I rented a phone from Cellular Abroad for a trip to Italy and was very disappointed. I won't make that mistake again.

Bought their International Data SIM Card with 12 GB 4G Data, for use in Italy and France. CA claims their connectivity is excellent, with connections thru one of the larger cellular carriers in Europe. I did not find that correct. After arriving in Italy, we found the connectivity to be intermittent sometimes, and worthless on other times. It was so bad that I was forced to go to Vodaphone and purchase one of their SIM cards for use in Italy. After 2 weeks, we went to France and duplicated the experience. After extensive frustration (including one night trying to use GPS to find our hotel), I bought an Orange SIM card and solved my connection problem. Both Vodaphone and Orange gave excellent results. Don't throw away your money on Cellular Abroad. It is virtually worthless. read more

UNLESS YOU ARE A MASOCHIST AND WANT FRUSTRATION AND AGGRAVATION FROM THIS COMPANY - STAY AWAY, DO NOT USE. I wish I had read the negative, (and totally true, since I experienced the exact same problems expressed here) reviews about Cellular Abroad before making the mistake of buying a French (Lebara) SIM at a cost of $59.95 for a trip to Paris from them. I contacted CA from Boston prior to my trip, in order to have the French mobile number to give friends and family before my departure on March 5th. It arrived promptly, but in two pieces. I called their customer support number and an extremely aggressive and rude man told me it wasn't a big deal and he would send me a "tray" to enable me to insert the SIM into my phone - which he did and I was able to insert it. I activated it, as instructed, on arrival in France on March 6th and my home screen showed "Lebara", so I thought everything was OK....it wasn't. For an entire week, I was unable to make or receive calls with their Sim (only a few voicemails). I called them and e-mailed their "customer (non) service" daily and have never received a reply. After a week of no access to my cell phone, in desperation, I purchased a new SIM card and "time" to the tune of 30 euros because the CA card kept saying "no credit". How could there be no credit if I paid 59.95 for it and was not able to make or receive any calls? Anyway, the long and the short of it, is that I certainly would not recommend them (still haven't heard a word from them after 10 days), nor use them. I contacted the Better Business Bureau, since CA has them on their internet site: See below, their copy-pasted info on the CA site with the BBB logo and A+ score!!! and BBB's "ALERT" BBB accredited business A+ BBB Rating Scorecard ALERT On at least one occasion, BBB sent mail to this company in an attempt to develop a report. The mail was returned by the Post Office; therefore a complete BBB report at this time is unavailable. If you have information that would assist your BBB in developing a report, please speak with a BBB service advisor. read more

Thanks Cellular Abroad, Was recomended by a friend that traveled to Mexico he said works great and tried it and 100 % works great, the only thing is the phone isn't the greatest as far as luxury but does the work, had a little issue at first but I called there customer service and they helped me right away no problem, I do recomend them 100 %... Thanks Again Cellular Abroad... Joe G. read more

Bought a SIM card from Cellular Abroad and tried to use it in the Czech Republic. I have phone coverage but can't access the local data network on any of the carriers here. Talked with tech support and they have no idea why this is happening. Big disappointment since data connection is the main reason for buying the SIM card. I don't recommend Cellular Abroad read more

Total ripoff! The sales pitch with NatGeo's name is compelling, but the service is TOTALLY BOGUS! When I got to the UK, I tried to install the SIM card they sent in our iPhones (yes, they soaked me twice!). The iPhone uses the very smallest form factor of SIM, which is not what Cellular Abroad sent me, even though I specified iPhone 5 when I ordered. I had to take the card to a phone shop at Heathrow to have the SIMs "punched out" before they would fit. Strike one. Once in the phones, one worked, one could not find service. Once it finally did, we had to make many setting changes to the phone, plus dial extra characters before and after a number to make a call, so your stored numbers are useless-we had to hand enter every number. We could never get a call out to the US, just never worked. Strike two. Text-nada. Strike three. The SIM supposedly included a $10 credit which was gone instantly-the "auto top-up feature dinged me for another $29 before I had gotten out of the airport!!! Strike four. And all of this aggravation was multiplied by the fact that there is NO support other than 8-4 Pacific time, which was not a free call and required an extended hold time. We finally went to a Vodaphone store to buy new SIM cards which worked flawlessly. Do yourself a favor and skip Cellular Abroad read more

