Can we trust callblue again??
 

Hi,

Had the problem with GT-Sim as per previous thread, and am considering Callblue again.

Just wondering how callblue can offer this kind of service again, and whether people believe they will survive?

Cheers

Richard

There are many sellers, reseller, dealers, wholesale or whatever they call themselfs.

When selecting a service it's better to look at the background of the company. Have they let down customers in the past, if yes it's a good question if they will not let you down a second time.

The other question is how reliable does the number you get needs to be. Are you just using it some times per year or are you using it all year long. If all year long you want a reliable partner having a long good record.

Strikes me that United Mobile is the only outfit than can be trusted for International SIMs, or am I wrong?

Both the Estonian sim cards and O9 have been pretty reliable the past couple of years too. What UM does deserve credit for and right now makes it the best buy, IMHO, is its realization that the asininely high termination fees being imposed by whomever were killing its convenience and the move from +423 to +44 has worked brilliantly.

As you said UM+ is a good buy at the moment and UM at least looks like a solid trustwurthy company.

Also it uses a +44 number which is good specially for business use as giving an Estonian or Iceland number to customers might seem a bit strange. Also we all now that calling Iceland mobile is not very cheap and some voip carries do not even connect. The same higher rates apply to Estonia.

Yes there are other companies offer card, but most are just resellers or rebranding an existing card.

Speak to both GT SIM and Callblue and see what they propose.

I don't know what GT SIM are doing now, nor about what happened when these companies split their arrangement last year and whether anything to do with that is still open to you.

But anyway Callblue were recently offering a free SIM card, perhaps with some modest credit on that would at least let you test it. I know a friend has recently used one a fair amount in France and Spain without any problems.

There were also rather predatory adverts from certain other resellers, which have now been changed. But don't exchange in your old card to separate companies, both for security reasons and in case it gets working again soon.

At the moment, the main +447-numbered SIMs are Callblue ekit United Mobile and Xfone. Some former Callkey resellers are now split mainly across the last 3, but will probably also be receiving information from new owners

Most UK networks charge separately for most of these numbers, apart from: all come from inclusive minutes on Virgin, but they don't support call diversion of incoming calls. The IoM 079244 ekit numbers come from minutes on O2 CPW and Orange.

There are some other new operations in the pipeline, plus potential new arrangements from other brands discussed here, so you might hedge with only small credits on one or two for a while.

Or for use in Europe, the main networks are no longer terrible. A 3 UK SIM is cheaper than any of the global roaming ones for calling to UK mobiles at 25p, and cheaper than most to UK landlines; 10p incoming though. 3 Like Home applies in some countries. Or consider O2 My Europe Extra: £10 a month gets free incoming, 25p outgoing to all Europe, and look at using separate callback.

After Freeglobalsim took my money and ran, i went ahead and gave more money for charity this time to CallBlue .

To my horror I found out (now that my prepaid credit has been exhausted and the sim card is blocked!) that they actually DO charge for roaming!!!

you wont find this on their home page or in their rate table!

it is hidden nicely in the terms and conditions that their "fair use policy" implies that after 10 minutes of an incoming call, they start charging 10p/min. :chair:

Someone should up update http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/international.html as it endorses a card that doesn't really provide free international roaming.



So.. are there any hidden roaming costs after 10 minutes also with UM+ ?

I updated the page, I really didn't knew about this "fair use policy" at all, thank you very much for the news.

not at all, as well as with all the other simcard that I've used (both UM, Travelsim, 09...)

I got dinged with the "fair usage policy" too when i purchased their SIM as a replacement for Cherry to use in Rome, but then i found out that it only starts charging after 10 minute per call. So if the person hangs up and calls you back, you can speak for another 10 minutes for free and so on. It's kinda cheeky..but hey it works :)

There is no such thing as "free roaming". Either the cost shows up on your home or office phone when the premium number is dialed to reach the SIM - or a local number is dialed and you incur a (hopefully) small charge against the credit on your SIM.

...mike