Has anyone ever bought a UK vodofone sim on ebay to use in Europe

Try Giffgaff (they use O2 network)

£7.50 for 2GB and they send overseas

https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-plans

https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Using-giffgaff/I-m-overseas-Can-I-get-a-SIM/ta-p/4024319

Hi Ilisa and Royaume Uni:
I have bought Vodafone cards in the UK in past years, but never used them in Europe on the same trip.
I sent away for to the UK, and used, a Giff Gaff card for the UK last November.
It worked great, except for calls and texts to any Vodafone mobiles!
Could never figure out why!
(And my friend's husband works for Vodafone and even he couldn't fix it.)

Anyway, do you know if the same card will work in Italy too, if I order another one?
The whole process was so easy, I'd like to use it again if I could.
I'm presuming roaming from the UK into Europe is still not a problem?
Would another company be better for use in Italy only?
I just liked GiffGaff as the price was so good, and it was so easy to set up.
Thank you.

Hello SJ

This should answer your questions about using giffgaff outside the UK

https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Using-giffgaff/Using-your-mobile-abroad/ta-p/3522931

(p.s. je m'appelle ramblin' on)

I’ve used a Vodafone UK plan to roam in other EU countries. It worked fine. I always go to a shop in London to get my plan, so not through eBay.

Wasn’t there a potential issue with GiffGaff? Something along the lines of using for a certain time period in the U.K. prior to being allowed to roam around the EU?

To be eligible for the inclusive EU roaming on our goodybags, we need to make sure you are a genuine giffgaff member, and someone who typically lives in the UK, but may take trips to other EU destinations from time to time. The vast majority of our members will become eligible without needing to do anything different.

https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Using-giffgaff/Using-your-mobile-abroad/ta-p/3522931

so maybe giffgaff isn't the best solution for using outside the UK if you are not a UK user

If you travel with someone who also has a smartphone, you can use Google translate on the other phone to read the Dutch messages on your phone screen. I just loaded more money and bought a 1-month bundle for a Vodafone NL card I used on last year's trip.

Google’s chrome browser will translate as well.

I don't know Dutch either. As Rocket says, Google Chrome translates everything. Vodafone even sends you text messages in Dutch (you might be able to change that to English), but you can translate those too. If you need help with the SIM from Vodafone, you can do an online chat with them in English.

The biggest reason I would get the Dutch SIM over the UK version: as I understand it, adding funds to the UK Vodafone SIM with a US credit card may be tricky; you might have to use Paypal via a third party to add credit to it. (This might be a UK regulation.) I haven't had this problem with the Dutch Vodafone SIM - I've used my US credit card to add credit to it twice on their website.

Of course, you might be able to buy the UK SIM and add enough credit all at the airport.

Ok....you've given me something to think about. I'm thinking about going with the Dutch Vodafone sim. I went on the vodafone.nl website on my phone on chrome and everything was translated nicely for me. Are there other better options to get it, instead of ebay? Or is that still the easiest?

The eBay seller I used two years ago isn't selling the Vodafone SIMs anymore. But I see seller "davinciteam" is selling them for $8.20 USD shipped to the US. Search eBay for "vodafone YOU SIM" and they are the first result. When I bought mine two years ago (from a seller in the NL), it took two weeks to arrive to me in Portland.

The SIM is almost certainly brand new and unopened like mine was. Perhaps there are sellers in the US now, but I'm not aware of them.

Just remember that the SIM comes with no credit on it. The first step is to insert into into your unlocked phone, power on, and roam on T-Mobile (I think). You'll get a "Welcome to the United States" text along with the high roaming rates for US use (don't use it, obviously). From there, go on the Dutch Vodafone website and create an account there. Part of creating the account includes getting a confirmation text to your new Dutch number - free incoming texts even in the US. Then you can activate it and finish creating the account.

From there, you add funds to the account using your new Vodafone account, probably using your US credit card. I'll be doing this again soon on my SIM for an upcoming trip; I can let you know if anything has changed. Adding 20 euros gives you enough for a 6GB bundle (3GB x 2).

Finally, once you've added funds, you need to activate a "bundle" of data, good for 30 days from the date you activate it. So, activate it maybe a few days before you leave on your 3 week trip. Assume calls are expensive - it's really optimal for data only but you do get free incoming calls and texts (so you can give your Dutch number to hotels etc. if need be if they need to reach you). For calls, use Google Voice (Hangouts is being retired later this year) or perhaps WhatsApp (requires the other person to have WhatsApp too). You can use the SIM for calls but they cost 20 euro cents/min I think and local for EU calls. The Google option lets you make free calls home to the US, even to landlines (add +1 to the front of numbers first). WhatsApp is popular in Europe, though.

I would note how to set the APN (Access Point Name) in your phone in case data doesn't work when you get to Europe. I've never needed to do this with my Moto Android phones - but I've heard people may still need to set the APN with any SIM card, not just the Vodafone SIM.

