Greek PAYG SIMs credit expiry 6 months [now 90 days]

[DaveRo]

I noticed this in June for Wind but apparently it also applies to Cosmo and Vodafone.
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showthread.php?p=45747#post45747

The SIM itself still expires 12 months after last topup. But it means you can't topup from abroad by text to keep a SIM alive - unless you can do it online.

 

[Davy_S]

I have two Greek cosmocarta registered phones, when I ring and check my balance and expiry date, it mentions nothing of what you say, not to say that you are wrong of course, most local Greeks have not heard of it, we will see!

 

[DaveRo]

I have two Greek cosmocarta registered phones, when I ring and check my balance and expiry date, it mentions nothing of what you say, not to say that you are wrong of course, most local Greeks have not heard of it, we will see!

I've only seen it myself with Wind F2G. Evan on PPGSM said it applied to Cosmo. The last Cosmo topup I did was in May, and that expires in May 2015.
I can find nothing about credit expiry on the Cosmo website, only this about SIM expiry:
"With every top-up that is more than €5 (this is the minimum amount given to Any Value service) your contract will be renewed for 12+1 months".

 

[Davy_S]

If I hear anymore, I will try to update, I have no personal knowledge of any other operator in Greece, only ote. and cosmocarte, whatsup. because that is what we use for landline internet (ote.gr) and cosmote for mobile phone, we have been with them for 8 years ish! I remember the flap a few years ago when we had to register our mobile phones in Greece

 

[DaveRo]

Every six months Vodafone here in Greece send me a text telling me that I must top up within a month or my SIM will expire....

According to this the credit expires after 6 months, not the SIM.
http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/clien...From=&dateUntil=&request_locale=en&lang=en_EN

 

[nimbusgb]

My two phone landlines cost about £20 just to sit in the corner. Providing the service is what you are paying for. You want a multi billion Euro infrastructure standing by just in case someone wants to call you but you don't want to pay for the benefit!

Do you have a liferaft on your b..t? The service charges alone on that far exceed the €5 every 6 months for your mobile.

 

[DaveRo]

I don't have a Vodofone GR SIM, but I assume that if you really only use it for incoming calls then you don't need any credit. So top it up once a year to keep it alive.

 

[sailaboutvic]

We been away for five years now I still have my UK Vodafone , I top up about once every two months to text if need be , I never answer a call unless it from a family member , there al know I don't answer calls so if one come in I know it important and need to be answered , only every text , if I need to make a call I use my partner phone which is Dutch and very cheap to use any where in Europe . When we are in Greece for Internet we use cosmote and yes the sim card runs out if it not been used for six months , no big deal we just buy a new SIM card .
I would had tho that with the new law removing roaming charges you be better off with a sims from back home , or am I missing something ?

www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

 

[RichardS]

We been away for five years now I still have my UK Vodafone , I top up about once every two months to text if need be , I never answer a call unless it from a family member , there al know I don't answer calls so if one come in I know it important and need to be answered , only every text , if I need to make a call I use my partner phone which is Dutch and very cheap to use any where in Europe . When we are in Greece for Internet we use cosmote and yes the sim card runs out if it not been used for six months , no big deal we just buy a new SIM card .
I would had tho that with the new law removing roaming charges you be better off with a sims from back home , or am I missing something ?

www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

At only 19p a MB now I've been using my UK sim for picking up weather forecasts, email etc and its quite reasonable. However, I have two teenagers, one of whom is with us on the boat at the moment, and they regularly get through a Gb of data every 24 hours!!!!!

That would cost me £190 a day so we have to have a local sim when they are on board.

Richard

 

[Davy_S]

When we are in Greece for Internet we use cosmote and yes the sim card runs out if it not been used for six months , no big deal we just buy a new SIM card

Vic, if you look at the early posts, it is the credit that could expire after six months, not the sim, that lasts for a year. If you ring the cosmote balance No, it tells you when your sim expires.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Vic, if you look at the early posts, it is the credit that could expire after six months, not the sim, that lasts for a year. If you ring the cosmote balance No, it tells you when your sim expires.

Hi Davy
We some years spend six months in Greece and some years only two or three months depend where we plain to sail ,in years gone by we have tried to renew our Internet sim and three times now we been told it run out because we not used it over six month , now if there is a different between Internet and phone sim , I couldn't tell you , last time we tried to re load it was late April this year , last time used was June 2013 again we was told it wasn't any good and if we topped it up it wouldn't work , but this time cosmote wanted 25e for a new card , so we ended up getting it from Vodafone , the sim was 5 E . Hope it still work when we get back to Greece mid sept as we only going to need it till mid Nov when we sail off west again .

www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

 

[sailaboutvic]

At only 19p a MB now I've been using my UK sim for picking up weather forecasts, email etc and its quite reasonable. However, I have two teenagers, one of whom is with us on the boat at the moment, and they regularly get through a Gb of data every 24 hours!!!!!

That would cost me £190 a day so we have to have a local sim when they are on board.

