Since August of 2012 I’ve had a Polish SIM card that I used with a basic Nokia cell phone. The phone itself has served its purpose of of collecting contact details and allowing phone and SMS (text message) communication. Back in late 2012 I learned from a girl that I was seeing that she couldn’t reply to my texts. Another friend also mentioned this problem, but I didn’t pay very much attention to it, assuming it was an issue with their phones or cell networks.
Fast forward to earlier this month and two girls I met recently and a third that I hadn’t contacted in a while, all told me that they couldn’t reply to my texts, receiving an error along the lines of “this message couldn’t be sent”. Two of the girls called me, while a third texted me from her company cell and also communicated on WhatsApp.
Suffice to say that this had clearly become a big problem. If these three girls couldn’t reply to me, I have no idea how many women I met over the past two years couldn’t reply to my first or second text and simply gave up without bothering to call or try from a different number. I shudder to think that many good leads simply died because of this annoying problem.
Hoping to avoid having to abandon this phone number, I set about contacting Orange (my Dutch, multinational, telecom). As I had recently gotten the new iPhone 6+ to use in Poland, I was also in the process of getting a new Nano SIM card to fit in the new phone. After first learning that the SIM card was registered under my aunt’s name (she had bought it for my dad several years ago and then I started using it) I first had to re-register the card to my name with her present, then migrate the number from a regular SIM to the Nano size.
To my frustration, the new SIM card didn’t solve my problem, the contacts who couldn’t reply to my texts before, still couldn’t do so. I tried going to Orange again and they gave me a new SIM card, saying that sometimes there are problems with the card. I was already skeptical since this was my second new card in as many days, and my suspicions were vindicated when the same problem repeated itself.
My final option with Orange was to call customer service and describe the problem, providing dates, times and numbers of contacts I had made when the problem presented itself. The thoroughly unhelpful answer I ultimately received from Orange was that I should ask my contacts who have this problem to contact their carrier. I didn’t even know everyone who was having the problem because they had never replied and the people who did told me this was the only time they had ever had this problem, the problem was my number!!
My last attempt to remedy this situation was to move my number from Orange to Play, a Polish telecom. After filling out the paperwork at Play, the process was set in motion and within 4 days my number was now on their network. Alas, the problem didn’t resolve itself. For some strange reason, unheard of to the half-dozen Orange and Play employees I talked to (I even asked at a local cell phone shop), some of my contacts were unable to reply to my texts, irrespective of a phone and network change and 3 new SIM cards.
I decided that pursuing this issue further just wasn’t worth the time and effort, especially since every new girl I met (through daygame of course) might or might not be able to reply to my initial text. Of course a certain percentage will always flake off and never reply, but I had to be sure that this was the case, and not because of a phantom, technical problem. I went to Play and got a new SIM card and phone number. As I write this I’m sending out texts to my contacts to inform them of my new number. I hope I don’t have to do this again anytime in the future, but its satisfying to know that I’m able to receive replies to all my texts.
The unfortunate reality of international travel is that you’ll have to switch sim cards in each new country you visit, unless you want to pay exorbitant roaming charges. You can by packets of data and cell service while traveling, but this also isn’t practical for more than short trips. Once you get a local SIM, be sure to test it by calling and texting your number from other phones.
So far my main experience with foreign SIMs has been in Poland and briefly in Bucharest, Romania. If you have any advice for using a cell phone while traveling, share it in the comments below.
