Can Movistar switch off your mobile service if you don't use it a lot ?

I need to find out if movistar can switch off your service for "under useage " even if you have plenty of credit on a pay as you go sim. We have a house in Valencia region and try to visit as often as possible from the u.k.  Partner and myself both use payg Spanish sim cards  ( Orange and Movistar ) when in Spain. Each time we come over we both top up with 10 or 20 euros on each card.

Last time over ( Jan 19th ) the Movistar sim should by our calculations have had at least  17 euros credit from previous top up in October last year. I was using my phone on the way back to Valencia airport and the battery gave out , so I switched to using the Movistar phone but it showed a service supended message ( I think---Spanish isn't too good ) emergency calls only.  I tried it several times before getting on the plane and result was the same.

I mentioned this to a friend yesterday and she said that she had been told that Movistar switch off your service if you don't use the phone a lot--even when you have plenty of credit on there ( they make their money when you use up the credit ). Anybody know if this is true---seems an interesting way of making money to say the least !

Hello Crostrad,

The answer is yes. If you don't top up with a small amount every six months ( I think) then they do suspend your phone. We found out as it happened to a friend of ours. The minimum top up is only 5 euros at our local shop so we tend to do this regularly.

HTH

Sue

This perhaps explains why our  Spanish PAYG (Carrefour) always has no credit left even though we knew there was some when we left , similar thing happens in Sweden. Is the credit lost for good?
 

As Susan says yes, Movistar do, as do others, I understand.

We use a Movistar SIM card in our UK mobile & ensure we top up before the 6 months is up. It is only a 5€  minimum top up anyway. I believe also that if you don't top up within the 6 months they cut the SIM off after a further 7.5 months. 

Here are the Movistar details in English.  (PDF) Pages 6 & 7 tell you about SIM limits.

If you topped up in October I don't think you would have been cut off yet .... I have a vague memory of 'phone companies cutting payg 'phones off if they were not registered ... maybe this has happened to you?

AH, I've just remembered that we had to register our Spanish SIM number recently as the Spanish govt were insisting on it & THAT is likely why your SIM was cut off, Crostrad.

We'd had our SIM since 2005 when we didn't need to show a passport. NOW when you buy one you have to & details go on their computer. We did ours in September, I think the cut off date was October.

HOWEVER, many were saying, in forums, that it is Oct 2009 not 2008 BUT, as you were cut off, I think maybe it was 2008.

Anyone else not registered & been cut off with ANY Spanish provider, not just Movistar ?

Thanks to every one for replies to my question.I checked out the Movistar facts, and it seems that we have indeed lost the 17 euros credit and the phone number ,very annoying as we have a stack of contact cards that we printed up with both mobile numbers on,I suppose I can spend this snowbound afternoon crossing off the Movistar number from the cards  I was wondering if the fact that the sim was originally from a rental contract in Tenerife that was then sold on had anything to do with it. Anyhow,it's dead for sure, yesterday ( back in u.k ) I plugged my Amena card into the phone and it detected that I was roaming, and messaged me with what call charges would be if I used it. I then plugged in the Movistar card and it just lay there having a sulk.  When the ground has thawed out I shall dig a deep hole at the back of the onion patch and give the card a decent burial.

For anybody still not sure of the dates for cut off--I read today that the spanish govt. will be launching an advertising campaign at the end of this month. All holders of pay as you go cards will have to take their phone to one of their network providers shops and show nie or residents papers by November 7th 2009.  Users not registered by this date will have the service cancelled by the operators.  Terrorists win again in making life more difficult for the rest of us, they used unregistered phones for the Madrid phone bombings--hence the government initiative.

Hi Crostrad, to register our PAYG Spanish SIM last year we just had to show one passport, not NIE (we do have NIEs) or Residencia (we don't have Residencia, we're non residents).

Those who have Spanish PAYG SIMs who haven't bought in Spain but go on holiday or rent don't fall into the NIE/Residencia catagory, do they ?