APN: live.vodafone.com
Username and Password: vodafone

Setting the APN, if needed, is specific to each phone model and not really intuitive - but once you figure out how to do it, it's quite easy. Look up instructions ahead of time for your specific phone and bookmark, just in case.

Thank you for all your tips. I think I'm probably being cheap, because I'm not sure I even need this. It looks like the cost for 1GB+1GB would be 10 Euros. So I'd be out $8.20 for the sim and then an additional 10 Euros. That is more than I wanted to spend, but maybe that's just what it costs. We've gotten by with using wifi only on all our other trips....so I'm just not sure. But you think I could create a hotspot on my phone for my sister who has an apple phone?
I have google voice and what's app so I'll use those to keep in contact with home. This would be for the convenience of looking up restaurant reviews or something like that.

Ebay had a $5 off coupon so I did go ahead and buy the Vodafone NL sim. So now my question is, does it seem like in order to roam you have to have some credit available? I'm not planning to use it for calling or texting, but I'm wondering if Vodafone NL will require that there be a credit available even to use data. Andrew do you know this? I know that on the one trip you took you had a 5 Euro credit as it happened. So maybe you've never tried it with no credit. Let me know if you've heard of anyone else's experience. And how often do you need to do something with the sim in order to keep it active for future trips? Thanks.

I think $8.20 (or $3.20 in your case) plus 10 euros for data for a three week trip would be considered incredibly cheap by most people here. Consider that roaming plans like AT&T and Verizon charge $10 per day, and many people think those are acceptable (I don't.) The ability to use your phone for real-time navigation in cities and towns (e.g. Google Maps) for walking and public transit directions is a huge time-saver - well worth every penny I've spent on past trips.

You currently need to have some activity on the SIM every six months to keep it active - once you've activated it. So if you add credit to the SIM on May 1, it will be good until November 1, 2019. If you activate a bundle on June 1, that's more activity, and that extends it six months from that date, to December 1. Even sending a text (not cheap when roaming in the US, about 60 euro cents per text) will keep it active another six months

You might need some additional credit to activate a bundle - not sure. I got a 5 euro credit the first time I added 20 euros to the SIM. Not sure how that works anymore. You'll find out the first time you add credit to the SIM! You don't need any credit on the SIM to receive incoming texts or (I believe) incoming calls.

I think you are right in that overall it's not that much money and I think we will appreciate having the data available. I just need to convince my sister of that! Now I'm waffling between the 1+1GB for 10 Euros or wondering if for only 5 more, I should get the 2+2GB. Double the data for only 5 Euros more! With adding credit in increments of 10 only, it makes it hard. Can you buy another bundle when the current bundle runs out? Even if the month isn't up yet? And what do we do if we get the message that we are approaching 1GB of data when roaming? Go online and start a chat session? You've said before in another forum that android devices can set-up a hotspot. I tried it out yesterday at home with Verizon connecting my tablet to my phone's data. Worked well! So my sister can benefit from my sim even though I only got the one.

I forget how I set the data limit higher originally - you can chat with Vodafone at any time about that once you get the account set up, after you get the SIM. They can chat with you in English. But there is some easy way - text something to something or change a setting in your Vodafone account. You can probably find it in my past posts somewhere.

Yeah, I think you can add money only in 10 euro increments. So you might just do 20 euros (might get a bonus of 5 like I did if you are lucky!) and go 20 euros for the 3+3GB bundle, especially if your sister will share data with her tablet using the hotspot.

Received my Vodafone NL sim today. I added 10 Euros and they gave me a 25% credit, so 12.50 Euros, but I had put in my info (Ann Frank House address) when I first set up my account to get an extra 5 Euros with my first top up. So my credit is 17.50 Euros and all I paid was $11.19 for 10 Euros. I'm quite happy about this! I'll buy a bundle with my credit a few days before we leave. By the way, you can add a credit of 5 Euros as a the minimum.

Glad you got the SIM card - hope it works well for you! Just to be clear, you don't HAVE to register a Dutch address with it - only to get some extra credit. I've never registered any address with mine.

Just some feedback on using the vodafone sim card on our 3 week Europe trip in June. We only used 1.6GB of our 4GB available to us (oh well). We did have problems with the hotspot at first. I have a Samsung S10 and she has an Iphone. I did some looking online. In the APN settings, there was a setting "APN type" that I needed to change from "default" to " * " (star symbol). The hotspot started working after that.

It was great having cell data service for real time directions in Europe. The google directions were really pretty accurate even for using public transit. It would tell us where to walk to catch what bus/metro line and how many stops to ride it for. I highly recommend!

So I guess the best way to keep the sim card active is to send a text every 6 months for 0.60 Euro? Have you tried sending an email using data? I wonder if that would end up costing less.