Grehan
Well-Known Member
We (well, Ruth) makes a lot of international calls, inside the EU, the Americas, all over. Last year we investigated ways of doing so from (that is, working from) the boat. We ended up with an SFR voice mobile contract and used a cheap call service called Mobivox. There are others, and it was very difficult to tell if we had picked the best, or frankly, whether they were all some Latvian smoke and mirrors setup. In the end, it did seem that the service was saving us (or rather, Ruth's expenses claims) a lot of money. We were happy.
OK, so this year back in France we resumed using the service, only the 'local' number one calls to initiate the call had changed. We continued, innocently using the new number. Horror, when the bill came in, for a few weeks use, it was ginormous. Seems that the latest (local French) number we had been given by Mobivox was an unusual one and outside the terms of our standard 'free' (i.e monthly contract) service from SFR. We (Ruth) complained. SFR said, basically, you made the calls, the number is not included in your 'allowance' so . . . pay up. Why is bl**dy mobile comms in this modern world such a pain in the *rse, an unpleasant shock just waiting to happen?
We complained to Mobivox, although in truth we should have checked what we were dialling, the SFR small print etc etc. Nothing really to do with them. We have received an apology. We have received an explanation, that the French Gov changed the telecomms rules late last year and that this precluded our using our old local/national Toulouse number, that SFR (but not all) regarded the replacement number as 'non-national' (kind of premium rate) . . . and that Mobivox would as a gesture be refunding/crediting the entire big (hundreds of euros) sum. Gob smacked we were.
We have switched to dialling a Mobivox UK number, which is within the terms of the SFR monthly contract 'free' allowance and everything is hunky dory.
Suffice to say we are very satisfied customers of Mobivox, which is again saving us lots of dosh, admittedly on lots of, international calls. I hope it goes without saying, no other connection with Mobivox, whatsoever.
[edit]
Ah yes, we also use a thing called Propel that compresses/reduces the amount of data being downloaded when we use the mobile internet connection dongly jobby, which also has its own terms and allowances. This thing also seems to work a treat for us, I know some are sceptical of these programs/services, but it does genuinely work for us.
OK, so this year back in France we resumed using the service, only the 'local' number one calls to initiate the call had changed. We continued, innocently using the new number. Horror, when the bill came in, for a few weeks use, it was ginormous. Seems that the latest (local French) number we had been given by Mobivox was an unusual one and outside the terms of our standard 'free' (i.e monthly contract) service from SFR. We (Ruth) complained. SFR said, basically, you made the calls, the number is not included in your 'allowance' so . . . pay up. Why is bl**dy mobile comms in this modern world such a pain in the *rse, an unpleasant shock just waiting to happen?
We complained to Mobivox, although in truth we should have checked what we were dialling, the SFR small print etc etc. Nothing really to do with them. We have received an apology. We have received an explanation, that the French Gov changed the telecomms rules late last year and that this precluded our using our old local/national Toulouse number, that SFR (but not all) regarded the replacement number as 'non-national' (kind of premium rate) . . . and that Mobivox would as a gesture be refunding/crediting the entire big (hundreds of euros) sum. Gob smacked we were.
We have switched to dialling a Mobivox UK number, which is within the terms of the SFR monthly contract 'free' allowance and everything is hunky dory.
Suffice to say we are very satisfied customers of Mobivox, which is again saving us lots of dosh, admittedly on lots of, international calls. I hope it goes without saying, no other connection with Mobivox, whatsoever.
[edit]
Ah yes, we also use a thing called Propel that compresses/reduces the amount of data being downloaded when we use the mobile internet connection dongly jobby, which also has its own terms and allowances. This thing also seems to work a treat for us, I know some are sceptical of these programs/services, but it does genuinely work for us.
