Le French Mobile -- in English, but beware...

[Spidworthy]

When arriving here many of us are tempted to sign up with Le French Mobile for our SIM-cards, because they specifically target visitors and new residents (all their service is in English by default), and their offering is no frills, no contract and prepaid.

Unfortunately their after-sales service really doesn't cut it.

When I needed a replacement SIM urgently last year it took an astonishing 10 days for it to arrive (from their Paris centre via their UK distributor then back to France!), during which delay my freelance business fell off a cliff.

The real difficulty may come when you decide to move (or 'port') your number to a more established provider. Where normally in France you just dial 3179 for any provider to get the 'RIO' reference you need to have your mobile number transferred, that doesn't work at all with LFM. After three days of increasingly-frustrated e-mails and chat sessions, I have now missed the deadline for my intended new offer and STILL don't have the information I need to switch providers. In short: I am trapped until LFM sees fit to release me....

So beware: you may be paying a hidden, longer-term price for the convenience of dealing in English. My advice: go for a more established French operator, even if you do have to resort to Google Translate now and then!

[mint]

No need to struggle in French (unless you are masochistic like I am)!

No frills, no contract, no problem, go Lycamobile.  When I signed up a few years ago, I hadn't realised there was the same site in English because it wasn't important to me to have English companies. 

When I helped my Australian neighbour sign up last summer, I went on the French site, he on the English one and we were able to do it in minutes.

His SIM card did take a few days to arrive but it was during the factrice's holidays and I think her replacement didn't know the Aussies' names as they are summer residents of recent standing and the card got lost a couple of times.

[idun]

And on french news tonight, consumer organisations are worried that tariffs will increase now that Bouygues is selling out to Orange.

[Spidworthy]

Quelle surprise!! Within hours of writing my original post (and telling the company concerned that I had done so and where), the bottleneck was suddenly resolved and after four days of apologetic fobbing-off, I got the information other phone companies deliver instantly.

So it pays to speak out. Power to the people!

[YCCMB]

Thing is, though...you had no need to miss the deadline for your new offer. You can easily take out a new contract with a new number and port your number across at a later date. I've just ported my number to a new provider after six months. In the interim, I had 2 phones.

[Spidworthy]

That would indeed have saved a lot of hassle. In fact I already have a Virgin contract to which I would have liked to port my LFM number. But a French-speaking friend tried to arrange it with Virgin and was told that because my Virgin contract had already been in use for some months, they could not port my LFM number to it anymore. It seems you were luckier with your provider....

[AnOther]

For balance:

Both my OH and I are with Le French having ditched Lycamobile because it was unusable in UK.

She lost her phone a couple of months back and Le French sent out a new SIM within a couple of days.

You're deluding yourself if you imagine your posting here had any effect on the outcome.

[Spidworthy]

As the saying goes, your mileage may differ. I am certainly very pleased for you that your experience was different to mine -- where unlike you I waited 10 days (through many many frustrated calls) for that replacement SIM while my phone-dependent freelance business ground to a halt.

And no, naturally I wouldn't be naive enough to think somebody at LFM was tracking this forum, 'just in case'. This time after days of frustration and broken promises I in fact told them I had posted my case here, with the link -- and magically, the RIO code I needed appeared within hours... Sure, could be a coincidence, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and all that.

I'm sure LFM is indeed a perfectly adequate organisation (though horribly expensive compared to signing up for a 'real' French package in the mainstream market) -- but in my case, twice, their customer service really didn't cut it.

So in such instances, when all else really fails and you are banging your head against the proverbial brick wall, social media, correctly applied, can work wonders if the offending party knows that's the ultimate route you will take.

[AnOther]

Might I suggest that if 10 days loss of phone contact was enough for your business to quote "fall off a cliff" then you take a long look at the wisdom of relying on a single point of failure in the future.

TBH if mobile communications are that crucial to you it seems inadvisable at the least to rely on a fringe PAYG reseller instead of investing in a proper contract with a mainstream player whom I'm sure would not only have have had you back in business far quicker when you needed your new SIM but would also have been easier to transfer from if you felt the need.

It sounds to me that you were being cheap and paid the price !

[Jay]

[quote user="AnOther"]For balance:

Both my OH and I are with Le French having ditched Lycamobile because it was unusable in UK.

[/quote]

So why is that then? We have Lycamobile sims and use them all over the world. In the UK they can even provide you with a UK number on the same sim. I also use mine for emails etc. absolutely no problem at all.

[AnOther]

Both SIMs were trying to connect to the EE network but failing, even when they did briefly connect they dropped out immediately.

Both SIM's were tried in numerous different phones with exactly the same results leaving no question whatsoever that it was them at fault.

Not once in a 10 day trip to UK was it possible to use either SIM to make or receive a call.

Lycamobile were utterly useless and could only suggest that I check I had roaming enabled.

[Théière]

[quote user="AnOther"]Both SIMs were trying to connect to the EE network but failing, even when they did briefly connect they dropped out immediately.

Both SIM's were tried in numerous different phones with exactly the same results leaving no question whatsoever that it was them at fault.

Not once in a 10 day trip to UK was it possible to use either SIM to make or receive a call.

Lycamobile were utterly useless and could only suggest that I check I had roaming enabled.

[/quote]

Whilst not a fan of EE (that's also who BT mobile is with) it doesn't sound typical of Lycamobile and whilst I agree whole hardheartedly that a business should avoid cheap services if they are that vital, I have a dual sim phone so that there are two numbers on different networks so I should be available even then you get dead zones, one of which happens to be around my house in france  [:@]