Lebara “Free Roaming” Con

dreamypuma

I've personally had no issues with EU roaming on Lebara, furthermore I used Lebara roaming successfully across three different states in India over Christmas.

My parents had an issue last year whilst on holiday.  However this was resolved when I found that that data roaming was switched off in there mobile settings - You may want to check this.

jimjames

Minpago said:

 I did same areas with lyca, voxi networks and had no issues. Therefore avoid this operator and such sites as MSE who will advertise anything as long as they get commission 

Sorry but this is complete BS. I've used Lebara for roaming across many countries with no issues. Just because you have a problem on your phone doesn't mean that it's a scam and that MSE are complicit in it.

pepsi_max2k

In case anyone else is reading this - all the replies are correct. There is both a major issue with Lebara, and none at all, depending on how you look at it 😉

On some phones (clearly not all - possibly older ones without 5G connectivity) Lebara are somehow defaulting people on to 3G connections whilst roaming. In much of Europe (inc UK) the 3G signal no longer exists, which then dumps you on to Edge, which is basically useless for data. 

At this point you pretty much have to force your phone on to a 4G signal. I managed this by heading to settings, changing Voice & Data (iPhone) from 4G to 3G, wait for it to reconnect (to edge), change back to 4G (again wait to reconnect to edge, should be around 10 secs). Then restart phone, and it should connect to 4G at that point. 

You’ll almost certainly have to try this a few times though, and occasionally change the Network Selection to different networks (although only one seems to work in each country, and usually it only eventually works on Automatic selection). 

In short, it usually took me up to 10 minutes of changing between 4G/3G and rebooting before it finally ended up on 4G and could receive any data. And you’ll have to repeat this every single time you turn off the data connection (airplane mode or turn off phone). But it does work. Eventually. Yeah it’s still rubbish 🤦‍♂️

TuonoTony

I have a 15gb monthly payment SIM with Lebara.

Mostly, when at home, I use my home WiFi, so when in the UK rarely use more than 3 or 4 GB.

I'll be heading to Europe ( motorhome touring for a few weeks) and will need to be able to use all of the 15gb data that I pay for.

Yet they apply a "fair usage" policy which says that should I use more than my typical usage over the last 120 days, even if it's less than the 15gb I pay for, they'll charge me for the "excess data" I use.

To get over this, during the four months prior to travel, just before the monthly reset date I download films in high definition that I won't be watching, then delete them- purely to use up my paid-for amount.

It's one to be careful of. I wonder what a court would make of this?

intalex

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80907018#Comment_80907018

This magical solution doesn't work with Lebara eSIMs, as there is no LTE section under APN settings that can be populated…

Any other magical solution for a Lebara eSIM?