Lebara. Is it really as bad as this?

*Non-existent customer service and lack of availability angers US user*

UKMR reader *Lauren Kim* wrote to me about Lebara. She is not a happy bunny and I hope Lebara have the time to give their side of the story. Here's Kim's thoughts:

Dear UK Mobile Report

Lebara is actually quite terrible. I don't understand how so many people can be satisfied with their low cost calls when, firstly, the cellular connection is so unreliable, if nonexistant at times. I've had to walk around the city (London) to try to find a location at which I can dial without seeing 'No Service', then, 'Call ended' on my screen.

Initially, I thought there was a problem with my GSM unlocked phone. I tried placing the Lebara Prepaid Sim Card in my friend's LG Phone. It did not work. Lebara customer services, through email, repeated to me the exact same instructions I was given over the phone (to go to Network Settings, switch to manual, etc.). It worked for neither phone.

Lebara seems not to work at all inside buildings, like my apartment in SE1.

Secondly, and what's even worse, Lebara's customer service line is impossible to reach. I have sent two emails now, and have called the office at least 20 times (10 pence per minute on my friends' phones, 7 cents on Skype), have been put on hold for four minutes every time by a machine which lies, 'someone will be with you shortly.' It hangs up after it says, 'all of our representatives are busy please hold.'

I do not recommend Lebara at all. It has been nearly a week since I've arrived in London. I still do not have connection in most places.

I purchased the Lebara UK Prepaid Sim Card through a company called Cellular Abroad in order to have a cell phone before I left the US. It charged me 50 dollars for an the Sim Card when I could have purchased it directly from Lebara at £2.99 and £5. That was my carelessness. But even so, I now wish that I hadn't heard about Lebara at all.

I have not, however, been careless about asking Lebara to follow through in its promises to consumers listed on its website: http://www.lebara-mobile.co.uk/en/

I have spent very much time and a rather large sum in hopes of reaching someone on the other line at customer services. I got through once. She gave me the Network-Settings instructions, told me to call back, then never picked up.

Do not be fooled by the reassuring look of Lebara's website. If the company follows through on what it claims to do in other countries, then I restrict this comment to UK phone users only. Otherwise, Lebara is the least reliable, trustworthy phone company I have thus used, and regret it deeply.

Comments

[MobileZilla]

Hello,

After reading the post I can see there are two problems you faced.

1. bad reception i.e. signal
2. bad customer service.

I will deal with the first part. Lebara Mobile is MVNO uses Vodafone network. So if you are not receiving reception in areas of London as you wanted then it is not down to Lebara but Vodafone Network, meaning that all Vodafone customers are receiving the same service as Lebara. This map will provide you with coverage of Vodafone/Lebara http://maps.vodafone.co.uk/coverageviewer/web/default.aspx

With regard to customer service. I have been using Lebara for over a year and never had a problem with their customer service nor reception. I usually rate them 8/10. I am sure someone from Lebara customer service will see your post and contact you.

[Simon Brown]

Hello,

I've just bought a Lebara sim for my mother to make oversea's calls, they had a special offer that you purchase a sim card at 5pounds & get 2pound 50 free extra when you register your sim card online,so I did so.
After registering online my balance showed up as 5pounds only, so I sent the e-mails to customer service with contact number & the problem, I got no response,I than called customer services( at 10p/per min) was told to hold, after waiting for 5 minutes I was told customer services was too busy & was cut off there & then.
So not only did I not get the Extra call credit, my mothers balance is now less by 50p, trying to sort out the problem with Lebara.
Now if it only cost 4p a minute to the USA, why we paying 10p a minute to call customer services here, not really Low cost calling when you think about it....

[nigel]

can anyone tell me this, if a friend of mine who lives in china sends me a text message from their phone, (local network)do they get charged roaming prices to call my lebara sim, or would it only be their normal charge as it costs them now, about 10p per text

[CRAZYMOo]

btw it works fine in Australia :D

[Nattippy]

hi i have jst bought a lebara sim card and having it be the same coverage of vodafone, does that mean that i can pop the sim card into my Vodafone Locked Phone and it will work, without having me to pay £15 to get it unlocked in the high street. thanks...

