We were in Italy for a month, so both DH and I bought Wind SIM cards. They were super fast to buy this time and we were really happy at first. In order to use the phone, one must have a credit balance of at least one cent. We each started with a 5E balance, thinking that we would never use it.

A couple of days later, in Naples, my phone no longer worked. I was out of credit. Couldn't figure it out, as all my calls were within the guidelines of "included" . Went to a tabac and added another 5E. This then happened to both of our phones. By then we were in Sicily and one can't tell what the charges are online or from the phones. We had to find a Wind (not as easy in Sicily) and found out that we had used the phone on the ferry over and thought we ere on internet... so that one made sense. We started a tour and kept losing our credits. We think that we were roaming when we were outside the cities... but never did get to the bottom of it. They really couldn't tell us either. Finally, we were trying to only turn our phones on in case of emergency... otherwise, our credit just seemed to disappear and we wouldn't have use of them at all.

All very unfortunate. This did not happen in the past with TIM.. maybe it's because we were in Sicily... but it was just a mess.

Just wanted to report in. Definitely won't use Wind again... in the long run, it would have been cheaper to use our Verizon $10 for 24 hours plan, just when we needed it... it took a lot of time and effort and $$ to keep refilling our phone credit.

On the ferry you could have been outside of shore range. Sea roaming can be very expensive.

Did you use the internet? Was it included in your offer? Which offer? If you didn't have an offer costs are relatively high and it wouldn't take much to eat up €5. If you had an offer no idea. For roaming you had to set your phone to roaming. It wouldn't have roamed on it's own if you were outside of Wind coverage.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is you called a pay number.

Next time, why not just use TIM again? It's only another 10 euros more for about the same plan, right? Still a lot cheaper than Verizon's plan if your trip is more than a few days.

kawh, thanks for the info.

In order for your warning to be helpful, you should tell us which plan you had for Wind.

Sounds like the OP was on the base plan

That's what I originally thought, but she says various things were described as "included". The base plan is all pay-as-you-go, with nothing included.

A few observations -

• The basic offering from the established operators (TIM, Vodafone, Wind and 3/Tre) involves purchasing a SIM card which generally costs €10. Usually €5 goes to the shop selling the SIM leaving €5 on the card.
• The basic offering means that you pay for everything you consume - calls, SMS and data.
• If you want a plan then you need to pay extra which usually involves a one-off charge as well as a monthly charge. This varies quite considerably from one company to the other especially with regard to the amount of data. The cost and offers available constantly change so quoting current offers is not that useful. However, most plans now offer unlimited calls in Italy to fixed and mobile/cell numbers but there are charges to premium numbers. Also some service numbers may be free if called from a fixed line but charged from a mobile/cell line. Answerphone services are usually subject to a charge. The number of SMS offered varies but increasingly not being used as more use WhatsApp and similar services. Data offerings vary but increasingly the amount of data offered is always being raised - for example, 3/Tre offers 30GB per month now.
• There is now a new provider on the market called Iliad (owned by Iliad in France) which offers a fantastic deal at only €5.99 for ever including unlimited calls and 30GB of data. Included in the plan are international calls to many countries around the world. At the moment reception is spotty and data downloads are slow when not using their antennas but this should improve. This offer is not available on a PAYG basis but involves either an Italian bank account or any credit card. But worthwhile watching.
• I concur with Traveller_Nick and bvlenci that the OP was most likely on a base plan. I also believe that the reason the credit was so quickly consumed was due to data rather than anything else. Even if one is not actively using data there are now so many apps (just locating where you are) which are consuming data in the background. It is also possible that receiving SMS from outside of Italy may involve a small charge.
• Tip #1 - get a plan
• Tip #2 -go into settings and turn off mobile/cell roaming if near an international boarder as you can suddenly find yourself picking up a foreign provider.
• Tip #3 - go into settings and turn off all those apps which consume data which you don't need especially if on holiday.
• Tip #4 - if you want to use data check first if there is free WIFI available
• Tip #5 - download maps from Google Maps or from one of the other services rather than use Google Maps etc as a live version. This applies to other services too.
• Tip #6 - If crossing from the mainland to Sardinia and Sicily avoid the roaming WIFI connection on the boats. It is unlikely to be free especially since they most likely get a cut from the provider they use.

I am so confused by the whole cell phone use in Italy. I have a Verizon iphone in the US and have not had any luck using it over there. I know that at times the VZW in the top left hand corner will say VODA. When you say use a SIM card what does that mean? I assume I can't change the SIM card in my iphone? I also assume I might be better off to purchase a phone just for use in Italy? Can I purchase one in the US before I leave? If it had a different phone number, that would be ok.

In the end, please let me know the best way to use cell service in Italy.

MIchele, buying a SIM card is mostly about saving money. Verizon has a couple of international roaming plans that should make using your phone in Italy easy. However, you may need to sign up for one ahead of time before you get to Italy. And the cost would be either $10/day (only on days you use the phone) or a monthly fee for just a tiny amount of data. The $10/day plan really makes the most sense of the Verizon options if you plan to use your phone much away from WiFi (would be essential to me), so the $10/day plan is easier just the most expensive, for a trip that lasts more than say a week. Using Verizon is the easiest, just not necessarily the cheapest option. A SIM would probably save you some money, maybe a lot of money, if you don't mind fooling with one.

