Joe Mobile

[ronwi]

Responding to my own post - I went online to Virgin and started placing an order to see how far it would let me go. It appears that it requires a French bank account for the monthly debit of the 19.99 Euro.

Originally Posted by ronwi

It appears that Virgin has a plan that matches the Joe 20 EUR plan - Forfaits Sans engagement Idol - Virgin Mobile - and I believe that Virgin Moible SIM cards can be bought at retail.

[tux]

Originally Posted by ronwi

Responding to my own post - I went online to Virgin and started placing an order to see how far it would let me go. It appears that it requires a French bank account for the monthly debit of the 19.99 Euro.

Like most of French operators That's why Joe is seen as revolutionary.

In the meantime, I've decided to move to them from B&You... I'm afraid of Simyo.

[tux]

The only difference is... 1€cent

[reeder]

Originally Posted by tux

Yes, but they can be either credit or prepaid cards issued in France and bordering countries: Italy, UK, Spain, Swiss, Belgium. If you have no cards issued in these countries, Joe community members suggest to apply for a virtual prepaid card by Neteller, resulting issued in UK.

The neteller option interests me. I have a Vodafone UK PAYG sim and mostly get top-up certificates while going through Heathrow (WH Smith counter) but it would simplify my life a bit if I had an accepted UK online payment method. Anyone know if the UK phone operators also accept Neteller?

Update: Neteller isn't available to USA residents. Hmm. So Joe Mobile recharges for US residents would require an SFR paycard?

[tux]

If you can get one, it would be a viable option.

P.S.: regarding Neteller, I too would be interested to top-up UK sims, but some of them (like O2) require also a British address associated to the virtual card, so I don't know if it could be useful...

[tux]

Just an update about the ID: it's sufficient that you choose "Pièce d'identité étrangère" anche you can enter your US passport ID

[ronwi]

Thanks - discovered that last night, used my British passport (actually my stepdaughter's, she is going to be in France for 2 months so the card was ordered for her.) It accepted the order and charged the debit card, so it should be arriving hopefully next week.

[tamla]

Received my Joe Mobile sim and activated it. Off to France at the morrow will post back my comparison with orange mobicarte. Tamla

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[tamla]

Just back from my holiday in France. Spent 2 weeks in a mobile home on campsite nr St Raphael. I used a Joe sim in and the good wife an Orange Prepaid Mobicarte. In built up areas performance between the two was v similar. With both locking at Hspa speeds. We spent a day hiking in the Esterel Hills and both sims could only lock on GSM and were only good for voice calls. The difference was cost for €20 I had unlimited voice call in France ( mobile and landlines) and to land lines most of mainland EU. With the mobicarte since Orange stopped thier 500 Mb per month unlimited data plan. Kept having to subscribe to short term €2 data plans and friends and family plans. I do not plan to top up the orange sim to keep the line valid in 5 months time but from the UK using my UK issued Visa card can top up my Joe sim for easily to keep line valid. I am grateful to the kind and helpful folk on the Joe forum.

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[inquisitor]

This is to confirm that I've just successfully activated a Joe Mobile SIM for a friend ordered via amazon.fr using a German VISA card (issued by Berliner Sparkasse).

During the activation process the following information on acceptance of foreign credit cards was displayed:

Quelles cartes de paiement sont acceptées par Joe ?

Joe accepte les cartes bancaires domiciliées en France ou dans les pays suivants : Allemagne, Andorre, Belgique, Espagne, Grande Bretagne, Irlande, Italie, Luxembourg, Monaco, Pays-bas et la Suisse.
Joe accepte les types de cartes bancaires suivants : Visa (Electron, Nationale, Internationale, Premier, Infinite...), MasterCard (Maestro, Nationale, Internationale, Gold, Platinum...), ainsi que les cartes bancaires prépayées distribuées en France.
Les e-cartes bleues à usage unique ne sont pas acceptées.

For me it took 52 mins for the SIM card to be activated after completing the activation procedure and the € 5 bonus for SIM cards ordered via amazon was also credited immediatley.

So far I'm pretty impressed by the straightforward handling and their convenient customer portal.