Can EE please contact me - impossible to get through by any of the ways offered

[EdJ5512]

Hi

Currently in vietnam travelling, have paid for roaming (calls and texts) as well as enabling it on my phone. At present i am still not able to make or receive calls, or retrieve voicemail. I have tried the online chat bot, which told me to call 150 - which I cant. Tried the app, after crashing and getting stuck in loading loops, it referred me to call 150, or the uk mobile number for customer services and the 0800 number, neither of which I can do.

Seen there are others with similar issues. Tried selecting all of the different local network operators and none of that worked. Have switched phone on and off around 12 times now.

This is beyond poor, and frankly never had these issues with Vodafone.

[Chris_B]

@EdJ5512 Did you enable roaming before you left the UK ?  This is done by texting ROAMING to 150.  Purchasing add ons doesn’t enable roaming it’s just an add on to keep costs down. 

The option on your phone is for data roaming and that just means you can use data when abroad on your device but roaming has to be enabled on your account via the text message request in order for that to work. 

EE can’t contact you as your device has no working connection.   

[XRaySpeX]

@EdJ5512 : No one will contact you from this user discussion group other than thro' the medium of these forums by posts such as this. Anyway we haven't the faintest idea who you are. You need to phone CS.

Did you receive a Welcome text upon arrival?

Are you on contract or PAYG? Had you used that SIM for making calls or texts in UK before leaving to go abroad?

If you are on contract, did you activate roaming on your EE a/c before leaving UK by texting ROAMING to 150? Having a roaming billing add-on doesn't of itself activate roaming on your a/c. Having roaming activated on your EE a/c, not just on your device, is crucial to using your contract SIM abroad.

Often just rebooting the phone is the simple remedy. Also try selecting a network manually rather than auto.

Otherwise if you are on contract you need to call CS to get your roaming activated. Try calling CS on the Freephone no. in my sig. using a web-calling app over WiFi.

[EdJ5512 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for taking the time to respond guys.

Just texted roaming to 150 and its now working. It's odd, as im 100% sure I enabled roaming previously, as I need to be contactable 24/7.

Sorted. Thanks for your help 🙂

[bristolian]

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@EdJ5512 wrote:

Just texted roaming to 150 and its now working

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More for the benefit of other people reading this thread, who might have travelled abroad without enabling roaming...

It is the roaming facility that enables a connection to foreign networks. If you don't enable it before leaving the country, your phone can't connect to foreign networks, thus can't send or receive text messages and therefore stuck in catch-22. This is why the standard advice if you are in this scenario and on pay-monthly, is to contact EE-CS from another phone.

If the OP in this thread was able to text 150 from abroad, roaming was already active and I suspect there was an issue with the local network that was subsequently resolved.