Calling to the UK from South Africa on a PAY AS YOU GO

[jaquiharris]

Hi,

I have an EE number and am already in South Africa and did not know about setting up roaming before I left. Now when I try and call a number or text a UK number while here in SA it tells me these calls are barred.  So now I cant phone 150 it says its barred, I cant phone any number it just says its barred.  I can received text messages and calls, but cant make any.  My problem is that i dont know how long I will be here for and if I dont make a "Chargable" call they will deactivate my sim card and then I wont be able to use my credit cards or anything wht HMRC as they all send "Pins" out to the phone to enter when logging on to the sites.... Please advise how I make my phone roaming.  I am constantly on WIFI and have signal so network issues are not a problem.  I am on an android phone.

I have already had the problem where they cancelled my last number and I spent ages changing the mobile number on all my associated accounts and things and DO NOT WANT THIS HAPPENING AGAIN !!!!!

I can see nowhere on the site where I can email EE or chat to them on line.... (quite bad for a 1st world country)....  Please dont suggest that I call them form another phone, I did try call the UK from my SA mobile and it cost me R700 for 8min.... I dont have that sort of money to waste, especially since some have spent 3h on the phone trying to sort out similar problems.

thanks in advance for your replies and help

Regards, Jaqui 

[bristolian]

|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. An inability to get a network connection normally means roaming is not enabled.

On the basis that you can receive calls, then your roaming facility seems enabled - thus manually swapping between local networks is often a good technique to rule out issues with one specific operator. Equally, receiving calls abroad is chargeable, thus this should be sufficient to avoid your SIM being hibernated. The rule is that chargeable usage needs to be incurred at least once every 179days.

[jaquiharris]

thank you for your reply, I will go through the networks on my phone and
see if I have any luck. Is there no setting that you can do on EE's side
to make my phone not hibernate ? My phone is an older model PIXI 4 and
cant even do Whatsapp, although I know this does not count as my chargbel
expences....
thanks

[Schockwave]

@jaquiharris  , sorry, no, you have to make sure that you make a call, text chargeable as per the rules here:

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Pay-as-you-go/What-is-pay-as-you-go-and-flex-hibernation-and-how-do-I-...

This down to you to do so, we have no way of stopping your sim going into hibernation.

If you are on pay as you go, please make sure that you have enough credit on your account to make calls and text and to use data, otherwise eventually it will go into hibernation and you will eventually loose your number.

[XRaySpeX]

The only roaming setting-up that a PAYG no. needs is having made a call or text in UK on the EE mobile network before leaving the UK. The fact that you can receive calls while abroad shows that has been done & your roaming is enabled.

EE offers no email contact at all & Live Chat is only for contract users.

[jaquiharris]

Hi I understand this but the problem is that the roaming is not working, it
wont let me make a call or send a SMS.... I can received but not make. I
am in South Africa at the moment. How do I get it to make a call... ?

[XRaySpeX]

When did you previously make a chargeable action? EE PAYG SIMs are deactivated after 6 months of non-chargeable use. You then have a further 3 months period of grace to call EE to reactivate it before it is lost completely.

You needed to make a chargeable action like making a chargeable call or text, topping up or buying a Pack or Add-on, not just using your mins, texts or data from your pack.

[bristolian]

In your first post you mentioned " I can received text messages and calls". If you can receive calls, you are roaming.

I would suggest checking two things. 1: Swap manually between local networks in SA, are the symptoms the same across each one? If yes - this suggests an account issue. If no - this suggests a local network issue.

An account issue could well be hibernation as has been suggested.

[jaquiharris]

Hi,
I have checked all the local networks manually. Some immediately say "this
number is barred" when I dial a UK number, other networks just show "Call
Ended", and say nothing.

I had a call from an EE representative and said that I may need a new sim,
but siad I had to pay a security deposit between £1 - £30 and they would
debit my account with the amount then when I receive the sim they would
credit me the amount back, does this sound right ?

Many Thanks

[jaquiharris]

Hi,
So because I cant make any calls, as it just say that the number is barred,
if I top up online, with this stop my phone from going into hibernation ? I
got the new sim in Nov/Dec 24 as my previous one was deleted...
thanks
Kind regards
Jaqui