Do you want a non-expiring French SIM card for travelling? €0.05/MB

NFH

In a thread on the Prepaid GSM forum, a number of us want to buy a prepaid SIM card from B&You, the budget subsidiary of Bouygues Telecom (just like Giffgaff and O2 in the UK). The reasons are:

• Apart from Lycamobile, it is the first French SIM card that you don't have to top up regularly to prevent it from expiring. Other French SIM cards expire at the speed of light if you don't top up frequently, so they are not suitable for occasional visitors to France.
• The prices are low for PAYG - €0.10 per min (charged per second), €0.05 per SMS and €0.05 per megabyte of data (charged per kilobyte).
• B&You issues all three current sizes of SIM card - a combination mini/micro SIM and a nano-SIM.

The SIM card costs €5 which includes €1.50 of credit valid for one month from the date of the first call. Subsequent top-ups don't expire provided that a chargeable call is made at least once per year.

However, there is one big problem. You have to order with a French debit or credit card for delivery to a French address. There are a number of ways around this, but not without some costs:

• €10 for a prepaid Visa card from La Banque Postale. Although I have a French bank account, they would charge me a whopping €40 for a basic Carte Bleue debit card.
• €9.80 for one month's service from French Office, a mail forwarding service, plus onward postage twice, once for the prepaid Visa card and once for all the SIM cards.

We are therefore finding as many people as possible who want one of these SIM cards in order to share the one-off costs. Each SIM card will have to be ordered under a separate B&You user account but using one payment card. If you're interested, please send me a PM with your e-mail address. I would also welcome any better ideas about how to get around the payment card and address restrictions.

diamonds

Hhmmm how do we get one !

NFH

diamonds wrote: »

Hhmmm how do we get one !

I thought I had suggested a way of getting one above. Can you suggest an easier way?

NFH

cristal50 wrote: »

I am currently travelling in France for one month. After reading several forums online about pay as you go sim cards, I decided to go with LeFrenchMobile and I am loving it.

LeFrenchMobile is a total rip-off, targeted at foreigners. First, you have to pay €1.40 per month, even if you don't use it, which makes it unsuitable for occasional visitors to France. Second, data is charged between €0.13 and €0.30 per megabyte (depending on which bundle you buy), compared to B&You's flat rate of €0.05/MB. I really don't understand why you posted information about such an expensive operator, unless your post is disguised spam (which you have also posted in another forum). We already know about all the rip-off options in France. This thread is specifically about how to get the only non-rip-off option.

diamonds

Lefrench resell the incumbent France Telecom Orange service dont they ?

Rip off indeed, Orange signal in Corsica is very poor & I was able to roam on all the Italian networks in the very south of Corsica more than I could get a "home" signal on Orange....

All very well unlimited calls (250 calls max, upto 3hrs each) and texts for 30 Euros (500mb for 9E bundle) on payg Orange Mobicarte, signal in regional areas can be poor or non existent.

Hope that helps someone out in cyberspace one day.

NFH

cristal50 wrote: »

I dont happen to find a 1.40€ rate to be a rip-off, to keep the line active while not using the sim card.
But averyone has their own opinion!
To me what is important is the service proved to be excellent.

It's clear that you are spamming on behalf of LeFrenchMobile. Several nuances in your posts give away that you are French and based in France rather than being the UK resident who visits France whom you claim to be above. This thread is specifically about B&You's prepaid SIM card, so please don't hijack it to spam your inferior product. Of course €1.40 doesn't seem a rip-off to you because you are the provider who is trying to market the service. Why should your customers pay a monthly charge when they are not even using the service, and why doesn't the €1.40 monthly charge even provide any inclusive minutes, texts or data, contrary to the industry norm? It's a rip-off.

diamonds

Would it not be La'FrenchMobile in proper context anyway NFH ?

lol

NFH

diamonds wrote: »

Would it not be La'FrenchMobile in proper context anyway NFH ?

No. Why do you say that? Both telephone and mobile are masculine in French.

diamonds

I was being cheeky, if you can suss the joke

NFH

It seems I have found a solution. The costs would be as follows:

• €10 La Carte Cadeau from the French post office
• €9.80 for Ubidoca's Forfait Reexpedition Eco which includes 2 forwardings (excluding postage costs)
• €1.35 postage for forwarding of La Carte Cadeau
• €4.10 postage for forwarding of SIM cards up to 250g total
• €5.30 recorded delivery fee for forwarding of SIM cards with €150 insurance

The total of €30.55 would be shared amongst all of us, i.e. around €2.50 each with 12 of us. The onward postage from London to each recipient would be on top of this. Ubidoca seem a lot more accommodating than French Office.

If you're interested and I don't already have your e-mail address, please PM me.

Macadamia

Thanks for the info on this. it is miles better than the French pre pay deals usually available.

Wondering why no one had thanked the OP.

Do people reading this thread not know about the thanks button?

This is a helpful post.....so why not show appreciation and press the button!

Go on, you know you want to......