Impossible to use data roaming in Switzerland on iPhone SE 3rd generation

Hey there @Catherine Aguilar, welcome to Community!

Roaming should work in Switzerland so long as you have enough data, enabled roaming and your bill cap high enough, so our apologies that it’s not working.

Have you tried restarting your phone and resetting network settings?

Also, what network are you connected to there?

Thanks,

Tyler

Hi, thanks for getting back. I have enough data, enabled roaming and a £50 bill cap (won’t allow me more, even though I’d increase it even more as I am so desperate to use my phone in Switzerland for work).

I have restarted phone and reset network settings but this made no difference.

No problem using my mum’s wifi but impossible to use mobile data when out of the house. 

The local network is Sunrise.

I have now found out that iD linked to 3 network support many countries but not Switzerland! If it had been more clearly visible prior to my purchase I would have retracted. Now I’d have to pay over £500 to retract. Deeply regretting my choice.

Thanks for helping me.

Catherine

Hi @Catherine Aguilar,

Please can you try and manually connect to SALT and Swisscom?

If you still have issues, please contact our Live Chat Team.

Kash

Thank you Kash, did exactly that right from the start. Neither Sunrise nor Salt worked after I manually changed my network. I am very reluctant to contact the iD chat team as the waiting time is never below 80 – 130 minutes (same for the complaints team). I simply have too much work on to spend indefinite time on a chat line that often isn’t up to the task (even after bypassing the bots and going round in circles for 20 minutes).

For now, I will solve the issue buying an eSim from Airalo as iD can’t come up with the goods. Maybe a £50 bill cap isn’t sufficient to cover Swiss roaming costs as 3 Network/iD – outrageously – won’t cover a small country at the heart of Europe, and iD won’t allow me to go beyond a £50 cap.

So much trouble for something that never caused any problems before with other providers.

Hi @Catherine Aguilar 

It’s very possible that you have already used allowance that would add up to charges using the full bill cap.

Tom

That’s probably what happened, how shockingly useless that is!! I was not able to roam even for 1 second and had to purchase additional international eSims (Airalo worked - well done Airalo). I couldn’t roam in Italy either, even though it says Italy is one of the countries where inclusive package minutes can be used.

I am cursing myself left, right and centre for having chosen iD mobile – and I will let everyone around me know that it is one of the most useless providers I have ever used. It’s just about good enough for teenagers who never leave their local area and are on a pocket money budget. Everything about iD is pathetic – customer service, package deal, coverage, everything. Never again.

You could take some personal responsiblity and have actually read the included roaming countries before taking out your plan. But winge on a forum instead if you like lol

Hi @Catherine Aguilar 

I’m sorry you feel that way, we don’t include Switzerland as an inclusive roaming country, it’d cost extra according to the usage you make, this could be a lot of usage or it could be very little. Our best advise is to set your bill cap accordingly to avoid unwanted charges and as @tom12 suggests, be aware of the countries we do and do not include.

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

Are you still in Italy having issues?

Tom

No, I am back in the UK. I spent 3 days in Italy, which I did check before going, and is supposed to be covered. It didn’t work. As for Switzerland, I’ve been with 3 different providers and they all treated Switzerland as any other EU country (even though it is not officially in the EU) and included it in their data packages. I could therefore be forgiven for assuming it was the same with iD. As regards the bill cap, I set it to £50, and I couldn’t go beyond that. Shocking that this amount wouldn’t even suffice for one mobile call.

These are all plain facts. If tom12 thinks this is “whingeing” on my part, I am truly sorry. But I am also sorry for paying a monthly fee to a provider who expects its customers to work out everything themselves and offers bots as a customer service.

Thank you for your reply @Catherine Aguilar 

We are very sorry for any frustration or inconvenience caused. 

When visiting a country that is not covered by inclusive roaming, call, texts and data are chargeable. This would mean that when using mobile data, charges will accumulate and use up your spending cap. 

We are sorry for the issues you experienced in Italy. Unfortunately, diagnosing the cause of the roaming issue becomes harder after you have returned to the UK. If you experience any problems in the future, please 

do reach out and we will be happy to look in to this further. 

Thanks, 

Nat 

Unfortunately, reaching out with no connection proved difficult, and when finally succeeding in reaching out, i had to fight my way through countless automated bots, going round in circles and receiving no useable answer. I gave up and bought an Airalo eSIM for Italy as well as Switzerland. I have given up on iD abroad and as soon as my contract is up I’ll switch providers.

Hi @Catherine Aguilar 

I’m sorry to hear that, as mentioned we’d be happy to look into issues further, if you want us to.

Tom

Then I kindly ask you to provide a contact where I can discuss my issues directly and not spend hours on chat,  30 minutes of which are taken up by bots misdirecting me. Reaching out while abroad isn’t possible as two SMS and 3 seconds online reached my £50 bill cap, which I wasn’t able to raise further.

Thank you for your reply @Catherine Aguilar.

We are an online only service which means we do not have a customer service contact number. 

If you do not wish to contact Live Chat, we can look in to the issue here via private message. 

Please let us know how you wish to proceed. 

Thanks, 

Nat 

Thanks for your response and your offer to deal with this issue via private message. Unfortunately, it is of no help to me because

• the issue was urgent 4 weeks ago
• private message cannot be reached if you’re left with no connection abroad
• dealing with an urgent issue via private message is of no help as it takes days and weeks (as it proves here) to be contacted about it
• Having no alternative helpline to chatbots is very poor service, which is one of the weakest points of iD mobile and the number one reason I will quit as soon as I can and will never recommend it to anyone I know.

So to sum it all up: my initial issue could not be resolved. 4 weeks after the event is too late and I am left frustrated and dissatisfied. When I next go abroad I will ignore iD mobile unless I have wifi and simply buy Airalo eSims –» have a look at their services, iD could learn something.

Best wishes,

Catherine

Hi @Catherine Aguilar,

I’m very sorry about this.

For quicker responses you can contact our Live Chat Team and they can escalate it if required.

Kash

Hi, no option in an emergency when you can’t use your data abroad and when you’re finally connected  on WiFi, your lovely ‘online chat’ took me over 20 minutes to go round in circles with useless bots until I got referred, waiting up to 2 hours, so I had to up and sign up with Airalo.

I can see you are trying hard to find answers, unfortunately none of them offer a viable solution. The only one is to quit iD when I’m no longer locked in a contract.

thanks for all your efforts but we seem to go round in circles here, so you don’t have to carry on this exchange.

Hey there @Catherine Aguilar, thank you for reporting back to us and our apologies for the issues caused, and we’re sorry we weren’t able to help you out further with this.

If you would like any further assistance, then of course we’d be happy to keep trying.

Thanks,

Tyler