Norwegian pre-paid SIMs must now be registered

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Bert Hyman - 08 Jun 2007 16:38 GMT

For a recent trip to Norway, I bought a pre-paid NetCom Norwegian SIM
from telestial.com. I thought it would be handy to be able to tell folks
my phone number before I left and to be able to use the phone from the
Bergen airport immediately on arrival, so I was willing to pay the hefty
premium.

When I activated the phone, I received a text message from NetCom
telling me that recent Norwegian law now requires all pre-paid cards to
be registered, and instructed me to reply to the message within 3 hours
with my full name and birthdate. After doing that, I received a reply
telling me that the registration had failed, my account was deactivated
and that calls to any number would be re-directed to NetCom customer
service. Strangely, when the phone was in this state, calls directly to
NetCom's customer service produced a robo-response telling me that I had
no money left in my account.

So, I called my hotel's number and was transferred to customer service.
After a few minutes, the CSR figured out that since I wasn't a Norwegian
citizen, my identity couldn't be verified and that I'd have to go in
person to a NetCom retail outlet, show my passport and they'd call
NetCom and get the account activated. I found an Expert (www.expert.no)
shop around the corner from my hotel and the clerk handled the
transaction without incident.

So, it looks like buying a Norwegian SIM card from somebody like
telestial.com outside of Norway no longer makes any economic or
practical sense whatsoever, other than letting you know ahead of time
what your phone number will be.

Norway's the first place I've tried this, but I suspect that this
practice is going to be widespread, if it isn't already.

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Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

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MasterBlaster - 08 Jun 2007 23:12 GMT

> When I activated the phone, I received a text message from NetCom
> telling me that recent Norwegian law now requires all pre-paid cards to
> be registered, and instructed me to reply to the message within 3 hours
> with my full name and birthdate.

And you're sure it wasn't a scam phishing message sent by some random
party to all cellphone numbers via an SMS spammer to either get your info
so they could have your account balance transferred into their (fake named)
account, and get free cell service using your money, or steal your identity.
(you gave your full name & birthdate, but the CSR you called later didn't
have that info on file, right?)

Sounds like the "Deer eBay custommer, Pleese clik here within 24 hours to
update yuor Ebay informaton, or your accout will be supsended" emails that
pop up now and then.

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Bert Hyman - 08 Jun 2007 23:59 GMT

In news:bvkai.12135$vT6.6926@edtnps90 "MasterBlaster"
<Nobody's.Home@My.Place> wrote:

>> When I activated the phone, I received a text message from NetCom
>> telling me that recent Norwegian law now requires all pre-paid cards
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> (fake named) account, and get free cell service using your money, or
> steal your identity.

Considering that the phone had yet to be activated, yes, I'm pretty sure
of that.

> (you gave your full name & birthdate, but the CSR
> you called later didn't have that info on file, right?)

When I gave him my phone number, he found the whole transaction.

> Sounds like the "Deer eBay custommer, Pleese clik here within 24 hours
> to update yuor Ebay informaton, or your accout will be supsended"
> emails that pop up now and then.

Well, there's certainly nothing of value to be had from somebody knowing
my name, so I'm not particularly concerned.

You need to find more serious things to worry about.

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Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

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MasterBlaster - 09 Jun 2007 04:14 GMT

> > And you're sure it wasn't a scam phishing message sent by some random
> > party to all cellphone numbers via an SMS spammer

> Considering that the phone had yet to be activated, yes, I'm pretty sure
> of that.

I bought my new phone April 6, this year. When I turned it on
for the first time, it downloaded a text message with a sending
date of Dec 12, last year.

> > Sounds like the "Deer eBay custommer, Pleese clik here within 24 hours

> Well, there's certainly nothing of value to be had from somebody knowing
> my name, so I'm not particularly concerned.

Yeah, you're right, the worst that could happen is you call your cell company
and find your brand-new account has zero balance, or you call your bank
and find your account is empty, or you go to hop on another plane to Norway
and find you've been mysteriously put on the "no fly" list, and you're held in
detention for 6 months with no charges, and finally are told that someone
who looks like you, talks like you, and had multiple pieces of "valid" ID with
your name, address, birthday, SSN, etc., was making inquiries about buying
large quantities of explosive materials, or firearms. Identity theft? Pshaw.

