Topping up Meteor while in the US

Mariemar***

I'm on Meteor Prepay and they advise you need to top up by €60 first before travelling. Does anyone know if you can buy prepaid calling cards over there for use on the Meteor Network?

Sam Vimes

Mariemar*** wrote: »

I'm on Meteor Prepay and they advise you need to top up by €60 first before travelling. Does anyone know if you can buy prepaid calling cards over there for use on the Meteor Network?

i don't think you can but if you're with aib you can top up online or you can sign up to meteor's top up direct service with a credit card or laser card

Random

Christ it's an old thread .. had me wondering if someone had my account details for a minute!

In my experience Topup Direct also works when abroad. I've used it in the US, Moscow, Mayo, UK, Germany ..

Random

I've split it off into a thread of it's own .. the other thread wasn't really the same topic

blaz

Let me tell you my story of trying to get roaming to non-CAMEL operators enabled on Meteor PAYG. Called customer service, they told me I need to go into a Meteor shop and open a direct debit mandate. To do that, I need to top up with € 60. I already have over € 60 on my account. So I went to the shop and they told me I have to add another € 60 even though I already have € 60 on my account. What a bunch of a*****. Well, this means I won't be roaming with them.

Then I though I'll just divert all calls from my Meteor SIM to my foreign SIM, to be able to receive calls to my Meteor number while I'm away. No go, doesn't work. Customer service first tells me "why would you want to do that, you would have to pay for all the calls". Yes I know, but the call forwarding would actually cost the same as an incoming roaming call (incoming call while roaming in Slovenia: 25 cent, calling Slovenia from Ireland on Anytime International: 25 cent - makes sense, an incoming roaming call is nothing else but automatic call forwarding). I'm told they don't support call forwarding to international numbers. Again, what a bunch of a*****.

Sam Vimes

blaz wrote: »

Let me tell you my story of trying to get roaming to non-CAMEL operators enabled on Meteor PAYG. Called customer service, they told me I need to go into a Meteor shop and open a direct debit mandate. To do that, I need to top up with € 60. I already have over € 60 on my account. So I went to the shop and they told me I have to add another € 60 even though I already have € 60 on my account. What a bunch of a*****. Well, this means I won't be roaming with them.

their policy is that to roam you have to give the mandate and top up by €60, not that you have to give a mandate and have €60 in your account. sounds fair enough to me

blaz wrote: »

Then I though I'll just divert all calls from my Meteor SIM to my foreign SIM, to be able to receive calls to my Meteor number while I'm away. No go, doesn't work. Customer service first tells me "why would you want to do that, you would have to pay for all the calls". Yes I know, but the call forwarding would actually cost the same as an incoming roaming call (incoming call while roaming in Slovenia: 25 cent, calling Slovenia from Ireland on Anytime International: 25 cent - makes sense, an incoming roaming call is nothing else but automatic call forwarding). I'm told they don't support call forwarding to international numbers. Again, what a bunch of a*****.

o2 pre pay only allows you to divert to voicemail even in ireland and neither o2 bill pay nor vodafone support international diverts. my advice is to just top up the €60. you'll probably use it while over there and if not you won't have to top up for ages when you get back. it's not like they're taking your money and not giving it back, they're just telling you to top up

blaz

Sam Vimes wrote: »

their policy is that to roam you have to give the mandate and top up by €60, not that you have to give a mandate and have €60 in your account. sounds fair enough to me

Strange policy. I understand that you have to have some money on your account when roaming, because when they don't have CAMEL setup with the operator you're roaming on, they can't charge you in real time. That's why you're setting up the direct debit mandate. But my account already has more that € 60 on it, why should I give them another € 60, which I might not even use (I might port to another operator before I use all that...).

o2 pre pay only allows you to divert to voicemail even in ireland and neither o2 bill pay nor vodafone support international diverts.

I wasn't aware of that. Why shouldn't I be able to redirect my calls to a non-Irish number? It's not like I won't be paying for them... And O2 not supporting diverts at all? I'm shocked, it is one of the most basic functions of a GSM phone.

my advice is to just top up the €60. you'll probably use it while over there and if not you won't have to top up for ages when you get back. it's not like they're taking your money and not giving it back, they're just telling you to top up

I already have about € 70 on my account and I'll get another € 10 added by Meteor next month, I won't need to top up for quite some time. If I add another € 60, I'll have about € 130, which is waaaaay too much as I usually use about € 30 per month max.

