VM Mobile in Spain

[Stanl]

I recently went to Spain with family members who all have Virgin Mobile Contracts.

When we landed in Spain I had no signal, the 2 others did, one had a Samsung Galaxy and the other an iPhone.

After connecting my phone to WiFi I eventually got a phone signal the others had no problem.

Next issue, if we got separated and tried to ring each other it didn’t work, but calling home worked fine.

I am interested to know if anyone had experienced similar problems 

[Smoggy239]

Hi Stanl,

My wife, myself and many others have had the problem of unable to hear on incoming calls whilst roaming, there are many posts on here about it, is this your problem or do you have problems actually making calls ?. If this is the same problem how are the mobile numbers of your family members that you had problems with stored in your phone, do they begin with 0 or +44 ? If you are still in Spain at the moment and they are stored beginning 0, try changing them to +44 and see what happens on calls to your family members. I could call my daughters ( numbers stored +44 ) who were with us in Majorca ok and hear them ok, but not my wife ( stored 0 )

[Smoggy239]

Hi Stanl,

I forgot to mention that if you have the same problem then you would be unable to hear on incoming calls from the UK but calls to the UK would be ok. The change of stored number from 0 to +44 may help with calls in Spain but wouldn't fix the underlying problem that Virgin Mobile has although if it does work it may help understand the overall problem.

[Zach_R]

Hi @Stanl,

Thank you for your post and welcome back to our community forums. We're here to help.

I am so sorry to hear that you were experiencing some issues with your mobile services when you recently went to Spain. Did you ensure that your SIM card and your handset were both set up to have roaming enabled at least 24 hours before you left the UK?

In regards to problems calling one another when you were all in Spain, it's possible that there were signal/mast issues in the area of Spain you were in at that time. Along with that, if they're not already set this way, I would advise trying to change the 0 at the start of the number to +44 instead to see if that improves things for you at all.

Thanks,
 

[Stanl]

I have just checked and the numbers I was dialling started with zero.

We are now back in the UK and the stored numbers are not like they were when I left.

all the numbers in my phone display in an unusual fashion now i.e. 00 00 000 00 00 so I will have to check the community to see if there is a fix for this.

All incoming calls rang on my phone but went dead the minute I answered.

When I made a call it didn’t even ring it just cut me off.

I was with EE before this and never had any issues at all when not in the UK.

very frustrating as I am going again soon so need to get this sorted out.

[Stanl]

Hi Zach,

yes the roaming has been set up since I purchased a VM Sim Card which was several months ago.

Not all my numbers have +44 in front of them and I’ve got a lot of numbers.

[Zach_R]

Hi @Stanl,

Thank you for responding and expanding. If you leave the UK again and are trying to contact a UK number but have issues, I would first check the number in your phone and change the 0 at the beginning to +44 instead. This should rectify the problem for you.

Would you also mind confirming what model you have and are using?

Thanks,
 

[Stanl]

I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max, the wife has an iPhone XS Max and my brother in laws a Samsung Galaxy but I don’t know the model number 

[Zach_R]

Hi @Stanl,

Thank you for that. To confirm, it was just your iPhone 12 Pro Max that appeared to have these issues, is that correct? Did you purchase that handset from us or from a third party?

Thanks,
 

[Smoggy239]

Hi Zach

The problem is not phoning the UK, its being unable to hear on incoming calls - here is a link to page 5 of a previous tread about this problem, it contains info regarding the problem and a possible fix for the reformatted contact numbers. 

Can't hear international calls - Page 5 - Virgin Media Community - 5018195

I mentioned changing the contact number prefix from 0 to +44 as calls to my daughters were ok , they were on holiday with us and ive just noticed that their numbers were stored with +44. Having Dial Assist on or off also affects calls as detailed oh page 5