Sim4travel T&C: daily charge

[ls129]

My UM +44 card stopped working. fortunately only 3EUR left in the account.
This is the third sim card i loose due to their going bankrupt in the last 3 years.
does anyone know how to access the voicemail of UM without the sim?

Regarding Sim4Travel, i found some disturbing facts:

Sim4Travel : Terms and Conditions Update

Dear SIM4Travel Customer,

SIM4travel will be making some changes to our terms and conditions. These changes refer to amends to our tariffs.

These terms and conditions will be applied to your account on the 12th October 2008

8.5 The Services are subject to the additional charges as detailed below

Network Service Fee – on each and every day that the service is used for inbound or outbound calls and outbound SMS, the customer will be charged a daily fee, (this fee is based upon each period of 24 hours from midnight to midnight GMT).
Credit Holding Fee - if your account has been inactive for 90 days or more, a Credit Holding Fee will be activated and You will be charged an initial fee, and then a further Credit Holding Fee will be made for every subsequent 30 days that the account remains inactive. (30 days is calculated from midnight on 90th Day of inactivity to midnight 30 days later).
The Credit Holding Fee shall continue to be charged until such time that the Customer’s account becomes active or is closed or is terminated due to insufficient funds being available to satisfy the Charges). Please see the FAQ’s section of the Support page of the Website for fee details.
Please refer to the “Our Rates” page of the Website for details on Charges

Also

We charge a 39p daily connection fee when using the service
If you use your sim card every day, This will cost you £142.35 / $284.00 per year

This is in there F.A.Q

How long does my credit last?
Your credit will last for 90 days from your last outbound or inbound call or text message.

Can I extend my credit life beyond the 90 day expiry?
SIM4travel provide a service where your credit is put "on hold" after the 90 day inactivity period. Instead of losing the credit, the credit is still available to use. This service is charged at £2.00 every 30 days.

What is a daily connection fee?
SIM4travel charge a daily connection fee of 39p to use the SIM4travel service. This charge is taken on a daily basis while you are using the SIM4travel service. There is no charge when the service has not been used. When you arrive home and switch off your SIM, no daily recurring charge is taken from your account.

[VladS]

For the life of me I don't see what this last message has to do with the Easyroam offer, but here are my thoughts:

Originally Posted by ls129

We charge a 39p daily connection fee when using the service
If you use your sim card every day, This will cost you £142.35 / $284.00 per year

A 39p per day fee, charged only when your service is used, is in my opinion a better value than UM's or eKit's per connection fees.

I don't really think there are that many people using this card on a daily basis. Did you use your UM card every day? How much did you pay in connection charges over the course of the last year?

Originally Posted by ls129

How long does my credit last?
Your credit will last for 90 days from your last outbound or inbound call or text message.

Can I extend my credit life beyond the 90 day expiry?
SIM4travel provide a service where your credit is put "on hold" after the 90 day inactivity period. Instead of losing the credit, the credit is still available to use. This service is charged at £2.00 every 30 days.

Just send an SMS every 90 days and you're set. Total cost over three months is €0.78 (daily fee + MO text cost). This should also not be an issue for those using the SIM every day...

It's really hard to compare all these offers and come up with a best deal for everyone. I for one jumped on the Sim4Travel bandwagon, got my card yesterday and it seems to work ok.

I was also willing to get an Easyroam card, but for privacy reasons would rather not send one of my UM cards out them.

[andy]

Originally Posted by VladS

For the life of me I don't see what this last message has to do with the Easyroam offer, but here are my thoughts:

Nor can I. I've split it to a separate thread, and might merge it with something else later when I've had a look around

But there's an almost identical post from September when this was first announced, so it would become repetitive if I merge it there.

[ls129]

sorry, i posted it on the wrong thread.
it was supposed to go on the thread that has the sim-card replacement offer for the UM victims

[ls129]

Originally Posted by VladS

A 39p per day fee, charged only when your service is used, is in my opinion a better value than UM's or eKit's per connection fees.

I don't really think there are that many people using this card on a daily basis. Did you use your UM card every day? How much did you pay in connection charges over the course of the last year?

I for one need a mobile phone for daily use because i travel a lot in Europe.
The 39p daily fee is not exactly advertised on the front page of sim4travel or under the "fees" page.

[bbob]

That's the problem with many providers, they hide some important facts in their small print.

some use ratio's or minimum use per month/ 3 month, other have things like this but most of them hide it. They advertise you will receive free raoming but it's questionable when they use these strange terms.

sim4travel is like many others good in hidding these things. They don't even have a email address, you can only write or call them.
Recentrly they registered a domein name 1 letter different from united mobile where um customers could get one of their free cards. It said free postage but this was not free only the UK postage was free. After I compleined they changed this on their website to uk only free postage. They did promise me a to sent me a fre card. Won't use it but it will just cost them money.
Stay away from them and get a card from easyroam or mr ed, you just pay a samll yearly fee, believe 10 pounds and that's it.

[easyroam-]

Service life

The travel sim card has a fixed service life of 365 days. However to keep your sim card working for the following year, there is a renewal fee of GBP £12. This will keep your number working and any un-used credit valid for the next 365 days.

