer.

The whole thing is a grey area anyway - where are the phone calls supplied (choice of up to 5 countries?); is the credit imported, or used in the country of origin or use? My guess is that one interpretation is that the SIM is exported, but not the credit, but that the various countries' tax authorities differ. Maybe UM are supplying from within the EU now? .... Yeah, I know .... yawn!

So, like Riiing, it will be better for UK users to top up direct from the 09 site, if/when this becomes possible.

Perhaps the same tax ambiguities (for some buyers) will apply to the IoM SIMs as well ...