Richard

Hi Richard
We use the Internet quite a lot , weather just a small part , skpe in with family takes a big chunk and then there all the web blog about Croatia pictures so on . Talking about Croatia have you been to the water falls near Sibenik ? Taken. Look at my charts it looks like there a good chance We can anchor up river , have you done it , if how far up can we go before we can drop a hook , off course it goes without saying Free ,
www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

 

[DaveRo]

For the past several years we have left Greece in July and returned in April. In between I did not use the SIMs and the credit on Cosmote (Cosmokarte) and Wind (old F2G) did not expire. But it may be different with different types of SIM - you have to read the Ts & Cs. I've not used Vodafone.

I always took a topup voucher home so I could topup by text message if necessary. To do that now would need more vouchers - you can't text without credit.

Turkcell 'Hazir Kart' SIMs expire after 270 days BTW.

 

[nimbusgb]

Wow you are old fashioned - landlines - how quaint. Why do you have two in the same corner, one for each ear? That must be nice having twice as many people phoning you up trying to sell you something or trying to get you to make a PPI claim?

One for the business and one for home, unfortunately they are necessary with the contracts for the fibre and broadband feeds.

 

[RichardS]

Hi Richard
We use the Internet quite a lot , weather just a small part , skpe in with family takes a big chunk and then there all the web blog about Croatia pictures so on . Talking about Croatia have you been to the water falls near Sibenik ? Taken. Look at my charts it looks like there a good chance We can anchor up river , have you done it , if how far up can we go before we can drop a hook , off course it goes without saying Free ,
www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

Hi Vic

I can recommend the trip up-river and cross-lake to Skradin. You can anchor in the little bays opposite the marina for free. There is/was a no anchoring sign but everyone ignores it. You can't get any higher that Skradin because of a low bridge but boats run continuously from the Skradin town quay. You buy a combined boat fare / NP entrance from the office on the front. Take your cossie and towel if you want to swim in the falls. The heavy falls part is usually buoyed off these days because tourists kept drowning themselves under 50 foot of waterfall I suppose, but you can get to some smaller parts of the falls and even swimming in the fresh water alongside the buoys is a great way to cool off.

Some forumites reckon they have sailed all the way to Skradin but I couldn't face all that tacking up the river - it's quite narrow in parts.

Richard

 

[charles_reed]

We been away for five years now I still have my UK Vodafone , I top up about once every two months to text if need be , I never answer a call unless it from a family member , there al know I don't answer calls so if one come in I know it important and need to be answered , only every text , if I need to make a call I use my partner phone which is Dutch and very cheap to use any where in Europe . When we are in Greece for Internet we use cosmote and yes the sim card runs out if it not been used for six months , no big deal we just buy a new SIM card .
I would had tho that with the new law removing roaming charges you be better off with a sims from back home , or am I missing something ?

www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

Vic has hit it on the head - the alignment of roaming and home use calls makes it totally unnecessary to have a local SIM (unless you're outside the EU).

I do wish people would stop criticising Vonasi - he performs a truly valuable function in finding ephemera about which to grumble. His perception is unmatched.

 

[charles_reed]

At only 19p a MB now I've been using my UK sim for picking up weather forecasts, email etc and its quite reasonable. However, I have two teenagers, one of whom is with us on the boat at the moment, and they regularly get through a Gb of data every 24 hours!!!!!

That would cost me £190 a day so we have to have a local sim when they are on board.

Richard

Whilst voice calls have been aligned, data is still shark-infested and the biggest sharks are UK-based.
My Greek mobile data costs are 0.48p per Mb. In the UK I use a Vodafone PAYG "Freebie" which gives me 500Mb of data every time I top-up the voice part.
You can understand my concern at your charges - which strike me as ridiculously high.
My Greek data is NOT PAYG, it's a contract - I can either pay €5/month to keep it live or cancel and re-start when I get back.

 

[charles_reed]

Hi Vic

I can recommend the trip up-river and cross-lake to Skradin. You can anchor in the little bays opposite the marina for free. There is/was a no anchoring sign but everyone ignores it. You can't get any higher that Skradin because of a low bridge but boats run continuously from the Skradin town quay. You buy a combined boat fare / NP entrance from the office on the front. Take your cossie and towel if you want to swim in the falls. The heavy falls part is usually buoyed off these days because tourists kept drowning themselves under 50 foot of waterfall I suppose, but you can get to some smaller parts of the falls and even swimming in the fresh water alongside the buoys is a great way to cool off.

Some forumites reckon they have sailed all the way to Skradin but I couldn't face all that tacking up the river - it's quite narrow in parts.

Richard

I too went by scooter - I've been told that some years, by September it's virtually dried up.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Morning Richard , and what a lovely day it is , thanks for the info .

[ QUOTE=charles_reed;4876685]I too went by scooter - I've been told that some years, by September it's virtually dried up.[/QUOTE]

I would be surprise it that the case this year the amount of rain we had . It been nothing to collet 60 lts of water out of the dinghy after and over night rain fall .

www.bluewatersailorcroatia.webs.com

 

[Davy_S]

You missed one important point - if you are in Greece and don't want to pay to receive calls from the UK then the only answer is to have a local SIM card. Unfortunately it's not as free as it used to be as now you have to top up every six months whether you have made any calls or not.

I have not found this to be the case (yet) I have two Greek payg sims, I have just checked the phone I use the least, I last topped it up in November 2013, it still has the same credid left, and of course still works! This is for simple call and text phones, no internet use.