I was very disappointed by the products and services of Cellular Abroad. The phones were unreliable. Once we got to Europe, one of the two phones failed to receive a signal for several days of our trip. I called their international assistance line and spoke with a person who couldn't advise on any solution but assured me that someone would call me back the next day. I did not receive a call back (ever) and the phone continued to fail to receive any cell signal. I finally resorted to emailing them and they confirmed that they had failed to call back. I asked to be reimbursed for the phone that hadn't worked. The next day it started receiving a cell signal but this was 12 day into our 19 day trip. We never made one call on the faulty phone yet never received any refund, apology, or consideration. Bottom line - the products didn't work as advertised / the service wasn't provided as advertised / the value wasn't delivered as advertised / the customer support wasn't helpful We spent a lot of money for little value and I will make a different choice on my next trip. read more

I rented Cellular Abroad's MIFI device for a trip to Italy in June. The product generally performed well, while it was active; however I was more than a little surprised when I ran out of the 10GB allotment without any warning or ability to monitor usage. I wasn't too worried (my mistake) about running over, because of the company's representation that once one used the 10GB of data the device would still function at 2G speeds. The reality was the device would not allow connection to anything at all - it was literally not useable. This created a very difficult time as I used the device extensively for navigation. Unaware that I had overspent my data allotment, I contacted the company to inquire about why it wouldn't work. It took 2 days to get a reply, which simply stated -"The data cut off because the 10GB allotted per month was used. I hope this clarifies your inquiry." That completely left me out in the cold, so to speak, for the last several days of my trip. After returning from Italy, I expressed my frustration to the company with no reply. Now they sent me an email stating "we hope Cellular Abroad's service helped make you trip more enjoyable"...and ask me to write a Yelp review - so here it is. read more

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE. Rented the mifi unit for 15 days in Italy, after 3 days it stopped working. Emails and phone calls resulted in ZERO help. On the day of my departure I wrote them again letting them know of my dissatisfaction only to get an email back simply saying I had used 10MB of data in 3 days. I had gone to the, TIM store in Italy (the local carrier) and was told the problem was the SIM card. You can buy a MIFI unit on Amazon for less than $75.00 and get a 10MB SIM card in Italy for $28. A lot less that the $200. + this company charged. I refused the charged with my credit card carrier and this company never fought it. I would never ever do business with this company. read more

Got a SIM card for France for my niece who is on Fall Study Abroad just outside of Paris. I reupped her plan monthly from here and she uses it to get around and contact her Mom. We had some issues finding out if her Sprint phone was unlocked before she left, but shes been using it the whole time and emailed me a thank you :) read more

I was just checking out the service but after reading the reviews, forget it! Sounds like product and customer service will create lots of trouble. read more

Just what I needed for a recent trip to Poland and Slovakia. My home cell provider cannot European service so I purchased a 30 day talk/text/data SIM CARD from Cellular Abroad to use in my normal, unlocked phone. After reading some negative reviews I also took a small, slow cell with expensive pay as you go European access; I needn't have bothered. I printed a copy of the APN settings before I left, just in case, but the downloads from Cellular Abroad once I landed and turned the phone on worked just fine, though it does take a bit of time for some of them to come through. I never used the text capability so cannot be sure it worked (most people seem to use What's App), but the talk and data was just fine...in fact the data seemed faster than my US access. I suspect many people are not familiar with how to switch sim cards, APN settings and the fiddling that might occasionally be needed to get a different sim card working totally. The service was a bit pricey for a 30day plan that I used for 6 days but completely satisfactory and I would use this firm again. read more

We had no service from Cellular Abroad. We were on vacation for a month. We were on a tour for the first 13 days. We had people from our tour try to call us and they were not able to use the number. We tried to call them and got the message "Call Failed!" We bought several day tours and even the information center person was unable to call us and she even took our phone to try to call herself. All calls FAILED. I communicated with the company by email several times and they have a serious lack of tech support. read more

Save yourself a lot of trouble and do not do business with Cellular Abroad. Terrible service from this company. My colleague and I both purchased the data and voice plans for our time in Scotland. Both of us were shipped SIM cards that turned out to be expired and non functioning. While our money was refunded, that was little consolation for having no voice or data plan for two weeks. read more

Stay far away from this company if you are located in Canada, and travelling to Europe and wish to use their mifi. 1. Surprise shipping costs to Canada 2. You have to be quite technically adept to get it to work. 3. When it's not working, you'll be wasting your time troubleshooting instead of holidaying. 4. I don't think their support staff know enough about getting it working in Europe. They suggested I go to a local store for the carrier! 5. All these things you read about the "unlimited" data but it's actually limited, are true. Website says unlimited, then when you receive the product and docs it is limited. 6. Don't waste any time trying to get a refund for their product not working. Heads up everyone. read more

