*Be careful when you activate International Roaming.
I went to Helsinki on March 8, 2009 and stayed there for a couple of weeks. It was a business trip from my company. Everything was taken care of except the phone. I could not get anyone to arrange for a local(i.e. Finland) sim card and had to contact Vodaphone and ask for International Roaming Facility.
For your information, I have been using Hutch since 2002. I was in Calcutta at that time. And I remained loyal even when I moved to Hyderabad and now in Bangalore. I had to change the sim but I went with Hutch/ Vodaphone. This loyalty was not because of the service quality but because I didn’t care to change. I have always been a pre-paid customer.
Back to my story. I called up the customer care and they said that I cannot make out going call on a prepaid connection. Why? Because I was a prepaid customer. I felt like a second class citizen and I guess they consider me as a second class subscriber as well. They however said that I could recieve and send sms. For receiving a call I would have to pay some 40 INR(Indian National Rupee) per minute and for sending sms I would have to pay some 24 INR.
They also said that upon activation of International Roaming, they would deduct 149 INR from my existing balance.
Prior to my departure, I activated international roaming and as they has informed, 149 INR was instantly deducted.
I reached Frankfurt after 9 hours and tried to sms my wife. To my surprise, I could not use any network. After trying all the tricks, when I failed, I had to use an Airtel connection to send an sms back home. I thought I would get connection in Helsinki. But I was wrong again.
Through out my trip, I could not get any connection. Later I learnt that Vodaphone should have an alliance with the local network for me to use that network and most probably Vodaphone did not have any alliance in Finland.
I ended up paying 149 INR as rental for roaming but did not get the roaming facility at all. **More than the money, I was put in lot of inconvenience because I trusted Vodaphone to keep me connected with my family. But I was let down miserably**.
*Caution:
Those of you travelling abroad, please check whether your service provider has alliance with the local service provider of that place. Even after asking this question I had suffered. So best of luck to you all but please be careful.
I thought about asking for a refund of 149 INR from Vodaphone but did not. These people are muck.