vB Easy Archive - Vodafone SPain Pre-Paid SIM

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Vodafone SPain Pre-Paid SIM
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Posted by: drofli

I am currently vacationing in Palma Majorca. I purchased A vodafone pre-paid SIM which allows me to call out and receive calls. The one problem I have is that it will not allow me to use a calling card that uses a 900xxxxxx number and reports in Spanish(so the local Vodafone store told me) that I cannot call this number. They couldn't tell me why, but I assume it is to avoid you bypassing their expensive call rates back to the US. The number works OK from a landline or public call phone.

Does anyone have any experience in calling toll free or 900 numbers in this way?

Posted by: jervin123

Someone times street vendors have them news stands etc, there's 3 places within 1 block each of my house to get calling cards that has a local number not a toll free/900 spain number.

Posted by: drofli

Thanks for the info. I will see what I can find tomorrow with a local number, but generally find most of these cards often have rather high upfront costs and weekly or monthly fees.

I use OneSuite in the UK and USA and keep money loaded into it. They have local US numbers which I use to call the UK for 2c or so a minute.Their rates to the US are also usually very good.

Posted by: artesea

Quote:

Originally Posted by drofli

I am currently vacationing in Palma Majorca. I purchased A vodafone pre-paid SIM which allows me to call out and receive calls. The one problem I have is that it will not allow me to use a calling card that uses a 900xxxxxx number and reports in Spanish(so the local Vodafone store told me) that I cannot call this number. They couldn't tell me why, but I assume it is to avoid you bypassing their expensive call rates back to the US. The number works OK from a landline or public call phone.

Does anyone have any experience in calling toll free or 900 numbers in this way?

It's not to bypass their expensive calls to the US, but to actually pay for the call (even if it's to spain). Without knowing how they operate in Spain, other provides allow you to either keep holding and then pay the standard cost, or altenatively call a slightly different number (eg 800xxx instead of 0800xxx).

Posted by: drofli

Quote:

I was expecting to pay Vodafone their advertised rates for calls to Spanish Landlines. The plan I paid for, stated that 'calls to Spainsh Landlines or Vodaphone mobiles, are charged at 0.28 Euros per call plus taxes, all other calls are charged at 0.28 Euros per minute plus taxes".

I have made several calls that were charged the quoted rate.

I find it unacceptable that they do not honor the published rate for Spanish toll free calls.

Posted by: michael007

I'm going to spain in a couple of weeks and bought a prepaid sim off ebay. I just realized that my Sony Ericsson K790a only has 850/1800/1900. Does vodafone spain support 1800 phones or am I gonna be stuck? Thanks

Posted by: jervin123

Quote:

Originally Posted by michael007

I'm going to spain in a couple of weeks and bought a prepaid sim off ebay. I just realized that my Sony Ericsson K790a only has 850/1800/1900. Does vodafone spain support 1800 phones or am I gonna be stuck? Thanks

you'd have issues depending on where your going I would recomend getting a Orange sim formerly Amena

Posted by: artesea

Well all three spainish networks run on either 900/1800. Unfortunatly I can't find anything which tells you where 1800 is used. Only where both is available.
http://www.gsmworld.com/cgi-bin/ni_map.pl?cc=es&net=ai

Posted by: andy962

Quote:

Originally Posted by drofli

The reason that calls to some toll-free numbers are blocked by some networks, either mobiles or callboxes and in many countries, is that the calling card provider does not pay the network for the calls. Ones that do tend to have higher tariffs for such access. The trick is to find one that is unknown to the network

On Vodafone, I hope you are using the 60 for 1 minutes option.

I'd suggest a Bizon calling card via a local access number for 2c per minute.

Posted by: drofli

I was only there for three weeks and apart from some local calls, the Vodafone card was a waste of money. Yes, I did have the Vitamina Minutos 60x1 plan and was told by the Vodafone store that I could call toll free numbers. I had two calling cards and they both had toll free access numbers.

I ended up using pay phones with my calling card at a rate of 26.9c a minute. I'm sure that at this rate, which seems similar to Bizon, that Vodafone would have received their cut, as did the pay phone provider.

As this is my third bad experience with Vodafone, the previous two were in the UK, I will in future just avoid using them.

Posted by: andy962

Whilst Vodafone may have told you that calls to toll free numbers are possible, or perhaps even free, perhaps your gripe should be with the calling card firm who perhaps had not set up such access. Your first account appears to say that you could not call [specifically] this number, not [generically] such numbers.

Bizon's rate via a Madrid number is 2 (two) cents a minute.

Or you could also have used a callback service

Posted by: drofli

My calling card is actually the phone company I used for many years before I switched to VOIP, namely OneSuite. In the US they have toll free and local numbers which I can use from my TMobile cell phone. In most other countries they have toll free numbers.

As I was in Palma, Majorca, a Madrid number would have been of no use. Unfortunately the apartment we rented did not have a landline or Internet access, hence my fallback to using a Spanish Mobile card. I could use a VOIP connection using my laptop from a local Internet Cafe, but it just wasn't convenient. As far as I can see, I would probably have been able to call the Madrid number using Vodafone, had I been able to set up an account with them.

It still comes back to the fact that I was willing to pay the per minute cost of a call to a Toll Free number had it not been blocked by Vodafone. Hence it is clear that the blame lies with Vodafone Spain, not my calling card.

Anyhow, thanks for your responses and if there is a next time I will learn from my mistake regarding using Vodafone and advise anyone else in a similar situation to do the same.

Posted by: andy962

It varies in different countries, like there are no free calls in the UK any more.

I have a Vodafone Germany SIM card, and so does my brother who lives there. When I was thinking about getting that SIM, I had him try 6 or 7 calling card 0800 access numbers. Only 2 worked. So it does appear it is down to the calling card making an arrangement with the host network, whether callbox or mobile.

Looking at sample calling card tariffs you can sometimes see in the small print that callbox or mobile access is blocked, while others have a surcharge for such access and some do not. The latter are the ones to try, but there is no guarantee that they'll work.

It isn't up to the mobile network to make a tariff where some freephone calls are chargeable and some not. Those that still have them on a zero tariff will charge the receiver of the call, in this case the calling card firm, but if they know they don't get paid will bar the number. Try a different calling card, as you would very likely have had similar results with the same calling card and different networks.

Or as I already suggested, use a callback service

Posted by: michael007

I bought a prepaid vodafone spain sim off ebay then bought a "virtual calling card" from http://www.idtcalls.com/ (cost me 8.5 euros for 1200 minutes from spain to canada) and their local numbers work perfectly using the vodafone spain sim.

If anyone here's able to speak spanish I'm trying to add money to the sim card online but I get the following error message:

"Vodafone te informa: Por tu seguridad, antes de recargar con tu tarjeta bancaria, debes realizar una primera recarga en la red de cajeros 4B (sin comisión)."

Thanks.