Customers who purchase call credit within 90 days of there expiry date will not need to pay the network fee and all credit will be rolled over for the next 365 days.

www.travelsim.co.uk

@bbob

... come on, that´s bullsh.t. Just stay straight with the facts!

They don't even have a email address, you can only write or call them.

Sure they have an e-mail address, I see from reading your comment you did not made any research. Did you read the "Terms & Conditions", like you should BEFORE you agree to any contract? The e-mail address from S4T is s4t.support@sim4travel.com.

Recentrly they registered a domein name 1 letter different from united mobile where um customers could get one of their free cards.

So what do you have to judge them for their "guerilla marketing"? If you would look neutral at this whole thing you would see that the registration of this website was about 4-7 days before the blackout of UM, so the rumours and the known facts inside the circle of the competitors (and they do know each other) should have been a wake up call for UM customers.

It said free postage but this was not free only the UK postage was free.

It says CLEARLY on the web page "FREE shipping within the UK", so where is the problem? When you are outside of the UK you pay for shipping, absolutely normal business behaviour. UM did also charged for shipping, so what ...?

They did promise me a to sent me a fre card. Won't use it but it will just cost them money.

Great attitude, grab everything you can and hope you can use everything for free ... Thats the reason why no value can be raised in this business, where no money is there will no company stay long in the market.

Stay away from them and get a card from easyroam or mr ed, you just pay a samll yearly fee, believe 10 pounds and that's it.

Sh.t advise ..., compare the prices for frequent use and you will see that the effective usage costs will (in- and outbound calls) clearly show that even with the "daily usage" fee the S4T SIM will be less cost intensive then the Travelsim offer.

I am sorry for the new post but I can't edit the old post.

So,.... when you compare the average prices and you have say 300 minutes of outgoing calls every month with your TravelSIM, you have a average price of outgoing calls from 36 Pence per minute. That makes a total of about 1188 Pounds within 11 month of business usage in one year.

With S4T you have a average price of 25 pence per minute outbound call, this leads to a total of 825 Pounds plus your "daily charge" fee (25 working days each month, 11 month every year makes a total of 107,25 Pounds). So you pay in total with S4T 932,25 Pounds.

That makes a difference of 255,75 Pounds!

In short words SIM4Travel is 21,75% cheaper then TravelSIM.

[bbob]

Originally Posted by JohnDoe

@bbob

... come on, that´s bullsh.t. Just stay straight with the facts!



Sure they have an e-mail address, I see from reading your comment you did not made any research. Did you read the "Terms & Conditions", like you should BEFORE you agree to any contract? The e-mail address from S4T is s4t.support@sim4travel.com.



So what do you have to judge them for their "guerilla marketing"? If you would look neutral at this whole thing you would see that the registration of this website was about 4-7 days before the blackout of UM, so the rumours and the known facts inside the circle of the competitors (and they do know each other) should have been a wake up call for UM customers.



It says CLEARLY on the web page "FREE shipping within the UK", so where is the problem? When you are outside of the UK you pay for shipping, absolutely normal business behaviour. UM did also charged for shipping, so what ...?



Great attitude, grab everything you can and hope you can use everything for free ... Thats the reason why no value can be raised in this business, where no money is there will no company stay long in the market.



Sh.t advise ..., compare the prices for frequent use and you will see that the effective usage costs will (in- and outbound calls) clearly show that even with the "daily usage" fee the S4T SIM will be less cost intensive then the Travelsim offer.

Johndoe read what I write.

Yes it NOW states free postage within the UK. Before it read Free postage so there was no messages this would only apply to the UK. The changed this after I complained about this.

As for the mailaddress, don't you find it strange for a company to hide a mailaddress in the terms. When you want to contact a company will you look for the mailaddress in their terms, I don't an I thing 99.9% would not. You go to contact pages and there should be a mailaddress. Ask yourself the question why would they hide a mailaddress in the terms, there must be a reason for that.

As for registering a domain, read the forum here, you can call it marketing but this type of marketing goes to far. No problem putting a sign on your website saying free exchange but regsitering a competitors domainname 1 letter different is crossing the line and reflect the moral values of this company.

And my advice to stay away, this thread started about hidding a daily cost inside the terms. Yes hidding beause that is what sim4travel is doing hidiing things in their terms, email address, daily cost when using the sim. You might find this normal but I like to deal with companies that are honest and open about what they are offering. Hiddin things means you want to screw your customers because you know that 9/10 people alsmost never read the terms, that how it works in real life. sim4travel know this and yes they take advantage of this because the can now charge customers extra. Some might never find out, other when finding it out are pissed and go elsewhere.

Even when comparing prices it depends a lot on how often you call, do you call only once a day or do you receive more calls that making calls.
Many calls are less than 1 minute so based on that using easyraom you know what you are paying, using sim4travel you have to do your math.
In you example 300 minutes s4t might be cheaper, what aboput when you only call 50 minutes a month but receive calls every day. Things will look different than. So no you can't say s4t is cheaper or expensive, it depends on how you use it.

I repeat myself, stay away from companies that hide things in their terms. The have a reason for doing this, begin not open towards you as a customers. As a customer you than have to ask yourself the question do you really whant to use the service of a company that is trying to hide things.