When your phone connects to "VODA" it means you have roamed to the Vodafone network in Italy. Verizon has no actual service in Italy - they only have roaming partners like Vodafone. If your phone connected to Vodafone there but the phone didn't work, could be you needed to sign up for the international roaming with Verizon. You could have called them (or "chatted" with them online) a, head of time or even while there to set it up.

Or, buy a SIM card from TIM or Vodafone (or the others like Wind, but most people recommend TIM or Vodafone for Italy). Keep your old SIM card for Verizon in a safe place because you will need to put it back in to use your phone with Verizon again once you get home - the SIM card is tiny. Also, learn how to remove and replace the SIM card before you leave home - it can be a challenge with an iPhone. The agent at a mobile store in Italy will be able to do it easily, but it's good to know how to do it yourself. (Sometimes you need a little tool to pop it out.) There should be YouTube videos showing how.

Your phone must also be unlocked to use an Italian SIM card. Verizon phones has historically been unlocked til now, but supposedly that may change soon. AT&T and the other US carriers do seem to lock their phones still. If a phone is paid off, though, I think they must offer to unlock your phone for you for free, upon request. (Unlocking means they give you a code to unlock it when you insert another SIM card.)

Can't wait till when they eliminate SIM cards altogether as Apple has wanted for a long time. The electronics can easily handle virtual SIM cards which wold mean that an iPhone could handle multiple numbers at the same time - office, personal, international etc.

So if you can get the provider to let you unlock your phone, and you put in an Italian SIM card when you get to Italy, will you have a new phone number for that SIM card when in Italy?

Yes, you will - an Italian phone number. You'll have that same phone number no matter where you are (Italy or otherwise) as long as the Italian SIM is in your phone.

Thanks.

this is the OP .... Our plan had unlimited texts to other Wind phones (we only texted each other) a huge number of minutes to anyone within Italy , more data than I ever use at home (there was plenty of data left when they checked at the Wind store) and maybe 15 minutes of calls to anywhere for the month. We knew that at the end of the month we'd have 2 days left of our trip and wouldn't be able to use our phones. We were so cautious with our use.... honestly, it was a mystery to us AND the folks at Wind our 2nd trip in. ***Weirdly, you can look online and see lots of info, but nowhere does it say exactly what charges were FOR... just your balance and minutes left.

One time, in Varenna, we put $5 on my Husband's phone, we walked back to our B&B and the credit was gone. (we had checked the credit on buying, then he had texted me to test that it was working.) We wondered whether they were repaying a past debt...We but since the phone doesn't work when one has $0 credit....

It's just a mystery. We're pretty tech and phone savvy. Since we can't figure it out, we will avoid Wind next time.

On a side note, we just signed up for TMobile 55+ plan because it includes service overseas (within restrictions.) The reception isn't as good as Verizon where we live... but will keep until my trip to Peru this fall and test it out there......

The Wind tourist offer would have cost you a total of €20. Ten for the SIM and an additional ten for the offer. If the shop sold you anything else that could be the problem. The non tourist offers on the surface appear cheaper but they can have activation fees or monthly requirements.

Do you remember what the initial cost was?

“One time, in Varenna, we put $5 on my Husband's phone, we walked back to our B&B and the credit was gone...We wondered whether they were repaying a past debt...”

—This could be the reason. We’ve used the same TIM SIM card for years, usually pay-as-you-go. Last year we were in Italy for a few months and signed up for a TIM plan which better suited our needs for the first couple weeks. We paid in cash. After the plan period ended, we topped up, intending to return to the pay-as-you go plan as before. What we didn’t realize was the plan we signed up for was set to automatically renew until the plan expired or was canceled by the user. Since no credit card was on file, the top-up credit was applied to the balance we owed. The €10 top up didn’t cover the negative balance, so we were left with €0 credit, no service and lots of head scratching. Fortunately, a TIM store employee figured out what happened.

>>What we didn’t realize was the plan we signed up for was set to automatically renew until the plan expired or was canceled by the user. Since no credit card was on file, the top-up credit was applied to the balance we owed.​​​​​​

This is why I advise paying cash for SIM cards and topups. Immagine if those renewals were charged to your credit card. You can, of course, specify that you want to top up only with cash, but with the language barrier, it may not get through. You can also send an SMS (or go to a phone store) to cancel the plan, but you already have too many things to remember on the last day.

A plan is always better than the base tariff but a plan, as mentioned, is renewed each month so if you return a year later you have to pay the missing months before your number becomes active again. Better to discard the SIM card at the end of your trip and get a new number. With WhatsApp you can have a group to distribute your new number to all those you need to inform.

Looking back at earlier posts I find it incredible that a Wind shop was not able to identify what the debits were that caused the OP's balance to disappear. It is possible that apart from roaming or data charges there could have been other unexpected debits. This once happened to me on the 3/Tre network and I was able to identify the debits since I had registered on-line and was able to see all activity on my account. I queried the charges and this resulted in a call from 3/Tre. This ended up in a conversation with a call center based in Albania! Apart from language difficulties - many in Albania speak pretty good Italian but not perfectly - whenever the conversation got "heated" they always dropped the line. Furthermore being a call center it was impossible to speak to anyone who could really make decisions. Thanks America - this is the flip side of on-line commerce.

However, regarding viewing one's activity on-line it amazes me that no Italian operator (as far as I am aware) enables registration in English allowing users to see their activity. I truly believe this would be helpful and would actually cost operators very little.

They all sell tourist plans. None of them really intend for the non tourist plan to be sold to tourists. Tourist keep buying them . If you're living in Italy reading a little Italian is hardly expecting too much.