Lebara disappearing roaming countries

No1_Anorak

Hello, been using Lebara for a few years now [via one of the MSE exclusive deals 🙂] and have been happy with both the coverage and the use abroad, where they had a list of virtually all European countries that you could 'roam like at home' I've even used the phone in North America and in Asia by using the reasonably proced roaming add-ons.

What I'm not impressed with however, is that I recently returned from Switzerland, a country that had previously been included in the 'roam like at home' package [and I have used my phone there on a few visits in the past] I spent the best part of a day trying to get my phone working in Switzerland only to find that it appears [I say appears, as I never had any notification to the effect] that it has been removed [in 2026?] from the 'roam like at home' countries. I added a roaming package for Switzerland and then it worked. My gripe being and I've checked back through emails from Lebara, was that users do noy appear to have had any advance notice that Switzerland was being removed.

I've raised this on the Lebara Community forum and got a private message from Lebara to contact customer services, which I did. I then had a long [and ultimately unsatisfactory] conversation with a person from customer services telling me Swtizerland was removed beacuse it wasn't in the EU. I do know that Switzerland is not in the EU but there are a number of countries in the 'roam like at home' country listing that are not in the EU, such as Norway and India, so I asked when and why Switzerland was removed and why there was no notification that I could find to users that it was being removed, when it was previously included and could we look forward to any other countries being randomly removed without any prior notice?

At this point the customer services person hung up on me, so I never did get an answer to what was, I thought, a perfectly legitmate and reasonable question to ask? Probably the whole interaction was not helped by the fact the person at customer services, did not have a great command of English and had trouble understanding me, I actually had to spell out my email address letter by letter to them to get them to understand.

I'm actually more annoyed about the fact of no prior notification of the removal, as I stated, I spent the best part of a day trying to get my phone working in Switzerland. It is also annoying as one of the reasons I changed to Lebara a few years back was that they offered free roaming in Switzerland [where I have some good friends I visit] over my previous provider [ID mobile]

So, my advice to any Lebara users is to always check before any trip abroad, that the country you are going to visit is still included in the free roaming package, even if you have visited that country before and used your phone without any problems, in case it is another disappearing country.

born_again

At a guess the companies they had a agreement with in the past. Have reached the end of the agreement & now wanting to charge more, or simply not renew,

Chuck in, possible not many are using the service in some countries. So it is simply not worth it to Lebara to continue the service.

No1_Anorak

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81881432#Comment_81881432

All of which makes perfect sense, what is annoying, as in my OP is that the country was removed without any prior notice to users. Just annoyed at having wasted time trying to get the phone working while away, when if Lebara had bothered to inform users by email of any impending changes to roaming countries, at least I could have just bought the package in advance and not had a load of hassle. I suppose it is too much to ask for a bit of customer service 😉

born_again

https://www.lebara.co.uk/en/help/roaming/can-i-use-my-plan-in-roaming.html

No1_Anorak

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81881939#Comment_81881939

Thanks I did know that page exists, and indeed I have used to to add on roaming packages when travelling in North America and Asia. The whole point of my OP was that previously I had used roaming in Switzerland without having to add an extra roaming package on. On this occasion though I found it had been removed but only after I had spent a day trying to get my phone working. It is really all about communication, if you previously offer something as part of a package but then remove it, at least inform users, so they know before they go abroad.