I'll just leave the Meteor SIM in Ireland and check my voicemail every now and then...

Sam Vimes

blaz wrote: »

Strange policy. I understand that you have to have some money on your account when roaming, because when they don't have CAMEL setup with the operator you're roaming on, they can't charge you in real time. That's why you're setting up the direct debit mandate. But my account already has more that € 60 on it, why should I give them another € 60, which I might not even use (I might port to another operator before I use all that...).

i can see where you're coming from. maybe call them and ask to speak to a team leader. i don't think it's that they physically can't do it, just that they're not allowed to so the team leader might be able to override it

blaz wrote: »

I wasn't aware of that. Why shouldn't I be able to redirect my calls to a non-Irish number? It's not like I won't be paying for them... And O2 not supporting diverts at all? I'm shocked, it is one of the most basic functions of a GSM phone.

i suppose they'd have to set it up and maintain the service and it's extra hassle for something that'll rarely be used. or maybe there's some underlying technical reason that makes it too complicated

and yes it is shocking that o2 pre pay customers can't divert calls. they also can't change the ringing length before voicemail kicks in without calling customer care. makes no sense to me.

blaz

Sam Vimes wrote: »

i can see where you're coming from. maybe call them and ask to speak to a team leader. i don't think it's that they physically can't do it, just that they're not allowed to so the team leader might be able to override it

Thanks for the suggestion, but I already decided I won't be roaming at all. Too much hassle. I have a SIM card from Slovenia that I'll use over there, I just wanted to make sure that I'll be reachable on my Irish number in case somebody calls me while I'm not in Ireland. But then again, I can setup a voicemail message and tell them to just call my Slovenian number and I won't be even paying the roaming charge for an incoming call in that case

i suppose they'd have to set it up and maintain the service and it's extra hassle for something that'll rarely be used. or maybe there's some underlying technical reason that makes it too complicated

I was working for a telco (not in Ireland) some time ago and I can tell you there is no technical reason they can't enable international call diverts. Actually they have to do some extra work to disable it. The only problematic part could be billing, but they already have it setup for national call diverts (which are billed the same as if you would actually dial the call yourself) and international call diverts shouldn't be any different. Again, this is basic telephony supported by any digital switch for at least the last decade.

and yes it is shocking that o2 pre pay customers can't divert calls. they also can't change the ringing length before voicemail kicks in without calling customer care. makes no sense to me.

When comparing the PAYG offers of Irish operators you can obviously see the focus of each operator. The only operator actually focusing on PAYG is Meteor. I believe the others have it "just in case" and don't really want any PAYG customers, that's why they put all the obstacles in your way. Their pricing is horrendous and a lot of functionality is not available.

For example roaming for PAYG is severly limited in Ireland. No Irish operator actually offers PAYG roaming without hassle. Sometimes you have to give them extra money and setup direct debits (Meteor), often you can't roam in some countries at all (Vodafone, O2, 3).

The Slovenian GSM operators have an interesting solution for prepaid roaming for foreign operators that don't support CAMEL: callback. If you are in a country where CAMEL roaming is not available and you want to dial a number, you dial *125*number#. Your screen then displays a message telling you to wait for a call back and a couple of seconds later your phone rings. When you pick up, a call is setup to the number that you have specified. Not as convenient as just dialing the number, but still better than not being able to use your phone abroad at all. Oh, and you can receive calls and send/receive SMS in *all* locations, even with PAYG and even when roaming on a non-CAMEL roaming partner.

Random

The network doesn't have diverts because they don't. They don't have international diverts because they don't. Why? They don't want to provide them. They clearly don't see a market for them, don't see how they can make enough money from it to be worth while, or there are a number of things restricting them from doing it (i.e. their current billing platform - each network uses a different one or slightly modified one).

As for the Meteor topup thing I can see how you'd be frustrated. Agents aren't educated enough on it. What I was told by a number of agents though (having spoke to about 20 on the issue) and what appears to be the most consistant is - you need to have a credit card mandate signed in store which the store can then tell CC about instantly. Then you need to have €60 in your account when you ask Meteor to drop the roaming bar on your account. That's all.