Brightroam

I bought SIM cards for France from Brightroam, two years in a row. The first time worked ok. The second time they didn’t cancel my service when I called in and made the request, they later insisted I had to login to cancel it.
Customer service is poor, they people on the phone don’t seem to be overly knowledgeable or competent in my case.
I won’t use them again, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend them to anyone.

We had excellent customer service when we wanted to purchase a SIM card from Brightroam but since this time it has been nothing but a hassle. I would definitely steer clear! I received charges for text messages I did not make. I was on an 11 hour flight to Italy for goodness sakes, how could I have made those text messages to no one I know in Russia? So yes, the dispute resolution time was originally 3 – 4 weeks, I have been waiting to hear back from Brightroam for over 8 weeks. I call every two weeks to get a status and wait on hold for at least 45 minutes to over an hour. And funny how I get the SAME customer service representative from original order, to submittal of my dispute, and for status of my dispute, which leads me to believe they have once person manning the phone calls. And lastly, I called to cancel the SIM card immediately we returned from Italy, received a confirmation number for it, and I am still getting bills well after the usage duration for random ‘forwarding fees’. So now I get to wait on hold again and receive no reimbursement for 2 months or more. Again, steer clear!

I purchased a phone and a sim card for France with high hopes. I had it activated but could not get the service to work when I arrived in France. After a call to their customer service they managed to get the service to work after 3 days.
Well, I asked for a credit for the days that it didn’t work, no answer. My credit card was charged for the next month, which I did not authorize. Just try to get someone on their customer services lines, there are at least 3 of them. They all go to the same recorded message. I stayed on the phone for almost an hour with no human answering.
I called the credit card company to get my money back, still waiting. Don’t get sucked in, I thought the idea was good but no customer service if things don’t go right.

Got two SIM cards. One worked dandy. The other did not, despite multiple calls to tech support. 6.5 weeks later: «We have not heard back about whether it’s posted, can’t refund.» So I called credit card company and told them to stop payment (THAT, by contrast, worked like a charm: 5 minutes and I was done).
When it works, great, if not: caveat emptor.
The best part is how every time you call the time required «by policy» to process a refund jumps by 2 weeks. First two, then 4, then six, now eight. Not making this up. AND, they have a web page where you can see that the card was not used,. My God. They were dumbfounded when I pointed out that MY policy involved not paying for things that did not work. It was amazing: no answer, just repeating that I had to wait another two weeks.
Ahh, no.
Here’s the thing: what these folks do is buy SIM cards in bulk and resell. There is minimal ability to help out if things do not work.
Now you know