So, I think you'll likely find, as we did, that your passport suffices. After all, it's just your ID they want.

Hi Morerosado, if you go to the Typically Spain website and look at  yesterdays (monday ) newspapers in english--that is where I got the information from. I tried including the link to the page but 'cos I'm a low poster it wasn't allowed.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_20081.shtml

Hi Crostrad, I just looked. (Thanks Poppyseed for the link).

There's a lot of this info going round but we had first hand experience (we registered at the Movistar shop in Guardamar in Sept 2008) & Movistar only needed a passport. Of course we did take our Padron & our NIEs but these weren't asked for by staff. Having read that I would obviously take what we did, though Residencia ????!!! Non residents do not have Residencia !

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EDITED TO ADD: We were not  going to be given a record of this, woman just typed it into her computer. However, we asked for a copy & she obliged so it might be a good idea to request that, to prove you did register in case of a problem later.

Well, a visit to the Amena/orange shop to get registered is going to be our first chore when we next manage to get over in April. The fact that it is close to the All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet may dull the pain.Thanks for the advice Morerosado.

At least registration is free, Crostrad. Not much these days is.

We registered our spanish vodaphone sim last September by taking our passport into a mobile phoneshop and not only was it free, they also gave us about 12 euros credit.  Don't know if this applies to all providers.

URGENT NOTE, PLEASE READ & DIGEST.

We went into the local Movistar shop in September 2008 to register our SIM card &, as far as we were concerned, they had done that & we even requested a copy of the info they had put on the computer to prove we'd done it.

So when we saw a text from Movistar this March, which we would normally delete as we don't understand or speak Spanish,  & it had 'targeta' & 'Nov 09' in it I decided we should return to the shop & ask advice. OH thought it was just a general text chucked out to all but it turned out not to be so.

When we went in September to register we let the staff get on with it & obviously expected them to do it correctly. We took our passports & all they wanted was a passport number (we're non residents) & the actual phone number. Seems that was not all correct & it was as well we went back when we received that text. Many of our friends have also received the same text but deleted it as they didn't understand it.

Apparently we WERE NOT REGISTERED AT ALL !!!

Staff looked at the print off they had given us in September & the text then called up the details. The woman took the SIM card out of our mobile & put the serial number on the PC then spent ages typing away before asking my OH to write his signature on an electronic pad then she handed us a print off without us asking for one. It had my OH's signature on it. We looked at it & my OH's Christian name was spelt incorrectly. We commented, she said 'pc is happy', his surname was down as his middle name, again we commented & got same response. We saw it did say United Kingdom in one area of the form but it had ' Nigeria'  in another area, more comment from us, comment from her...'PC is happy all is ok !!!'

What CAN you do ? It's Spain, they're a law unto themselves.

PLEASE WILL YOU ALL BE AWARE & CHECK YOU ARE DEFINITELY REGISTERED OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR CREDIT & SIM IN NOVEMBER THIS YEAR.

I registered my pay as you go phone with vodafone

when I was last in spain at the shop in carrefour in

torrevieja.I was given an official form showing that I

am now legally registered.

the form is foolscap size ( a bit bigger than A4)

forgot to add that the form shows the following,

my spanish address

my phone number

my date of birth

my passport number

I also use a pay as you go when in Spain and if memory serves me correctly most providers "cut" you off if unused for in excess of 3 months however I beleive it is Moviestar who have a 6 month period, the frustrating part being when cut off it is just as easy to take a completely new number as to trying to have the original one restarted.

My phone would not work when I arrived in Murcia last week. I asked in the Postroom if we could reactivate our Movistar sim cards, firstly as we both had quite a lot of money in them and we also wanted to keep our numbers. We had thought that if we used our number within 6 months all was fine but no. He told me that we had to TOP UP within 6 months. In fact he kept numbers for people and topped up for them.He offered to try to put money in on the internet and it worked. I understand we all have until Nov.09 to register.