Phone calls in Australia

[h_shewan]

If you are an EE customer and going to Australia  BEWARE. 
Despite signing up to a new pay monthly account, signing up to roaming before I left and paying the extortionate roaming pass fee of £26 for 7 days I now find I cannot make calls in Australia. 
I have been to Apple Store and Optus store as EE use Optus here in Brisbane. 
neither of them could get the calls to work. 
when I try to sort it out I am advised to call EE but I cannot make calls. EE help is the worst I have ever tried to work with. It’s designed to make you give up. 

[bristolian]

Regardless of any billing add-on, your ability to get coverage abroad (which calls, texts & mobile data rely on) is dependent on roaming being activated - which allows your phone to connect to foreign networks.

Have you used your phone abroad previously, did you receive a welcome text message on first arrival abroad? These are good evidence of roaming being enabled if so. In these cases, manually cycling through all available local networks often resolves issues - toggling flight mode can have the same effect.

If not...On PAYG, roaming is auto-enabled once your phone is used in the UK first. On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this?

If you are on pay-monthly and now find yourself abroad without having enabled roaming, your only recourse will be to contact CS to request it activated. You can either contact +44 7953 966150 from another working phone, or +44 800 9566000 using a web-calling app such as Skype over WiFi.

[h_shewan]

Hi. Yes phone has worked in Europe previously.
Yes I received a welcome text.
Replied to it and bought a 7 day roaming pass for £26.
Received a text saying the roaming pass was activated.
Yes I advised EE we were going to Australia and required roaming before we left UK.
Phone is set up for roaming and has valid 7 day roaming pass.
This was verified by both an Apple advisor and an Optus advisor here in Brisbane.
Texts and internet both working on mobile signal but phone calls do not work.
Harold

Sent from my iPhone

[bristolian]

Some pertinent points are in your second post, that you didn't mention originally - hence my advice did not allow for them.

Neither Apple or Optus personnel are in any position to advise on whether your phone is setup for roaming - they can check phone settings which will include "data roaming" menu options, but they have no access to your EE account to check for overall roaming permissions.

You didn't mention that texts & mobile data are working, these prove the roaming ability. If calls are not working, that lends to either a spend cap issue or - more likely - an international call bar active.

[ukms]

@bristolian ….. I’m just sitting on the sidelines of this …. I’m sure what you say is most likely correct, however don’t you think it would make sense that if EE sell a customer a roaming pass allowing  use of their plan minutes, texts and data then they should be able to use it without having to get a crystal ball out to second guess what other hurdles may lay in the way. If a customer has something preventing the pass being used then the EE system should tell them this before the customer pays for the pass, rather than take the money and leave a customer struggling to find a solution from abroad.  

[h_shewan]

Hi
Interestingly enough there is another EE customer here in Brisbane posting that he has exactly the same problem with his roaming pass.

Sent from my iPhone

[bristolian]

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@ukms wrote:

If a customer has something preventing the pass being used then the EE system should tell them this before the customer pays for the pass

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I completely agree! The roaming facility & international call bar slips through the net far too often.

There's good reasons why some users may still want a spend cap inplace.