Finland -EE mobiles no longer working in Finland & 150 calls do no work!

[Susie724]

I spend a lot to time in Finland for work and am in Finland currently. I have been using my personal EE phone and my EE work phone in Finland with no issues for several years.  I get regular texts from EE on both phones to say 'while you are in Finland you can use your UK minutes, texts and data allowance at no extra costs'. I received this text message in the last week (since the issues has happened). 

About 2 weeks ago both phones stopped working when calling and receiving calls from the UK and Finland. Text messages also stopped working. I get the message it is not possible to connect your call. Since then, I have managed to make and receive a few calls to the UK,  but most of the time it doesn't work. I do now seem to be receiving text messages ok now. The major thing that isn't working is if I call a UK/Finnish number that goes to voicemail or is a business with automated options (for example press 1, press 2 for different departments) I get the message it isn't possible to connect the call and the call is cut off, without even hearing the voicemail or automated options. I couldn't even call the EE helpline number. Calling 150 also doesn't work - I get the message it is not possible to connect your call.  As both my personal and work phone are with EE, I have no way to get any technical support. There is no other phone to use where I am staying. I have checked with someone else in Finland who is staying in the same area, and who has a UK mobile that is not EE, their phone is working fine. Their network is O2.

One of my phones is registered with my employers account. My personal phone is a completely separate account in my name, so it's not an account/payment issue. I've going around and around with automated messages and calls failing to all the EE helpline numbers I can find. It's causing me a huge problem with work. 

Does anyone know how I can contact EE if I can't phone them? I can't find any email address or a way to call them via WhatsApp. If there is anyone else in Finland, do you have the same issue? Can anyone give any advice?

[Chris_B]

@Susie724  That sounds like a network issue there.   It’s two separate devices on two separate accounts and both have the same problem.  Have tried a manual network search on each device have you tried restarting each device?. 

[bristolian]

Manually cycling through each available local network in turn is the first thing, as already mentioned. You may find the issue is specific to one local operator and selecting another one resolves.

If not, you've likely eliminated a local network issue.

EE-CS can be contacted on +44 7953 966150 from any working phone, or +44 800 9566000 from a web-calling app.

[Susie724]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I've restarted both devices multiple times. I've tried manually connecting to different networks but I have the same problem regardless of the network (Telia, DNA, Elisa). 

Since I posted, I've seen a posts about an EU wide roaming issue -  https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Roaming/Ongoing-roaming-issues-in-EU/td-p/1529454 so I'm guessing I have the same issue. It is frustrating for EE not to have a way to contact them if you can't call 150 and for EE not to have put anything out publicly about there being an issue. 

[Susie724]

Thank you for your reply. I have tried the other networks but no luck sadly. Thank you for the web-calling number, I hadn't managed to find that, so that's really helpful. I will try that. 

[bristolian]

FYI this forum has an edit function, negating the need for multiple short replies.

The symptoms widely reported in Portugal are different to yours. You're getting an audible announcment of "it's not been possible to connect your call" which is NOT the same as those reported in the other thread you've found - where calls were simply failing.

Your issues could be spend-cap related, and that's certainly something to rule out - https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/manage-use/pay-monthly/set-up-and-manage-spend-cap 

EE do have means of being contacted - +44 7953 966150 can be called from any phone, +44 800 9566000 will also work from web-calling apps.