Anybody having trouble with their United Mobile SIM?
 

I'm trying to use my United Mobile SIM card in Singapore and it isn't working. I've used it in many other countries with no problems. This is the first time in several weeks though.

I also notice big chunks of the United Mobile website are also down. You can't access your account for a example.

It's a worrisome coincidence.

Company has gone out of business.

I just learned about it and sent my most technically illiterate friend to Aruba with my UM SIM. Imagine how I'm feeling. There is a long discussion of this over at prepaidgsm.net.

I just fired mine up this morning after arriving in Australia and it wasnt working after using it all over the world for a few years now. I have an AU Sim, so I am ok for now.

OneSimCard is doing a free replacement for the UM Sim, but they use mobile numbers in Estonia, which is not what I want.

Suggestions on replacements?

Oh crap.
What about the pepaid airtime I had with them?

United Mobile out of business
 

Based on the information I have United Mobile is out of business and likely the service will not restart. The customer service is not answering anymore and you cannot access from some days your account online.

Apparently the problem was well known since several weeks but nobody informed the users of this international mobile phone service of what was going on, so now there over 300.000 United Mobile’s customers are unable to communicate with the SIM cards they have paid for.

The first information about this massive blow has been published by users of the Crunch Base website (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/unitedmobile).

I am always concerned about businesses registered in Liechtenstein – a small tax heaven country where, in my opinion, the local government does not care too much about consumers’ rights and protection.

I do not know who are the persons that should have informed (and protected) consumers. By searching in Linkedin.com I noticed that some people still proudly present themselves as executives of United Mobile.

One of them is the man that (in theory) should have been in charge of informing the UM customers: Alexander Trommen, United Mobile Chief Marketing Officer.

Another one is Sven Donhuysen, President of United Mobile.

It would be great if Mr Alexander Trommen and Mr Sven Donhuysen could use this forum to inform they customers about what happened and what is going on.

I think I might give up on these so called prepaid international sim cards. They all seem to be crap
09 never worked well roaming. Customer service was awful.
Yackie is out. At least I got it for free.
UM is out. I had both the data and the regular. Probably about 30euros left on the account. The amount I used and the amount I lost including the sim cost, for that price I could of just bought a local sims in the countries and pitched out the $5 or whatever was left.

Last chance for me will be the sim4travel as they have a free offer for UM clients.
I wonder if AMEX has some policy of refunding companies that went under...

Oh yes. As mentioned in prepaidgsm and a few other places. it seems like UM is out of business. It first started with their +423 card a few weeks ago. Then my +44 card refused to register one day last week. I knew there was trouble right away when it displayed "inavalid sim". As for credit left on the sim, just like the others thet went belly up, the credit is gone with it. The more reason why it's advisable not to put too much credit than you need on these international sim cards.

Obviously, the lower EU roaming rates mandated has affected all these international sim cards usage in the EU. So, most of them are having a hard time surviving. Personally, I will not waste my time with these sim cards if the US carriers can just reduce their roaming rates close to the EU level.

I've been pretty happy with the one I have from http://www.telestial.com/

though I have not used it for a couple months, so I hope they are still in business.

United Mobile is actually based in a suburb of Zurich. They had a Liechtenstein range of phone numbers. Over on prepaidgsm.net, there is a story posted of a guy from Zurich who took a trip on his lunch hour over to UM's empty headquarters.

I agree that the EU roaming rates hurt, but United Mobile actually seemed to run one of the more solid operations. Their new US roaming SIM looked quite good. Remember that those rates also only applied in the EU. United-Mobile had good rates in many other countries and was actually starting to consolidate its offerings in what SIM card. On related discussion is that travel is down big time. People rarely use roaming SIMs in their home country. There are occasionally exceptions. In Dubai, many Brits carried roaming SIMs because their friends back home could call them out of their bucket of inclusive minutes if the SIMs were based out of Jersey or IOM (check your carrier before trying this one). On a flight, I actually met someone from Liechtenstein who thought that the roaming SIM was the best thing ever created for them.

This year I've lost money on 09 and United-Mobile. My free Yackie SIM also died. As a matter of strategy, I have never given out their mobile number and always ate the cost of the call forward. Now I am glad that I did.

Its funny, we are watching the major European players come up with options to fill this void. Three Like Home and Vodafone Passport are two good examples.

Telestial are just resellers. (Explorer is a rebranded TravelSim card (Estonian number). I don't know what their other SIMs are).

They resell the sims from ekit.com, takes me forever to remember that.

Three Like Home is going away on 30 June:
"This promotional offer will end on 30th June when we'll be announcing new text & internet data prices for the summer. These will include great prices for some of the most popular destinations."

http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/..._Pay_As_You_Go

OneSimCard offers free replacement SIM to UM customers.
 

OneSimCard.com offers free SIM card with $10 in exchange for old UM SIM.

OneSimCard is in Belmont, MA.


If you google United Mobile, you will see the offer. Here is the page on their web site, though it is hard to find.

http://www.onesimcard.com/mobile_sig...tomers-problem

United Mobile out of business (2)
 

Probably there is a way to communicate with United Mobile’s management, since the customer service is not answering anymore. In his profile on Linkedin.com Alexander Trommen proudly confirms:“I am currently Chief Marketing Officer of United Mobile AG, the leading MVNO targeting the international business traveller segment with over 300,000 customers in 80 countries.”

This means that if you are a Linkedin member and you are one of the 300,000 customers abandoned by United Mobile, you can write to Alexander Trommen directly asking for clarifications.

The same applies to Sven Donhuysen. His Linkedin profile still defines his current job as “President at United Mobile AG”.