Report on using Orange Mobicarte in France

[scirocco]

Search on Ebay France for "orange prepaid 15". The seller ibiza2004 has nearly 2700 feedback.

Originally Posted by randomelemental

I am still in the UK at the moment. So.....when I try and ring another phone to get my number, nothing happens, it dials then drops the call, no tone, nothing. I have a good signal, so it's not that.

On my Mobicarte (when used outside France) I can get the number as follows:

Dial #123#
Reply with 3 for "suivi conso"
This should bring up some text and among it all will be a number like 06 xx xx xx xx. This is the phone number excluding the 33 for France.

[fsotirop]

how does this guy register and activate the number under buyer's name? via scanned passport? i thought in France this could be done only by visiting in person a orange shop.

[scirocco]

I think he is an Orange reseller. There is probably a tick box that they have to set when doing the activation confirming that they have seen high quality ID e.g. a passport or bank account/credit card. Your Paypal transaction provides this.

[flychr]

hi

I think poster flychr got his number sent by separate1
post to the SIM

No , i tekst my self to get the phone nr! there is no sim code.
Are you sure the phone with the orange sim is not sim locked?
chr

[PeterNL]

Hi,
Yesterday I went to Lille from the Netherlands and bought a new 3G Mobicarte in an Orange shop, because I forgot to recharge my old card that was 2 years old.

The new Mobicarte now costs only €9,95 in an Orange shop. It can be used for making phonecalls immediately.

There is only one thing: after having shown the passport in the shop, the Orange computers need to activate the internet usage, so this can take up to 48 hours. In my case it only took 15 hours. As I said, one can make phonecalls when leaving the store but not use the internet.

This morning I could activate my Internet max because my phonenumber had been activated. So if I were in France now, I would be able to use the internet.

The phonenumber can be used for 6 months, the minimum recharge for another 6 month now is €10. If you only recharge with 5 euros, you will lose the number.

Since I only need internet during weekends, I always buy €5 recharges and immediately activate the internet max for a weekend.

From now on I will have to buy €10 recharges.

[randomelemental]

Originally Posted by scirocco

Search on Ebay France for "orange prepaid 15". The seller ibiza2004 has nearly 2700 feedback.



On my Mobicarte (when used outside France) I can get the number as follows:

Dial #123#
Reply with 3 for "suivi conso"
This should bring up some text and among it all will be a number like 06 xx xx xx xx. This is the phone number excluding the 33 for France.

Thanks for that. Didn't work though, just got some text back saying I had 3.32 euro and 33 sms left, but no number.

I contacted ibiza2004 via ebay, a couple of days ago to ask how I can get my number, I am still waiting for a reply, the standard reply of 'call another phone' doesn't really cut it.

[randomelemental]

Thought I would try a different tactic.....send an sms to another phone!

Ok, that worked and a number appeared...was it mine or just a random number thrown out by orange's sms servers? It did begin with +33 though....so, I called this +3368958xxxx number to see if my mobile rang...it didn't. The tone I got was the tone you hear when a phone number does not exist. I also sent an sms back to the french sim phone...it didn't receive it.

Looking through the phone settings its roaming, in service and on the orange network and I have a strong signal, however, it says its mobile network state is 'disconnected'.

The puzzle deepens.

[woody1]

It seems very odd if you could send an SMS from an unregistered phone. I'm wondering if you're having some problem with your APN setup on the phone that keeps you from getting the correct network connection.

[flychr]

hi

or just a random number thrown out by orange's sms servers

no must be the right nr!
try to get the password for log on to orange ! but perhaps there is no credit on sim?
chr

[sbrian]

Originally Posted by randomelemental

Thanks for that. Didn't work though, just got some text back saying I had 3.32 euro and 33 sms left, but no number.

I contacted ibiza2004 via ebay, a couple of days ago to ask how I can get my number, I am still waiting for a reply, the standard reply of 'call another phone' doesn't really cut it.

I am in same boat as randomelemental, except I do at least have my phone number. I turned off all cell data, inserted the SIM, and activated it with no problems. Once I got a signal (via T-Mobile) the French number appeared in my phone. (It's an iPhone 4S with the GSM Sim Unlocked for Foreign Carriers).

My problem is that I only have an available balance of 3.31 EUR, but I purchased the SIM + 25.00 EUR credit. I have managed to get my password and set up an account online with Orange : téléphones, forfaits, Internet, actualité, sport, video, and as near as I can tell, the only activity on the account was two charges on 07/03/2012 at 14:39...one is for an outgoing call for 0.220 EUR and one for "communication" for 1.472 EUR. That tells me that the original credit on the SIM was only 5.00 EUR. I'm assuming that this was part of the activation/registration process, but if the SIM had 25.00 EUR on it, then the remaining balance should be 23.31, non?

I've also contacted the ebay seller ibiza2004 and am waiting on a response, but that was two days ago. I just wonder if I'm overlooking something obvious. There was no scratch off card included with the sim. Also, while I have been able to access the #123# menu and can dial 224 (for which my French is way to insufficient), I am unable to dial 225 with any success.

Any suggestions, hints or solutions (beyond escalating to ebay complaints?)

I'm attaching a screenshot of my account activity (I hope...)