Hello,

Thank you to the contributors of this thread. I just bought a recharge for my Orange Mobicarte that I have used with my flip phone. I have prevented my number from expiring which is what my intention was. I now own a Nexus 5 smartphone which takes a microSIM which means I need to cut the SIM down to that size. Has anyone successfully taken an Orange SIM and moved it to a different phone? I am aware that I will need to disable ALL data on my phone to keep it from getting consumed in the background if I am able to get it working. My goal is to have the phone for emergencies and use wifi as needed. Does anyone see any pitfalls with this scenario? Or should I simply keep the SIM as-is with the older generation flip phone due to the risk of insurmountable technical obstacles?

Thanks,

jb9

jb9: Are you planning to go to France in the near future. I would just keep my sim in the old phone, and when I returned to France exchange it for the sim you need. I did this in the UAE. I had a full size sim so as soon as I landed I went to the phone shop at the airport, and exchanged it for a nano sim. Kept the same number as it is on my business cards.

Very late reply I know but if anyone is interested in a reply to the question: there is no problem in cutting Orange SIMs down.

I have a very old Mobicarte that I've cut twice, from mini to micro and then again from micro to nano for my iPhone 6. It works fine, although some of the SIM menu options are for plans that Orange no longer offers, so it fails when you try and select them.

But the workaround for that is to use the Orange website, not the SIM menu, to select plans. The only thing that you can't do on the website unless you have a French credit card is recharge. Fortunately the SIM menu still works for that.

Orange SIM quit working for France
 

I still don't understand what happened to me in France a couple of months ago (May 2015). After arriving in France from the USA, I bought a local SIM card from Boutique Orange in Paris. A couple of days later I ran out of data because (well, long story...) which generated a text message and an automated phone call in French from Orange saying my account was used up and I should provide my credit card number to top it up.
I stopped into another Orange shop and they redid my plan to unlimited calling and data. Calls within France and to the UK, web surfing, email etc. then worked just fine.
Then, 5 days later, I needed to make a call within France, and I suddenly got the identical recorded message from Boutique Orange in French saying my account was used up and they wanted my credit card number to top it up.
BUT I was still able to call an international toll-free number and also make calls to the UK.
How could it be that my Orange account was used up when (a) I supposedly had paid for an unlimited plan, and (b) I could still call outside France???
Does anyone have any explanation for this?

Sounds like Orange just charged you exactly what was needed for whatever unlimited call plan you agreed to with them. Say it was 20 euros for two weeks calls for argument's sake. They added the 20 euros to your account, which you had previously run down to zero. So now it is 20 euros. Then they activated the 20 euro plan, which gets deducted from your balance. So now your balance is back to zero, but you have a good working plan, so you can make the calls you need to.

But your balance is still zero or very low. That triggers off the automatic reminders, because your plan won't last for ever and when it runs out you won't be able to make calls. So they send you texts to remind you of the situation.

Unlimited is not unlimited
 

Thank you for the reply.
So "unlimited" does not really mean unlimited? Wow. It would have been extremely helpful if any of the 3 different Orange employees I spoke to had explained this.
Not very nice of them. I will not use Orange again if I can help it.
:(

Seriously? You thought unlimited meant "for ever"? No prepaid plan anywhere in the world gives you that. The calls are unlimited during the duration of the period you paid for, a day, a week, a month, whatever.

Unlimited with regard to time is forever.
Unlimited with regard to data is unending data.
When you are new to something or in an unfamiliar situation
it can be difficult to know what is and what is not included in things.

The "unlimited" plan I paid for was for 30 days.
Instead, it ran out in 4 days.
I did not make a lot of calls in those 4 days. I did use data, but -- again -- it was supposed to be unlimited calls and unlimited data for 30 days.
The day it ran out, I was leaving France so I did not have time to go and find a Boutique Orange to ask why this was happening.

Did someone manage to buy a Mobicarte SIM card for 3.90 EUR including 5 EUR credit in an Organge shop (boutique)?