Phone and banking for son working in France

vikinggreen

Hi

My son is going to be working at a French ski resort for 5 months, and we need to work out the best arrangement for phones and banking.

The company he is working for don't seem to offer any advice, which is crazy, considering that they employ hundreds of English people to work abroad every year.

1. Phone:

He will have Skype, so that will be fine for calling us. He is unlikely to make any other calls to the UK.

His main use will therefore be calling/texting within France to other co-workers. The catch is that some of them may have French mobiles, and others may have UK mobiles!

He has a UK contract phone, but if he uses that, he will be charged 50p for each call. (I think - it is O2 Pay Monthly.) We probably need to cancel the contract while he is away, because it has expired, but that is a whole other discussion!

Will he be charged horrendous amounts for calling a UK mobile within France?

Should he just get a French PAYG phone locally? If there is nowhere in the resort to buy a phone, can we order one from the internet?

(Sorry, I am a bit of a mobile numpty.)

2. Banking

We are assuming that his earnings will be paid into his UK bank account with Lloyds. If he uses his debit card to withdraw cash or purchase items, he will be charged every time he uses it.

Is there a quick solution to this? We are happy to transfer the funds on his behalf from the UK account.

TIA for any advice!

vikinggreen

Not a soul?

Have I posted this in the wrong place?

Thomas_Crown

I spend about 3 months per year in France & my O2 mobile is far too expensive to use. I bought a sim free mobile from Amazon UK & a French sim from Transatel who trade as lefrenchmobile.com

Take a look at the above website & see what you think. The only real alternative is to by a French mobile phone from a major hypermarket such as E.Leclerc or Carrefour where there would be the usual choice of PAYG or contract.

Moto2

Maybe a cheap dual SIM phone would suit
His O2 contract SIM in one slot and a French PAYG in the other?

or have a look at Lycamobile
http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/

For the banking, it would maybe be worth setting up a MetroBank Acc

vikinggreen

Thanks - some good starters there, and I'll look into them.

Any more ideas would be very welcome.

vikinggreen

Moto2, Metrobank looks like the answer on the banking - many thanks for that.

I've now found the very long Sticky about mobiles abroad, and am taking a read of that.

johnnyreggae

There's also loads of threads about holiday money - thats effectively what he's doing

My guess is that there'll be a percentage loading on any purchase on a UK card but for cash advance there could also be an advance fee both lump sum and percent - it therefore suggests he should do as few cash withdrawals as possible and for more rather than less money each time

Its probably not worth setting up a local account for just a few months especially if he is not being paid locally but if he can get a 0 percent loading credit card (eg Post Office I think) that might help a little for purchases (not cash advances)

EmmaParsons

As a former rep I would give the following advice:

Mobiles: It's likely that once he and his colleagues have settled in they will all buy French sim cards. This will make it easier for him to contact them and it's highly unlikely that they will all choose to stick to their UK numbers for the entire time. I would suggest buying a pay as you go UK sim card to take for the first couple of weeks until he can go out and buy a french sim card. I would also suggest checking out the O2 website as they have lots of overseas bundles that mean you can use your inclusive minutes abroad and pay less for texts. (there's usually a 50p connection charge for calls.)

Cash: I would also presume that he is paid into his UK account. There should be some opportunities for him to earn commission whilst in resort, which is paid locally normally. Commission will be earnt from selling things like phone cards, ski hire, lift passes, days out etc. This will be paid in euros directly to him at the end of each week / month or whenever he had to hand in paperwork and money to the local office. This won't always be enough to see him through, but it can be if he's good at sales! It's worth bearing in mind that reps hardly ever pay full price for things in resort, cheaper drinks and meals in bars and their hotels are a perk of the job. If he's working in a chalet or ski school type place rather than as a rep they may provide him meals whilst he's on duty anyway too. When he does need to take money out it might be worth him doing it just once a week rather than several transactions and then using a safety deposit box to keep his money secure? This shouldn't cost him massively and may be the best way to do it.

martindow

If his salary is paid into a UK account there is likely to be a fee and a loss on converting from Euros. A local account would be better if it is feasible to do with just one transfer at the end (if it's not been spent!).

Thomas_Crown

martindow wrote: »

If his salary is paid into a UK account there is likely to be a fee and a loss on converting from Euros. A local account would be better if it is feasible to do with just one transfer at the end (if it's not been spent!).

French banks are unlikely to want to open a current account for someone who is only going to be in France for a few months. They normally only open accounts for French residents or people who own a second home in France.

Documentation required to open a current account:- 3 x bank statements, council tax bill, utility bill, passport. The account will normally be run free of charge but a debit card costs from 38 Euros per year.

knightstyle

We spend a lot of time in France and use sim from 0044.co.uk for all calls, this is the cheapest we can find.
Banking we use our normal UK bank for UK based deposits and use a Halifax Clarity credit card for all spending and cash withdrawals whilst in France. This gives us a good exchange rate and no fees. To avoid paying interest on the cash withdrawals we transfer the equivalent sterling amount from our UK bank to the Halifax credit card within a day. The remaining balance is paid in full automatically by DD each month.
Our last visit during which we spent £500 on the card and withdrew 700€ cash cost us less than £3 in interest.