SIM card with Pay As You Go (top up contract)

Follow up to my post: when I was in Germany, they had loads of Turkish newsagents where you could buy pay-as-you-go SIM cards (not sure about topping up). Is there such a thing in Budapest? I dropped into a shop selling second-hand phones and a woman there said that one Nokia I fancied only worked with a Vodafone SIM card (seemed strange to me!), but she would sell me one. So I wonder if there are options rather than going round the salons? I visted three T-Mobile salons before I found one which actually sold SIM cards and at each one absolutely no English spoken (all young staff too and I have found even oldies on the street here speak better English!). Vodafone had a guy who spoke English and, also to their credit, no long wait in a ticketed queue....

If you mean you want a prepay SIM then try:

https://www.telenor.hu/en/tariff/pre-pa … ff-package

Sumarokov wrote:

.....

I bought a SIM card from LIDL for 999 HUF, but the activation is incredibly difficult, now I am supposed to fill out a special form at the supermarket for them to send me some activation number to my home address...

Has anyone recently secured a deal that gives them a SIM card and lets them top up just by buying credit when needed?

All of them let you do that for a price but the hassle is they want your ID documents and in return give you a stupidly lage pile of paperwork which you have to sign and store somewhere.  In many other countries, you can just buy the card, stick money on it and that's it.  Once you've been through the ID policy, you don't need to worry about it again and can top up everywhere, including Tesco's and also at some ATMs.  If you don't want to give your ID, you can ask someone else to buy it using their ID (assuming that they will do that).

I like the system in places like Thailand where they just give you a sim when you get off the plane. All you have to do is put credit on it and it works immediately.  They usually give you about $2 to start which is enough for a couple of free calls.

ID has been required in (much? part? all? of) Europe for years to activate a prepay SIM because the Madrid train bombs were set off by phones with unregistered prepay SIM cards. For example, I was living in Switzerland at the time and my Swiss telecom provider after the bombings blocked my phone's SIM until I came down and provided my ID.

Sumarokov wrote:

I visted three T-Mobile salons before I found one which actually sold SIM cards and at each one absolutely no English spoken (all young staff too and I have found even oldies on the street here speak better English!).

Not difficult to explain: Because the youth that speak English also usually have skills that put them into management positions, not as low wage floor staff, or they go abroad to work where they can earn more.

klsallee wrote:

ID has been required in (much? part? all? of) Europe for years to activate a prepay SIM because the Madrid train bombs were set off by phones with unregistered prepay SIM cards. For example, I was living in Switzerland at the time and my Swiss telecom provider after the bombings blocked my phone's SIM until I came down and provided my ID.

It's not even required in the UK which has a substantial history of domestic terrorism.  You can just get them over the counter and top up with cash. No questions are asked. If you pay with a debit or credit card it's traceable or buy somewhere like a supermarket (sold at the checkout in packets), you will almost certainly be captured on security cameras. 

For the Spanish bombs, it need not have been domestic mobile phones, they could have been been on roaming and triggered from anywhere in the world. Registering against an ID against a sim card is hardly a barrier to those determined enough.

I did not say it made a lot of sense to register SIM with an ID, simply mention why it is now required. 

But also if the UK has had more domestic terrorism it may simply be evidence of selecting personal freedoms over security. Nothing wrong with that per se.

P.S. Security cameras are also easy to defeat unless you want to outlaw hats, dark glasses and beards.

klsallee wrote:

I did not say it made a lot of sense to register SIM with an ID, simply mention why it is now required. 

But also if the UK has had more domestic terrorism it may simply be evidence of selecting personal freedoms over security. Nothing wrong with that per se.

P.S. Security cameras are also easy to defeat unless you want to outlaw hats, dark glasses and beards.

I note the icognito picture on your profile - nicely done I might add.   

Yes, UK had domestic terrorism (Northern Ireland) and I guess new terrorists in form of Islamists and reimported nationals returning from fighting in the near East (Je suis Charlie etc).  It's become easier to forget Northern Ireland if one was not directly involved.

In some countries I've been in like Cambodia and Laos apparently the major interest to track potential kidnappers of the Chinese community. That's what I was told. Bit crazy because any kidnapper worth their salt isn't going to to say, "Damn, I need to register my phone, my evil plot and conspiracy is utterly and completely foiled!".  Criminals are criminals because they flout the law!