Best PAYG sim card for emergency use only?

roddydogs

Why? 789 is free, a text costs 10p

simonbk

roddydogs wrote: »

Why? 789 is free, a text costs 10p

Texts to 789000 are free with Virgin. No charge for retrieving voicemail on 222 either...

Goldcrypto

simonbk wrote: »

My main mobile uses a Freedom Pop Basic 200 plan (£0.00 a month) so I haven't paid for making a mobile phone call in years...

I would check your bank card, there is a good chance Freedompop is charging you now. They scrapped their 'free' plan and moved them to the new chargeable 'essential' plan a month or so ago.

simonbk

Goldcrypto wrote: »

I would check your bank card, there is a good chance Freedompop is charging you now. They scrapped their 'free' plan and moved them to the new chargeable 'essential' plan a month or so ago.

I have FreedomPop linked to my PayPal and there have been no charges so far. The 'free' plan still exists for 'active' FreedomPop accounts. What they did was charge everyone with an inactive account who hadn't deleted it after they sent out the emails telling everyone about the Essential plan. As I use my FP SIM everyday for making and receiving calls my account has always been 'active' and is still showing as Basic 200 £0.00/month.

Anyone who was already on a chargeable plan or was inactive and moved onto the Essential plan, cannot downgrade to Free anymore, which seems a bit unfair. Obviously FP wanted to get rid of all the tirekickers and deadwood but it was an odd way of doing it as they must have been inundated with chargebacks...

Goldcrypto

simonbk wrote: »

I have FreedomPop linked to my PayPal and there have been no charges so far. .

I would keep an eye on your paypal as that is not what happened with me or quite a lot of others on Freedompop forums who were still active. I had 3 Freedompop accounts, all used frequently in a spare phone (mainly for the free data in a spare phone, and odd texts etc) and when received email of notification free accounts were going and to be moved to essential plan I cancelled 2 of them as were on a prepaid card that I sometimes use (low money in but some money they could have still tapped away).

Cancellation worked and never any billing problems for those 2. However, my third Freedompop was linked to a prepaid card that I never use so was not concerned what they did if tried to bill. I was on the freeplan (regular user) then they tried to charge my card, without success by them, and move me to essential plan. So now no longer use Freedompop and never paid anything other than the 1p each, when ordered.

Not concerned as now use in a spare mobile (cheap smart phone for the gym with call forwarding from main phone set up when needed) the Three Sim which has 200 MB free data every month ( https://www.three.co.uk/Free_SIM_MBB/Order - although did not order from Three but got 3 of the for 50p on ebay so do not need to top up but just activate, as if ordered via Three then need top up each to activate) - have 3 of those sims so over 0.5 GB data. Plus make free texts with the Tesco international app on that phone.

Freedompop was a terrible network, many calls would not go since they operated over their app and many calls would be missed. Incredibly buggy. As it was free was fine, but would not even pay a few pounds for it now. Their model never relied on people using it free but the sign up process requiring a card was always planned to try and sting the user with some small charge - voicemail option, premium call option, auto top up option, other usage immediate credit applied etc. Probably too many people got savvy learning to untick the large number of boxes to unsubscribe (also often tricky to find all the hidden boxes).

simonbk

Just checked my PayPal and found I had already removed FreedomPop EU from my list of pre-approved payees so they wouldn't be able to charge me even if they tried. ;-)

I notice the UK FP website no longer offers the free service - they are now trying to sell you a refurbished phone with their SIMs and sell you a data plan that you pay for six months in advance!

Getting back on topic, I would say FP is the last network you should choose for emergency use as your account becomes inactive after 30 days of not using it and you lose your number altogether if you don't reactivate immediately (which now costs you at least £3.49 a month).

The best network for not disconnecting you or zeroing your credit appears to be Virgin Mobile where you can stay active for free (just check your balance once every 270 days) and you can send 5 free texts a month when you are out of credit (I haven't bothered topping up in over ten years!)

tronator

Inner_Zone wrote: »

3, Asda and Vodafone, £5 minimum topup.

You can topup £2 with Three.

roddydogs

Quite shockrd to find that Virgin payg (not monthly) is 500% dearer for calls and texts than the new 02 classic tariff. Before anyone posts, I do know about porting and pac codes but I have a balance that cant be transferred, and I dont make many calls so until that is used up there is no point.

andyt8

ASDA is a good network to be on if you think you will forget to keep your payg sim active.

With them they first block outgoing calls after 180 days and you are referred to an automated service, but you have up to 270 days to simply call cust services to get it re-activated. After 270 days the credit will go but your phone number is still intact and you can reactivate for the cost of a top up. After 360 days the number gets recycled.

I've got as far as the automated service quite a few times with my emergency phone in the car and always reinstated it okay. It's helpful they block outgoing calls as you have 270-180=90days in which to get the warning "message" you have not used your phone. So much better than just a few days warning by text that GiffGaff sent me !!

You find this info in their Support > FAQ > Phones & Devices > page 2 >I only use my phone in emergencies ~ how do I reactivate it.

Cheers.

capital0ne

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

Make sure to replace the battery... after a couple of years they are past their best, regardless of how many charges it's had.

My phone is a Nokia 1100 £5 on ebay in 2005!

I've only just changed the battery - cost £3.95 on ebay, that's almost 15 years and it's been in use all that time! I was having to charge it once a week near the end of it's life!