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MATHA531 · 20-03-2006, 03:46

See here's the problem and it is a growing problem with credit cards...

Often to make a purchase with a credit card you are required to enter your billing address including postal code...the systems only recognize UK postal codes not US zip codes and it's not just sim card top ups...I wanted to register my oyster card to be able to prepurchase my travelcards before arriving in London...sorry you need a UK credit card.

We have similar problems in the US from time to time...for example Wal Marts require me to enter my zip code as do many gas station readers when using a credit card...Wal Mart apparently only for Amex cards many of the self service gas stations for MC and visa....in the case of the gas stations one can go inside the office and pay with the cc there and apparently don't need a zip code..

Sort of defeats the purpose of international validity of credit cards doesn't it...

Now as for orange...my first UK sim was an orange sim in 2001...I had read up as much as possible (there was no prepaidgsm.net then or at least I didn't know of it) and knew nothing about prepaid sims and all that. Anyway my research showed that Orange had the best deal to the USA, 15p/minute at the time (it has since increased to 20p/minute) while Vodafone and BT at the time were much more expensive and I don't think Virgin was operating then.

Anyway at the time Orange required registration for using a prepaid sim. I remember I went into an Orange shop and asked the clerk if I could use the address of my hotel in registering the card...he said no problem..in any event he called the Orange service centre to register the card and gave the address I had given him of my hotel....he was told no go as he was giving the address of a hotel...he asked his sueprvisor what to do and was told call again and get another clerk who probably wouldn't give a flying you know what...sure enough he did and the second guy didn't give a flying you know what and voila the card was registered and I was on the network.

The second one I bought was a Virgin one with a cheap phone and no registration was required.

For competitive reasons, I don't think Orange any longer requires registration for the prepaid sims...something BTW that security experts are upset about what with the terrorism apranoia both the UK and US are under right now....but to the best of my knowledge and I am not in the UK most if not all the UK sims do not require registration or any sort of id to buy them as opposed to France and Germany where I was asked for my passport to buy the cards (Vodafone IE could care less and asked for nothing nor did Vodafone NL although the clerk wanted ID to take my cc to buy the sim)...

And to keep the Orange account active, I used GPRS and went to one of my favourite sites www.polyphonicringtonez.com/wap which gives away free ringtones...downloaded my favourite ring tone (Grandma got run over by a reindoor), cost me 9p and kept the account active...I suppose if I needed to do something within the 180 day period again, but I don't know how tightly Orange adheres to this, I might download Puff the Magic Dragon from that web site.

Same thing is true of my virgin sim...I use GPRS to download a ring tone...Mobile World does seem to mean it when they say if you don't use the sim for 90 days, they will disconnect it and charge you to reinstate it with your credit...I hate that and can't figure a way around it as Mobile World, at least as of this writing, does not allow roaming so I can't even send a sms from the US to keep it active.

	(#5)
MATHA531 (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Specialist Posts: 869 Join Date: 15 Oct 2004 Country:	20-03-2006, 03:46 See here's the problem and it is a growing problem with credit cards... Often to make a purchase with a credit card you are required to enter your billing address including postal code...the systems only recognize UK postal codes not US zip codes and it's not just sim card top ups...I wanted to register my oyster card to be able to prepurchase my travelcards before arriving in London...sorry you need a UK credit card. We have similar problems in the US from time to time...for example Wal Marts require me to enter my zip code as do many gas station readers when using a credit card...Wal Mart apparently only for Amex cards many of the self service gas stations for MC and visa....in the case of the gas stations one can go inside the office and pay with the cc there and apparently don't need a zip code.. Sort of defeats the purpose of international validity of credit cards doesn't it... Now as for orange...my first UK sim was an orange sim in 2001...I had read up as much as possible (there was no prepaidgsm.net then or at least I didn't know of it) and knew nothing about prepaid sims and all that. Anyway my research showed that Orange had the best deal to the USA, 15p/minute at the time (it has since increased to 20p/minute) while Vodafone and BT at the time were much more expensive and I don't think Virgin was operating then. Anyway at the time Orange required registration for using a prepaid sim. I remember I went into an Orange shop and asked the clerk if I could use the address of my hotel in registering the card...he said no problem..in any event he called the Orange service centre to register the card and gave the address I had given him of my hotel....he was told no go as he was giving the address of a hotel...he asked his sueprvisor what to do and was told call again and get another clerk who probably wouldn't give a flying you know what...sure enough he did and the second guy didn't give a flying you know what and voila the card was registered and I was on the network. The second one I bought was a Virgin one with a cheap phone and no registration was required. For competitive reasons, I don't think Orange any longer requires registration for the prepaid sims...something BTW that security experts are upset about what with the terrorism apranoia both the UK and US are under right now....but to the best of my knowledge and I am not in the UK most if not all the UK sims do not require registration or any sort of id to buy them as opposed to France and Germany where I was asked for my passport to buy the cards (Vodafone IE could care less and asked for nothing nor did Vodafone NL although the clerk wanted ID to take my cc to buy the sim)... And to keep the Orange account active, I used GPRS and went to one of my favourite sites www.polyphonicringtonez.com/wap which gives away free ringtones...downloaded my favourite ring tone (Grandma got run over by a reindoor), cost me 9p and kept the account active...I suppose if I needed to do something within the 180 day period again, but I don't know how tightly Orange adheres to this, I might download Puff the Magic Dragon from that web site. Same thing is true of my virgin sim...I use GPRS to download a ring tone...Mobile World does seem to mean it when they say if you don't use the sim for 90 days, they will disconnect it and charge you to reinstate it with your credit...I hate that and can't figure a way around it as Mobile World, at least as of this writing, does not allow roaming so I can't even send a sms from the US to keep it active.