My Adventures with Toggle Mobile (Mostly Good)
 

I bought a Toggle Mobile SIM for a recent trip to Spain. My plan was to use it for voice only, as I had a different phone and SIM I was planning on using for data.

I tested it before I left the US. I was able to receive free incoming call in the US on either the UK or Spanish number.

Interestingly, when you go online to add the non-UK numbers, it tells you to have your phone on. The reason is that it adds an IMSI (not sure exactly what that is) that corresponds to your selected country. I received an SMS immediately telling me that my IMSI update had been successful.

When I arrived in Spain, I turned it on, and made a phone call to the US. The call went through - except, instead of being charged the advertised 3p per minutes, I was charged considerably more.

Then followed a number of emails and callbacks from their customer care people. First problem - they are very difficult to understand. They all had very heavy South Asian accents. The were also all wrong. They told me that all I needed to do was to go to the place in the menu where one selects the GSM network and select a Spanish network. The idea that since I was in Spain I had to be on a Spanish network already seemed to be a concept that they did not understand.

I finally figured out the problem myself by accident. I put the SIM into an Android phone from the dumb phone where it had been. There was a SIM menu that showed up among the Android apps. From that menu, I could change the IMSI to Spain. There was a setting called "automatic", but I switched to "manual" and selected Spain. The phone then billed correctly, at 3p for calls to the US, and 3p to European landlines and 9p to European mobiles.

When I took the SIM from the Android phone and put it back in the dumb phone the setting stuck and I could still make calls at the 3p rate.

Fast forwarding a bit, we had a connection in AMS on the way back. I went online and updated with a Netherlands phone number. I switched the menu back to automatic. When we landed in AMS I was able to make calls at the lower price, so the failure to automatically select the Spanish IMSI in Spain might have been a fluke.

After the original hiccup, things were great. Outgoing and incoming calls were fine, and you can't beat 3p per minute to call the US from a European mobile phone.

For incoming calls, I forwarded my Sprint/Google Voice number to a number I have at localphone.com, which then forwarded to the Spanish Toggle number, at 8.9 US cents per minute.

So, all in all, I can recommend the SIM for travelling in the countries where they have local service. The rates for voice calls will in many cases be lower than what you could obtain with a local SIM. When comparing rates, it is important to note that unlike many discount MVNOs in Europe (including Lycamobile, which owns Toggle) there is no per call connection charge in addition to the per minute charge - a one minute call to the US will cost 3p.

I believe that Toggle will ship to the US (I bought mine from an ebay seller due to time constraints). The pricing seems to be £ value + £5.

If you order, make sure that you are ordering the UK card. There is a Dutch version which has less favorable rates.

How were you able to register the SIM on their website, as when I tried to register using my home address I couldn't do so, since it only accepted a UK address. If not registered you get their global number, which would have cost me 48 pence per minute for UK calls while there, and not the 3 pence for getting the UK number when registered.

So far, and after lots of emailing back and forth (with a different person replying each time), it's been a hassle trying to set up their SIM prior to traveling so as to get the good rates. And while their website seems to be in the UK, their customer service is not, IMO.

bj-21.

Are you on the Toggle UK site (as opposed to the "nl" site)?

I don't recall having a problem registering with my US address. If I go the the website now and log in, my US address is listed under personal details. Under "Your Address" there is a drop down menu with one of those A to Z lists of countries beginning with Afghanistan and including the US.

They seem to fairly responsive to problems raised on their Facebook site so you might want to try that.

I used the UK website. Saw the country dropdown and clicked on it yet it still won't let me show my home address to complete the registration and set up a login and password. Since I won't use Facebook, that limits me to emails to try to find a solution that works. And they already have my home address on record, as they mailed a SIM to me. Still can't get their website to register my home address and not being able to do so stops me from getting the UK number I need for the lower rates.

Did you buy the topups from their website or from a retailer either at the airport or locally when you arrived?

bj-21.

Not quite sure where/how it is hanging up. There are fields on mine for entry of the address info where I can put in whatever address I want.


Perhaps you should just register with some address that works, even if it is of a hotel or fictitious. Probably doesn't matter what address you use. Also, it appears that I can change my address if I want, so you are not necessarily stuck with your first address registered.

I bought credit online. Don't know if you can buy credit at retail in the UK, certainly would not have been possible in Spain (not for sale anywhere that I saw.)

Tried first with my home address in Canada, then after no success tried using the hotel address in the UK where we'll be staying. Website didn't recognize the postal code for the UK address of the hotel (London), so got stymied there too. I'll try again later tonight to see if it works, but after many attempts I'm not encouraged so far.

Thanks for the quick replies.

bj-21.

Just went to the place o the Toggle site where I activated the Spanish and Dutch numbers. There is no UK option on the dropdown menu.

I suspect that there is no ability to choose a UK number because you get a UK number by default - and presumably the 3p per minute rate as well by default.

From their emailed replies to me, you have to first register in order to get a UK phone number (or other country's number from their list) as the number that comes up when you first put in the SIM is their "global number" which doesn't get the low rate on calls. I saw the UK listed in their dropdown list to register, as was Canada listed, but that's as far as I could go, as I couldn't get them to accept either a Canadian or UK address on the website so I could register and then choose which country (UK in this case) I'd use the phone. Fine if the UK is the default number after registering, but the global number that first comes up before registering isn't the one that gets the 3 pence per call. So one must register, which gets the default UK number, or then choose another country from their list. That's probably why the UK doesn't show up on the country list dropdown to choose from after registering, as it's the default number already once you've registered.

bj-21.

I've been unable to purchase the SIM card - have tried on two different days with two different US credit cards (four in all) and all have been rejected. Very annoying.

Same problem here. Just ordered one on eBay.

Are there any similar call forwarding like localphone.com or flynumber.com which has a free forwarding number?

I have been using localphone.com for several years. Not aware of any other one.

Callcentric gives away NY numbers which can be forwarded abroad. The per minute is higher than localphone.

Thanks - didn't realize they were available there.

They are standard SIM cards, and ebay seller is cutting it to Micro size for me.