I got a phone for a trip to Europe from Cellular Abroad. Got to Europe, inserted the SIM card per instructions, and the phone would not connect to the network. It's Sunday, and there's no tech support from Cellular Abroad on Sunday, so I am out of luck. read more

Got SIM from them a year ago to use in China. After some tech support, it finally worked ok. So, I bought National Geographic SIM to use in Cuba. Didn't work and couldn't get support. Had no phone or data service, no matter what I tried. My friend who opted for ATT global plan was just fine...very annoying! So, I barely cut my phone on at all. Got home and had 4 charges of $29 in ONE DAY to top up the plan if it reached 10MB of data! No customer support on weekends is bogus, especially when you are traveling. I expect them to reverse this charge, but I won't use them again. Spent $32 for the SIM and then $174 in charges for no service...some of that was Cuba's network, but the phone was cut off or on airplane mode the entire time. Disappointed in Cellular and won't use again. read more

Rented their new Phone for Europe, which offered 9gbs of data, 3000 minutes and 3000 texts in Europe! Great value for money, shipping arrived 2 days before we departed as they mentioned, and we were all set. The phone worked great while we travelled around Europe ( we visited Spain, France, Italy, Germany). In addition their customer service was very patience, friendly and efficent when we called in for options for coverage abroad. Would definetely recommend to everyone travelling abroad. read more

I purchased two SIM cards for me and my daughter from Cellular Abroad to use in Spain. Before I left to Spain, I requested T Mobile, my carrier, an authorization to unlock my iPhones. I got the authorization with the instructions on how to unlock my phone using a step by step procedure on iTunes. I followed the steps on iTunes, which included backing up my phone and restoring it. This procedure was successful. I understood my phones were unlocked. We traveled to Spain, inserted the SIM cards and the phones did not work. we tried many time and got a myriad of messages. I contacted Cellular Abroad while I was in Spain. I followed the advice given by Cellular Abroad on contacting them via email or phone in case of any problems during my trip, hoping to get a refund if I could not get the phones to work. I was very careful to use all the instructions given to me. But I could not get the phone to work. Contacting them directly during business hours was also difficult because of the time differences. Mostly, the inconvenience of dealing with this problem when you are in another country without a phone. When I came back to Los Angeles I requested a refund. I was denied because, as they told me, once the SIM cards are activated they can't resell them. They told me they were going to check with Orange (SIM card company) to see if there were any issues with the cards and get back to me. They never contacted me again. I lost $149. It seems that we are still in the wild West regarding the usage of Cell Phones in another country. i hope things get easier and companies take into account the difficulties a traveler could encounter traveling abroad and offer a refund in their policies. Orange made money. Cellular abroad made their money. I lost $149. read more

I live in Canada and bought a Cellular Abroad sim card for an important 3 day trip to the US. I got the SIM card, registered it, and told the people I was meeting the number. However, when I arrived it didn't work at all. My phone simply said `Sim card not valid'. I called the international help line from my computer, and they told me that it was their problem but they couldn't fix it at the moment. It never worked. When I got back to Canada I called again (to the US help line). They were completely unhelpful. They told me I couldn't get a refund. Before they could look into the problem, their phone line cut out, and I haven't been able to call back the rest of the day. I have tried numerous times, but their US phone line is down. I am normally a very tolerant person, and I have never written a bad review before, but I wanted to let people know that you can not trust these people. They take your money before you use the service, and I really suspect that its a scam. read more

I got a phone for a trip to London and Paris from Cellular Abroad. When I got it, I had to call technical support because it would not connect to any network. When I got to London, I had the same problem. I had to buy a phone there just to call Cellular Abroad to tell them their phone did not work again. I kept the phone I bought, which worked great, and cheaper. Cellular didn't even refund all of our money. Read the fine print. They keep shipping if it works or not. Stay away. read more

My phone arrived after I was enroute to Europe. I was promised that the phone would be delivered on a Thurs....did not happen. Then I was promised that the phone will be delivered by Saturday.....did not happen. The phone arrived on monday at 3pm while I was on the plane to Europe. I wrote to Cellularabroad and did not even receive a written apology. I got my charges reversed. But what good is that when my 2 week trip was ruined because I did not have the phone that I needed. No one in Cellularabroad is responsible for follow thru with the fulfillment of their orders. Customers do not get their phones on time.....oh well, that's just too bad. read more

