temporary replacement sim cards for overseas calling on personal cell phone

myself ^ | 5-8-13 | TZ

[TurboZamboni]

does anyone know where to get some that are legit? it seems lately that ones bought locally in Spain or Greece work for 5 minutes when they were allegedly loaded with 30 minutes worth of time to be able to call the US.

are there ones that can be purchased at a legit source here in the US ?

do they have any that allows my actual cell number to come up on caller ID so people will know it is me?

[TurboZamboni]

thanks from TZ

[taxcontrol]

I would talk to your carrier. Often they have a phone you can rent if it is going to be a short stay. I rented one for my daughter when she spent 2 weeks in France on a school trip.

[svcw]

Some carriers have temporary plans for foreign travel, seems like it might be easier to try contacting them and find out.

[American in Israel]

I routinely purchase offshore sim cards when traveling, but you end up with a new number all the time. When you leave that country toss the chip.

Can’t help with the caller ID, nor can I help with the fraud.

However, if you want to make it easy on your homeboys to call you, get a skype number in your hometown, and deposit some skype money. Link the skype number to forward to your sim. That way they can call a local number and it will ring on your foreign Sim. When you cross borders, just go on skype and forward your skype number to the new sim.

Works like a charm, your family can call you at the same number all the time no matter where you are. You can also link the skype number to your pocket cell in America when you get home so there is no retraining people to your pocket cell.

Skype is real cheap. Too bad you can’t call out of the skype number easily with your foreign cell. Your family gets used to not having caller ID on you.

Works for me.

[American in Israel]

Oh, the foreign caller card thing does not work well. Many times timbucktoo cell towers talk differently or do not share with AT&T. Plus AT&T will rape you on charges.

Much cheaper to buy pay as you go sims and toss them, and they are always compatible with the local towers.

[TurboZamboni]

checked with the local t-mobile store.(my carrier)

they were pretty clueless.

[Jane Long]

Bookmark. Thanks for the info.

[formerlytempaussie]

Turbo, I just returned from 3 months in Australia. I bought a sim card from Lebara(.com), activated it before I went and made my first call after landing in Melbourne in the airport.

Easy to top up and good customer service, here and abroad. I used the sim in my iPhone. They also rent phones for trips as well that are all set up.

I bought from Lebara after reading the reviews of people on TripAdvisor who had used them.

[ICCtheWay]

Interesting thing ... I have made calls using an Android phone booted up with No Sim Card in it. I used Skype and connected via WiFi. This should work with the phone, PC and MAS apps called LINE and Viber too. This also works with a PC, MAC, iPad, Android Pad, Notebook, Netbook, etc.

[FourtySeven]

On honeymoon here so I meant to reply to this but been kind of busy.

I’m in Italy and before leaving bought an international phone that came with a prepaid SIM. It’s called myusmobile.com

You can also buy just the card. They are available at JFK airport at kiosks there for sure. I bought my phone at JFK too at one of those Best Buy kiosks. It was only $45 with $10 of prepaid time. I thought it was better to buy the phone too because I have a locked iPhone. But if your phone is unlocked I imagine the myusmobile.com SIM card should work just fine.

It advertises prices “as low as” $0.09 a minute but really it’s more like $0.50-$1 a minute here in Italy.

The card you get with the SIM contains all the info you need to start making calls. And it also tells you what your US number will show as in caller ID as well as your international number.

Hope this helps.