Concerto

I've been with Vodafone prepaid for quite a long time now. Don't ask me why, it's clearly absurd. But I use the phone often enough, despite being abroad much of the year, to justify keeping it going. I find I haven't lost any credit as such, but that Vodafone offers constant enticements (through its Callya Toppings dog biscuit loyalty thing) such as extra credit if you top up a certain amount within a certain period of time. Then you have to use the extra credit within a certain amount of time, usually a week (at the moment it's 5 Euros extra, if you top up with 15 Euros). And previously (possibly still now) you have to use up the 15 Euros you topped up before you can get at the 5 free Euros credit...before it vanishes into thin air. So this promotions push you to use use use, phone phone phone, spend spend spend. Solution: I just ignore it all and do what I want, occasionally making use of the promotions they send me for being a Vodafone customer for more than 10 years.

In short, German mobile telephony utterly sucks and is damned expensive...if you're doing it the prepaid way like me. But I think it utterly sucks whichever way you are doing it, and customer service is DREADFUL. There isn't a single operator in Germany I would currently consider, but I am open to suggestions if anybody has one.