[K G]

You can put a lebara sim card straight into a locked vodafone phone but you cannot send mms

[K G]

Also got a problem setting up mms. My cousin has samsung and settings were sent directly to her phone but it says service denied when she tries to send. I have found settings on a website and input them to no avail as well. We transferred our numbers from lycamobile to lebara for several reasons, one being the mms. Now we cannot use it. Could we also be having trouble due to using transferred numbers?

[kash]

the mms settings all you need to do is go to your mme settings and put a / sign there because its missing and it work i had this problem aswell i found that and then sent a mms and it whent through

[twitter.com/StigDrabloes]

Lebara customer service is absolutely useless. I have a Norwegian Lebara Sim card and can text the UK. However, I cannot receive any text from the UK. When talking to customer service they just blame the UK carrier and say that the UK sender have to contact their customer service. However, in my case I cannot receive text from neither Vodafone, T-mobile or o2. In other words all the major carriers appart from Orange (which I assume does not work as well)

[monique]

This is the worse UK network ever. I topped up 5 pounds from lebara and for every second i was on the phone they took 18p in the end i never even got to mnake a call because the credit was finished.
customer service is impossible to reach

[F.X]

I bought one and would not recommand it. I could not register, it gave me a number to call to retify the sim card, but the number is always engaged. Lucky I just threw in $10. Don't try if you haven't started.

[Mahesh]

Hi all, I'm using lebara sim from 2007 i never had a problem what soever you all are saying about. Regarding the coverage Lebara is MVNO of Vodafone, which is almost 99.99% coverage in the U.K.

[Diane]

I grew up in the UK and now live in Germany. Looking for a pay-as-you-go card to slip into my unlocked LG Mobile phone whilst visiting family in the UK, I stumbled across Lebara. I bought my Lebara Sim card for 5 Pounds in a mobile phone shop - Topped Up 20 Pounds in a neighbouring shop and away I went.

4p/min to talk to German landline is unbeatable. My Father only has a mobile, so calling him from Germany is quite dear. I have left the card in the UK with him and he has put it into an unlocked phone - now I let his mobile ring - he sees my number and phones me back through the Lebara card. Saves me loads and works fine.

My father lives in Essex near the Coast - Connection was always brilliant. Once or twice in 2 weeks there was a kind of scratchy noise whilst phoning, but hanging up and phoning right back did the trick.

I didnt have to phone up customer services so I cant say anything about that - but for me its a great service at a great price - hope we had that kind of thing in Germany - we dont - so ill just stick to the way it is now. I can still pay the costs by topping up through the net.

[nazrina begum]

hi i would just like to say that i am not satisfied with lebara sim, because i think that i should get extra minutes to international call to pakistan. ihave chosen this lebara sim because i thought that it would be a good quality sim and give me better and clear calls t where i want, but i can get more minutes with other sims. i useally top-up up to £10 every week. my daughter tops up to £15 every week and get lots of free minutes and some free texts to which ever country i want. i have been using my lebara sim for about two years. so please can i have more minutes to pakistan.
thank you.

[Johnny Walker]

I have just bought a Lebara SIM from a local shop, it was £7.99 including £5.00 credit, so I take it the shop makes £2.99. At the moment there is an offer until the end of January 2010 allowing calls to Eastern Europe at 2p per minute.

My problem is the very poor reception, it is totally useless in Worcester and as I traveled by train from London to Worcester it was useless where my T-Mobile worked fine for most of the route. I understand that they use the Vodafone network so do not understand why the signal is so appalling? My mother in Worcester has a Vodafone handset which works fine, as an experiment I swapped SIM into her phone and the Lebara SIM had a far weaker signal.

My issue is that if you connect even for a second and the line drops, you are charged for a minute :-( so drop a few calls to a foreign mobile and your credit will disappear without you having actually successfully spoken to anybody.

