Is Orange Uk Crazy

[powerlifter]

I wrote Orange to see if I could top up with my U.S. Credit card on the online site. The person from Orange wrote me back and I quote " You have to be a U.K. resident to purchase a Orange sim card". :unsure: I wrote back and asked about visitors who buy a sim card. No answer as of yet. Is there some kind of proof of resendency you have to show. I just want to be able to top up online to keep it active. Is this the same with vodaphone. Maybe some of our U.K. friends can shed some light on this subject.

[Triband81]

That's utter nonsense. I lived in London on my American and German passports for 2 years and didn't have a problem getting a SIM card at Carphone Warehouse or from Virgin Mobile. I even ported my Virgin Mobile number to Vodafone without having to prove my ID.

The person who replied to your e-mail must have confused the question. What he/she probably meant was that you need a UK CC in order to top up your Orange SIM card online. They will not accept foreign credit cards. You do need a UK-based address for such purposes but as for getting a SIM card, you don't need to prove your residency unless that has changed since May 2004 when I left London.

[0700700]

no, you dont need any id to buy or use a PAYG sim card.

once more orange surprises us :unsure:

[Bossman]

As other said, you do not have to be a UK resident to buy one. I have one myself. But, you do need a UK issued CC in order to be able to topup online with a CC. I believe you can just send an SMS, use GPRS, or make/receive a call to keep it active. I have not topped up mine in about a year, but I did log in to GPRS just to keep it active. It cost only about 35 p for a few KB of use. I did register my orange sim from here using my sister's UK address though. If you really need topup, you may want to check ebay. Every now and then you will see orange topups for sale. I bought a 20 pound topup on ebay for 17 pounds about 10 months ago.

I also know for a fact, that with both Vodafone and Virgin, you do need a UK issued credit card in order to be able to topup with one. Voda issues an error when you try to register a non-UK issued CC online. Virgin requires you to call in, and they will not allow it unless it's UK issued. I also bought a Virgin topup on ebay before my last trip. ONLY because it was cheaper that I would have paid in London. I paid 16 pounds for a 20 pound topup.

[MATHA531]

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.

[0700700]

depends where you buy the sims. If they are from Orange retail (online/web orders) you need to register them. For the onces they sell with phones you dont have to