I had an issue and contacted the president of the company. He was incredibly responsive and is working on a resolution. He was very concerned about his company's performance. I think that sometimes that customer response is better than a perfect experience. Customer service so lacking in most companies these days. It's refreshing.. read more

I will not use them again. I bought a phone that came with a sim card for multiple countries. I spent 4 weeks in Spain & France. I only used the phone about a dozen times but racked up charges much faster than the rates advertised. When I tried to call customer service I got recordings for several days saying that operators were unavailable and that I could not leave a message. I sent them an email complaining that the charges did not seem right & within a few hours about $40 got added back to my balance. I got an email telling me something about a network outage. Later many of my calls didn't go through yet I continued to be charged too much and for no obvious reason (like after checking my balance or trying to call customer service which was supposed to be free). When I got home I called Cellular Abroad but they insisted that I had made more calls than I actually had and I realized that they were charging me for calls that didn't go through. So I ended up paying about $4 per minute plus the price of the phone. I was also annoyed by the auditory delay on this phone - it produced a kind of echo that made it difficult to carry on a conversation - I had to pause a moment after every phrase so not to talk over the response. A disappointment. read more

I arrive in Israel with my sim card and I can receive and send calls within Israel for half a day, use data for another half day. I call all numbers for help, and all are on holiday. I finally get on the phone with someone two days later who tells me to check my credit, it was at 0, so she says to refill the card. I try refilling the card using credit card, it wont work but says you should have operator assistance. I talk to the same girl and she says you cant refill through cards. I also cant change the language from hebrew to english when following directions from the paperwork. She tells me to call the company even though Ive told her its all in hebrew and I cant understand anything. Horrible company, wouldnt ever use it. I prefer Talknsave, I have never had a problem with them (group deals I get through travel groups). read more

I bought an unlimited plan for italy from them...first sign of trouble, I called for support when their instructions, they first told me that my phone was locked which was wrong but got me to go do some more their work for them. I called back and said you were wrong "what do I do" they put me on forever hold.....after 45 minutes I gave up, reset my phone to factory reset and was able to connect although their instructions still didn't work and I wasn't sure it worked at all till I got Italy. Then in the middle of a four week trip, my "unlimited" internet died, after 3 days and 4 emails they respond back that TIM decided that 10gb is enough for "unlimited" even though their is no counter, warning or contractual information allowing this. In the middle of my trip I now have hotel Internet, steer clear of these guys unless u want this to happen to you...I'd bet netting I own than every single positive review is from a company clone, don't be fooled. read more

I paid for unlimited data, and had almost no connectivity in Italy. The phone's GPS function, in particular, did not work, which often left me wandering aimlessly through Milan, Florence and Rome. The phone and texting function worked great, but to get a browser open to send an email was nearly impossible. read more

I rented a MiFi unit for Italy from Cellular Abroad after extensive research. It arrived at my home a couple days before we were leaving. Upon arrival in Italy, we turned it on and it worked like a charm! It allowed us to access our email, send text messages and peruse the internet on our phones, iPad, and Kindle with no problems. We also used Skype via MiFi to speak to family members while away. I am a huge fan of these units rather than purchasing a SIM card or a phone. Any other phone calls we felt necessary to make, we made from our hotels. I did not require Cellular Abroad's customer service so I cannot review them on that. I will say that I felt their prices were a bit more than other companies, but they are local for me so I preferred that to renting from a foreign company. read more

I purchased their Global Sim Card card at Frys on a friday evening May 5th 2017 to use on my unlocked iPhone - I attempted to register it while still in the US on their website per instructions - got "activation successful" but with an added note that the ICC-ID number was not recognized. It turns out that all the stock of these cards that Fry's has is "expired" and Fry's were notified to not put them out for sale. All of the packaging and contact info is obsolete as well. I was able to do a live chat on the Cellularabroad website while in Europe and got excellent support. Although I am stuck in Europe for this trip without service (thanks to Fry's), Cellular Abroad arranged to send me a good replacement card for my next trip to Europe in 3 weeks. I will update this review when I return from that trip. read more

My two sons were traveling abroad to Italy for 3 weeks for school and here I am 5 days before they leave only to find out the fancy phones I bought them can't be used overseas. Scrambling to find a solution our (former) carrier Sprint recommended these guys and next thing I knew I had two rental phones ordered up and shipped right to my door step. The boys had no problem staying in touch with each other while finishing up their studies in Italy, and even managed to call their parents a couple times too. The service worked like a clock and the staff was always accommodating and knowledgeable whenever my wife or I had a questions regarding the service or any of the other thousand things we didn't know about cell phones. I normally don't write reviews for businesses but Cellular Abroad really helped us out. Thanks. read more

