Truphone Local Anywhere quietly increases pricing

[bartolo5]

Originally Posted by masr4779

I have been trying to purchase a truphone sim card now for two weeks. I seem to be having some extreme difficulty with the website, and the truphone customer service. First, when I tried to add a credit card to the account that I created, the card is not authorized. I emailed and then spoke on the phone with the help desk. The first person I spoke with told me that it seems like they are having some problems, so what he was going to do was just mail me a sim card and then I could try adding a card when I activate the account. 10 days later no card. I call again, they tell me that they show no record of sending me a sim card, and that they would not send me a sim card. They said to try again to purchase one online, and if it does not work the problem is with my bank. I tried several different cards (with several different banks) none of them work. I call each bank and the banks all verify authorized charges by truphone that never post (so the charge was accepted). I try to explain this over email and phone calls with truphone. They insist that it is my banks error, not theirs. I try again and again to buy a sim card, each time verifying with my bank that a charge from truphone has been authorized. I explain that to truphone. No response. I even create an account with truphone voip, and add $5 to that account. Truphone ignores the email when I ask them to verify that there is a card added to that account.

As of this morning, I have now sent three emails that have not been answered. The whole process began over two weeks ago and I still have not been able to get a sim. I would like to purchase this sim, and I really like the "local anywhere" concept. I travel to Spain and the UK enough to where this would work (even before Spain becomes a "member" country). It seems difficult to believe that this company will actually succeed if they cannot even satisfy a costumer that is happy to give it business. Regardless of what the problem is, you would think that within two weeks they would find a way to accept my money for their product.

I have used US credit cards in the past with them without any issues but it has been a while since I last recharged my account. I have two SIMs with them.
I am not sure what's going on with their website, things seem to be pretty stalled over there. Note the original post of this thread and the later reply from Truphone here mentioning that the pricing information is incorrect in the rates section. Just checked yesterday and they still haven't fixed the pricing info on the website that sounds bizarre to me. Maybe they are working on relaunching the service/website once the new countries kick in and they are not working on the old stuff anymore, I have no idea.

I agree with you, it almost seems like Truphone doesn't care about local anywhere too much. There haven't been updates in a long long time and if your operational issues are true it's difficult to see how this sort of service can gain any traction. Hopefully things will change soon.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by bartolo5

There haven't been updates in a long long time........ Hopefully things will change soon.

Just looked today and Austrailia has been added. Also, they seem to have extended the expiration of the 'free month' to a month from yesterday/today. Austrailia's data rate is 10cents a MB.

[bartolo5]

Originally Posted by rfranzq

Just looked today and Austrailia has been added. Also, they seem to have extended the expiration of the 'free month' to a month from yesterday/today. Austrailia's data rate is 10cents a MB.

I did see that. $0.10/MB-$100/GB is not too bad for casual data use. Sadly in the USA they are still asking $0.50/MB-$500/GB. I wonder if T-Mobile must be part of the problem raising their data in the USA?

[petkow]

Nice to see a third country finally added. Still eagerly waiting for Spain to join. Anyone have a heads up?

[bartolo5]

Originally Posted by petkow

Nice to see a third country finally added. Still eagerly waiting for Spain to join. Anyone have a heads up?

Well, if Truphone keeps its promises the next 3 countries should come online in less than 7 weeks given that's how much is left of 2010.

Eagerly awaing for their spanish service here too. Hopefully their data rates will be reasonable as well as their voice rates. There are so many cheap MVNOs in Spain at the moment that it maybe difficult for Truphone to offer competitive rates there.

[rfranzq]

They seem to have backed off on Austrailia.

Australian numbers will be available soon!

Here is the line that encourages that more will be coming soon.

Many other countries will be added in 2010

I wish them well. Hope things work out. Now would be a good time for communication. What they are doing can not be easy. If it was, all of us would have done it a long time ago.
I am happy to be able to use it in the US--that is why I got it. I do not use data, but I think it is easier [assuming it works OK in the US for data] for most short time visitors to acquire and use than any other prepaid data offers.

[masr4779]

So I tried again today to log on and purchase a SIM on truphone. No luck. I called the customer service. I spent 5 minutes explaining the situation to somenone again. She asked for the reference number they had given me earlier. I gave that. She put me on hold to look up the prior actions. After 10 minutes on hold I was disconnected. I emailed again and explained my phone call and asked for someone to call me. No response. I emailed three hours later and they said they were still looking in to the problem.

I know I should just give up, but I keep trying. I was able to find a truphone sim + samsung phone online. I bought that (didn't need the phone but it was only $20 more than the sim starter pack - $49 total). Hopefully someone will have been able to fix the problem by the time I need to activate the sim (or at least by the time $15 runs out). We shall see...

Has anyone else been able to purchase a SIM here in the US recently?

[Truphone]

Hi All

Quite a few questions to get through!

Re:India networks...I have been given an unconfirmed answer on this, I'm just waiting for confirmation from our roaming team as I don't want to post something that isn't accurate, but am on the case!

We are talking to a number of partners about retail, but nothing currently. I would suggest speaking to our customer service team and seeing if we can get a card to you by Monday.

Spain (plus the other two countries shown on the website) are close...can't say any more than that, but watch this space!