On my Id-Mobile plan, can I receive 2FA SMS texts while in the USA?

Hey there ​@mobry, you can indeed use texts, calls and data in USA, however, these would be charged:

https://www.idmobile.co.uk/help-and-advice/international-and-roaming-charges

If you were to receive a text, you would be charged for receiving the text.

Thanks,

Tyler

Thank you for the reply Tyler(*),

   I followed the link but I am still confused (perhaps I am getting old!). The webpage for the USA explains that you can buy a roaming add-on for £5 per day. There is a list of prices below. It is UNCLEAR as to whether the prices are IF YOU HAVE bought £5 roaming, or simply standard charges if you have not.

When I searched your website last week it appeared to say, on a normal tariff (with no roaming add on) the UK phone could not be used at all in the USA, but could be used in Europe. This does actually make sense that some countries are excluded from *standard* roaming.

TBH I am not paying £5 per day just in case I need to recieve a text SMS. For a 2 week holiday that is £70.

The table gives the cost for “Texts to United States (USA)”, but again this is less than clear to me! Is this for texts sent from your phone IN the USA to another phone IN the USA, or does it mean texts sent from anywhere (i.e. UK) to your phone IN the USA???

Just to explain “If you were to receive a text, you would be charged for receiving the text.”, does this work if I HAVE NOT bough £5/day roaming? Or does this apply ONLY IF I have bought roaming for £5/day?

regards…

mobry

(*) I did see a reply to a tweet on X/Twitter from “Tyler”, but it was so generic I assumed that Tyler was a bot setup to make standard replies. I can see that AI could be used to reply to my posting here.

Just an update now that I am back from the USA.

I bought an eSIM and enabled it when I arrived in the US and disabled my UK (physical SIM).

I did NOT pay Id.Mobile for any of the expensive (US) add-ons. The eSim was much much better value for money.

During my vacation I had to register on a UK website and they insisted on a UK phone and wanted to send a pin for confirmation of the phone. I re-enabled the UK line, and the pin sent from the UK did arrive in a SMS message. I was able to enter the pin on the website and get registered.

TBH this was very re-assuring.

I normally pay £8.00 pcm, but I see the next bill will be for £8.58 . Either this is the annual increase or perhaps to receive the SMS text cost me 58p ?

Why is this important? If I were to have made a high cost credit card purchase in the USA my CC company would send a pin via SMS to authorise the purchase to my registered UK phone number.

Okay ​@mobry, if you’ve enabled roaming for your iD account, then SMS text messages are free to receive worldwide.

• How do I enable Roaming? F.A.Q.

• How much of my data allowance can I use when Roaming? F.A.Q.

These community articles might help.

It’s free to receive SMS’s whilst roaming that’s why it’s not listed. 

OK Tyler,

   thank you for confirming this. Just FYI I was unable to find this CLEAR statement on the website, despite searching around. Likely my fault, but I did follow several links and look at many pages. I even tried “chat” which was super frustrating (especially the so called AI), eventually being forwarded to a human, but ended up wasting 30 minutes of my time with no clear answer.

BTW I am still not sure if Tyler is a real human or a bot. Tyler’s reply on twitter and the one at the top were  so generic these postings could have been made by AI. Tyler’s last posting was much more specific., so perhaps he is real, IDK? But  to explain he did answer above “ If you were to receive a text, you would be charged for receiving the text.”

I am happy to finally have this question clearly answered. I will continue to use a eSIm when in the USA, which will allow calls and texts to the UK (plan dependant), but as mentioned the ability to recieve SMS from the UK is super important, such as the case I mentioned.

thank you

--mobry

andewhite wrote:

Okay ​@mobry, if you’ve enabled roaming for your iD account, then SMS text messages are free to receive worldwide.

• How do I enable Roaming? F.A.Q.

• How much of my data allowance can I use when Roaming? F.A.Q.

These community articles might help.

Thank you, these links are useful, but NOT in answering my USA question (*), but because I am travelling to Europe and WILL need roaming (AFAIK), and I had NO idea that I had to use the app to enable this.

(*) I find the term “roaming” confusing, as it is not clear to me exactly what this means i.e. sending or recieving texts, voice calls, or data. My understanding (and by now most readers of this thread will understand that I am very confused) is that to use “roaming” in the USA, I have to buy the USA “roaming” add-ons. Then “roaming” allows me to send/recieve calls within(?) the USA only (plus data allowance). I have no idea if “roaming” allows calls back to the UK.

But does “roaming” apply when considering the reception of SMS messages only?

So thanks for pointing out this setting which I will need for my next European trip :thumbs-up:

--mobry

Hey there ​@mobry, thank you for your response and I’m glad we could clear this up for you.

I am indeed a human here and not AI haha. 

Please let us know if you have any further queries or questions.

Thanks,

Tyler

OK Tyler, my apologies!

You just cannot be sure nowadays. So many companies are using AI bots to (usually fail) to answer questions or to post generic replies on Twitter, it has left me very suspicious.

--mobry