[pewe]

One of our relatives lives near Madrid and is unfortunately 'stuck' there as she cannot find a buyer for her property.

I say unfortunately stuck because she does not speak a lot of Spanish.
Her and her husband retired from the UK to a small village near Madrid seven years ago. Her husband spoke fluent Spanish and she was studying at night school.

Within 2 years her husband unexpectedly died suddenly.
It took her a couple of years to come to terms with the loss and decide she wanted to move back to the UK, but by then the housing market had collapsed and she has not been able to sell.

Due to her lack of fluency in the language there are occasions when she has trouble sorting out issues with the authorities and service companies.

The latest issue relates to her mobile phone.

She is on an expensive monthly contract with Vodafone, but this ends soon (July) and as she does not use it a lot she wants to go Pay As You Go, but each time she contacts Vodafone or other company they try to get her on to a new contract.

In an effort to try and assist I was looking for PAYG details online and get the impression that the PAYG service we have in the UK is not reflected in offers from Spanish Mobile operators. Most information I have found tends to point to Prepaid sims which have monthly charges and/or expire after a definitive period.

So finding this forum I decided to turn to forum members to try and find some assistance.

Can anyone tell me :

- do any operators offer a PAYG service like we have in the UK ie where you buy credit for your phone and the credit never expires and is only used up as calls are made or texts are sent (not interested in data).
- if so, which are the most competitive for Spanish call rates and texts.
- can she port her existing number to a new operator
- if so how long does the porting take, and is there likely to be a charge.

Any information, suggestions or comments would be gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[AllHeart]

One of our relatives lives near Madrid and is unfortunately 'stuck' there as she cannot find a buyer for her property.

I say unfortunately stuck because she does not speak a lot of Spanish.
Her and her husband retired from the UK to a small village near Madrid seven years ago. Her husband spoke fluent Spanish and she was studying at night school.

Within 2 years her husband unexpectedly died suddenly.
It took her a couple of years to come to terms with the loss and decide she wanted to move back to the UK, but by then the housing market had collapsed and she has not been able to sell.

Due to her lack of fluency in the language there are occasions when she has trouble sorting out issues with the authorities and service companies.

The latest issue relates to her mobile phone.

She is on an expensive monthly contract with Vodafone, but this ends soon (July) and as she does not use it a lot she wants to go Pay As You Go, but each time she contacts Vodafone or other company they try to get her on to a new contract.

In an effort to try and assist I was looking for PAYG details online and get the impression that the PAYG service we have in the UK is not reflected in offers from Spanish Mobile operators. Most information I have found tends to point to Prepaid sims which have monthly charges and/or expire after a definitive period.

So finding this forum I decided to turn to forum members to try and find some assistance.

Can anyone tell me :

- do any operators offer a PAYG service like we have in the UK ie where you buy credit for your phone and the credit never expires and is only used up as calls are made or texts are sent (not interested in data).
- if so, which are the most competitive for Spanish call rates and texts.
- can she port her existing number to a new operator
- if so how long does the porting take, and is there likely to be a charge.

Any information, suggestions or comments would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Hi Pewe. Welcome to the forum.

My condolences to your relative. That's a very sad story.

When I first came here to Spain, I used The Phone House for PAYG. My minutes expired in 30 days; however, you can buy a very small amount of minutes. I then switched to Orange with a contract, and fortunately the same phone number I had with The Phone House transferred over to Orange. I think that's what you mean by porting - to change to another company. I was not charged for the transfer of my # by The Phone House or by Orange. The transfer happened within a couple of days.

As to which are the most competitive companies, you can search for company rates directly on the internet. They're always coming up with new deals. Besides Vodafone, based on the stores I've seen and people's responses on the forum, some of the popular companies seem to be The Phone House, Orange and Movistar. I have Movistar for my internet and land line, and they've treated me very well.

I hope that helps.