changing to NRJ

[Frogslegs]

We use our mobile phone very little...when we first arrived in France we had to take out a one year subscription with Orange which was expensive. After a year we opted for buying 20 euro a month deal. Then we forgot to buy at the end of the month and they disconnected us for 7 months. Now we buy a card every two months for 20 euros but we do not use it enough to warrant even this. So when a friend suggested NRJ I thought yippee. Visited the tabac in Melle where you can buy the sim card (I think thats what it is) and she said tres facile. Well it took 6 attempts to even get the back of the phone off...so I took the card home and attempted again...eventually new card installed....message in french saying non valide sim carte...so back to the shop....after half an hour of phone calls...it transpires that someone has to unblock the telephone.....she said Orange....but surely they would not?

HELP[8-)]

[Martin963]

I'm not an expert on phones - but I believe Orange will unblock your phone for you,  unfortunately at a price (I would imagine).  You would need to ring them.

Some makes of mobile are easy to unblock yourself,  Nokia's for example.  Do a search - there's a thread on this forum about it.   You go to a website and feed in the serial number and make of your phone,   and up pops a code that you key in to your mobile,  which then becomes unblocked.

However,  I also seem to think that the NRJ tariffs have been changed to the customer's disfavour recently - there's a recent thread about that too.   So maybe there's little point in changing.....?   We were going to go for NRJ,  but read the warnings in time.

[jamesg]

Have a look here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1124214048,51164,#step

This will point you towards various sources of help with your problem.

[Meg]

Do a search for phone unlocking...........can be done very cheaply online. (mine cost £5 and that was a few years ago!)

Also do look at the recent thread about NRJ...................

Louise

[Meg]

Sorry James you beat me too it!

Louise

[Deimos]

Orange (and others) do a range of subscription offers. The different offerings range in price. For example, there is a 7€ per month "sans engagement" offer that is effectively the same as a normal contract. As the subscription is low, the calls are more expensive (but cheaper than PAYG). However, there is no top-up to keep losing and to keep remembering to do. Thus your number is safe. Your do not have to keep remembering to jump through all the PAYG hoops to keep the account active and avoid losing the number.

Now they are all "expiring" the top-ups, for some the 7€ per month "contract" might be a viable alternative.

Ian