> You need to find more serious things to worry about.

I already do. But what can *I* do about Mr. B.? You guys elected him.

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DevilsPGD - 09 Jun 2007 06:06 GMT

>Yeah, you're right, the worst that could happen is you call your cell company
>and find your brand-new account has zero balance, or you call your bank
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>your name, address, birthday, SSN, etc., was making inquiries about buying
>large quantities of explosive materials, or firearms. Identity theft? Pshaw.

It takes a bit more then a birthday to make that happen.

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If quitters never win, and winners never quit,
what fool came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?

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Mike S. - 09 Jun 2007 02:16 GMT

[snip]

>So, it looks like buying a Norwegian SIM card from somebody like
>telestial.com outside of Norway no longer makes any economic or
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>Norway's the first place I've tried this, but I suspect that this
>practice is going to be widespread, if it isn't already.

It is beocming more widespread. More and more, a multi-country roaming
SIM is starting to look like the best solution.

On a recent family trip to Greece, I bought prepaid local SIMs for several
members of the family but used Telestial's "Explorer" repackage of
TravelSIM for myself. Before leaving the US, I set up an auto-recharge
arrangement with Telestial which adds credit when the value drops below
$10. Little did I know how important that would turn out to be.

A member of the family was injured in a fall and needed to be airlifted to
Athens for treatment. I spent about 40 minutes on my cell phone calling the
US travel insurance office to get payment authorized for the transport. If
I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long before
the critical communications were taken care of.

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Bert Hyman - 09 Jun 2007 02:25 GMT

In news:f4cv1e$3rl$1@reader2.panix.com retsuhcs@xinap.moc (Mike S.)
wrote:

> If I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long
> before the critical communications were taken care of.

I understand your position on the multi-country roaming SIM, and it's
something I might look into next time, but in my case, when I was forced
to go to a retail outlet to get my SIM activated, I also took the
opportunity to buy a top-up card; they're available everywhere.

An unexpected thing with the Norwegian NetCom pre-paid card was that it
also worked in Amsterdam where we were stuck overnight when the flight
from Bergen was so late we missed the last flight to the US; that was
->really surprising.

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Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

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www.experimentalist.mobi - 13 Jun 2007 19:30 GMT

>> If I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long
>> before the critical communications were taken care of.
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> from Bergen was so late we missed the last flight to the US; that was
> ->really surprising.

Get Global card next time
http://experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=43

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www.experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php Global sim cards & Satellite
Phones.

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Newby - 13 Jun 2007 21:49 GMT

> >> If I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long
> >> before the critical communications were taken care of.
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> Get Global card next time
> http://experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=43

Wasn't I supposed to get a backpacker keychain with my globalsim?

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www.experimentalist.mobi - 14 Jun 2007 07:28 GMT

>> >> If I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long
>> >> before the critical communications were taken care of.
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>>
> Wasn't I supposed to get a backpacker keychain with my globalsim?

Yes email me your order details and get one of to you.
ta

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www.experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php Global sim cards & Satellite
Phones.

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Newby - 14 Jun 2007 11:50 GMT

> >> >> If I had relied on local prepaid I would have run out of credit long
> >> >> before the critical communications were taken care of.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> Yes email me your order details and get one of to you.
> ta

Will do.

Thank you.

I've set-up automatic 'top-up' and used the SIM twice to test its
functionality. Seems to work well although calls to the 'help' line are a
bit expensive.

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www.experimentalist.mobi - 15 Jun 2007 14:14 GMT

>> > "www.experimentalist.mobi" <webmaster@(REMOVE)goldno.com> wrote in
> message
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> functionality. Seems to work well although calls to the 'help' line are a
> bit expensive.

Best to contact via the website for help.
Ta again

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www.experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php Global sim cards & Satellite
Phones.

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