I called their customer service which answered quickly and were professional, they credited my dropped calls within minutes, they were excellent. But they do have a problem with the network which they have to address!!!!!

[ingrid]

Up untiltoday had no problem but now My lebara phone tells me I have £21.10 credit but is now not sending any texts ashappens when credit is finished. WHen I try to call customer service to ask why either get cut off before any reply or unable to answer due to tech problems?

[PJ]

I have Lebara due to having had problems with Orange and being unable to get very cheap calls with Vodafone to the U.S.A. from the U.K..

I have never had to use customer services, but my signal is often quite weak (or even off) though in my house it's fine. Also has the strange signal thing where there's a plus sign (+) and the signal seems plenty, but I can't make calls (when I am able to make calls the plus sign is not there but some other icon instead, with enough bars on the signal).

It's 4p a minute to the U.S.A., and when I do have enough signal I can normally make calls O.K. (though there seems to be a time delay more often than there was when I phoned using Orange). It's also one of the only networks that offers very cheap calls to the U.S.A. AND calls to other U.K. mobiles for less than 20p a minute.

FOR THOSE HAVING PROBLEMS: Vodafone has a thing where you can get cheap international calls (ask in a shop about this) but it's not very cheap to call the U.S.A., and Orange has a plan (I think it's Camel, but check) where you can get cheap calls (such as 6p a minute to the U.S.A.) - though I've had lots of problems with Orange which is why I now use Lebara. I guess their customer services doesn't understand the meaning of things like "If I have any more problems, I'm switching!".

[Adam]

I have been on Lebara for 6 months now, and I can honestly say it couldn't have been better for me. I bought the chip originally so I could make cheap calls to Australia. I was reglarly calling landlines and mobiles in Oz, so at 10p per minute from Lebara the chip saved me a fortune!!!

Generally speaking the coverage is great. I don't recall ever losing a call, nor never being able to make one. My only gripe was when I tokk the phone to Australia and made calls back to the UK, the roaming costs were hurrendous. During my trip I made one brief call to the UK from Dubai, and 3 brief calls from the UK - and £20 of calling credit was a gonner!

We're hoping to move to Australia soon so when I get there I'll be straight off to purchase a Lebara Australian chip, and i'll be sure to make good use of their incredibly low cost international calls.

[Geoff Gregory]

Hi. I agree that although Lebara offers extremely low cost foreign calls it's service connection is very unreliable. I have two mobile phones..one on Vodaphone and the other on Lebara. So how is it that if Lebara uses the vodaphone network..when there is no signal on my Lebara phone ..it's at full strength on my Vodaphone phone. I've also tried to manually select the provider when I lose the Lebara signal..it doesn't work.

[Leanne]

I seem to get great reception all the time. very happy with lebara so far although i cant seem to find any where on how to use the free minutes and sms's .... can any one help me?

[Fliss]

I've just got a lebara sim card. I find the customer services fantastic so far, very quick to reply and very helpful.

I have an Orange contract for my main mobile and use it for everything within the UK. I bought a cheap Nokia 1208 as a spare phone for one reason only; to put in a lebara card for cheap texts (not calls) to my son in Ghana. It's fine for sending the texts but I don't seem to be able to receive them back!

I wondered if it was the cheap handset. Oddly, the message counter on the 1208 seems to indicate I've had the texts, but they simply don't show on in the inbox and I can't access them!

Any ideas? At the moment I'm texting him with Lebara on the 1208 but he's having to reply to my Orange contract phone! messy all round.

[Lee Yang]

I have used Lebara for 2 years and I am so happy with their service. I rate them 9/10. Thnak you Lebara.

[edd hewitt]

how do I unlock my vx4 lebara Cant find any key to unlock it.... It locks every time i switch off The only way I can unlock is by removing the battry....and then switching on

[cheap calls Pakistan]

If K.G is right that "You can put a lebara sim card straight into a locked vodafone phone but you cannot send mms"

so no bother... unless if you prefer to write messages than to speak.

[cheap calls to India]

Nice one. Thanks!