Rented this phone for our trip to Cuba for 10 days. I prepaid for one $29 voucher. When I arrived in Cuba I turned it on for the first time & it said "no funds". I had to add funds again - another $29. Tried to text my kids to inform of our arrival & no one could receive my messages. Got 1 text to my son-in-law & he contacted their chat line & they informed him he couldn't contact us because we had "no funds"!!! Put another $29 in. Tried numerous times to contact the help desk. They were either closed or the call wouldn't go through. We shut it completely off & considered it a piece of junk. Contacted the company upon our return & they just wanted to argue about all the calls placed. Funny - showed a long call to my son who was completely out of reach hunting & I never called him. I will NEVER order from this company. I would have come out MUCH cheaper using the AT&T plan. Thought National Geographic endorsement would have been better than this. Buyers beware. Read the reviews of others. read more

Don't do it! I found Cellular Abroad on the internet and trusted that they were a reliable business because of the association with National Geographic. I ordered a SIM card for a trip to Spain on Tuesday for a Sunday departure. I called and placed the order over the phone to be certain that it would arrive in time. The sales associate assured me that 3 day delivery would guarantee arrival. Needless to say, it did not show up. I received an email confirming the order and saying that a tracking number would be sent by email shortly. Foolishly, I felt this was taken care of and moved on to other preparations. I didn't notice that the tracking number was never sent until the package didn't arrive. Their offices close at 4pm on Friday (how do I get that job) and there is no 24 help line. It took hours of sleuthing on my part to even track down a tracking number from UPS to determine that the shipment was scheduled to arrive on Monday. When I finally got in touch with Cellular Abroad they said it was not their fault and I would have to deal with UPS. I say....it's your vendor. If you run a business with time sensitive shipments and you don't trust your shipper to deliver then find another shipping company or find another line of work. ...why can I order shoes from Zappos at 6pm on Tuesday and get them at 10 am on Wednesday with standard shipping and Cellular Abroad can't get a SIM card to me in less than 6 days with an expedited shipping fee? ....and why was a tracking number never sent? How was that UPS fault? Don't trust this company if your travel needs are important to you. read more

I have used Cellular Abroad for all my phone needs during multiple long trips (2 months usually) to Italy. In particular I use their SIM card and call-time purchase service. The service has always been excellent, including both the initial card purchase and also the addition of extra call time when needed. I especially liked the ability to conduct transactions in English while abroad, in addition to reliable and convenient credit charge payment for additional call time. I would highly recommend them for such needs and will be using their service again when we return to Italy in 2016. Although the SIM cards are the products of an Italian mobile provider and thus calls are less expensive than using a special plan from my US carrier, cellular contact, by voice or text, can become quite expensive. I find the level of service to be worth the cost of the service provided. read more

Didn't see any bad reviews about the mifi rental so I ordered it in April for our trip in September. Advertised as unlimited mifi. Was charged in April and invoice shows unlimited mifi. Just received the device and paperwork on how to use it shows we only get 1gb of data per day. I immediately called and was told that unlimited means 1gb of data and they now have this information on their website. DO NOT use this company. I would have NEVER paid for this if they would have told me upfront that I would only get 1gb of data per day. read more

I rented two phones for a trip to Italy. Neither phone could receive calls and they gave me one phone with an incorrect phones number assigned to it. I could dial out, but that is $1.15 a minute as opposed to receiving/incoming calls which is .25 a minute, so I used up many of the minutes on the one phone that did work deleting messages left by someone else who Cellular Aboard had also given my number as their number. Took them 2 days to resolve this issue. I purchased more minutes for the phone that could call out and once I bought them, the phone could make outgoing calls anymore. CA never resolved the problem. I requested a refund and have sent several emails to them and after two and a half weeks, they still haven't responded to my trouble ticket. And one more thing: the phones are old, beat up, and don't hold a charge for more than 3 hours (and that's without using it). read more

Do NOT use this service if you are going to Australia... Service is completely worthless and way too complicated... Phones are complete garbage... It's riduculously expensive for what you get... They fail to tell you that only a small fraction of the country is covered by the Lebara phone service they use... The phone only worked in Sydney and sporadically in Melbourne - around 4 of the 14 days I was there... The rest of time - no service.. Total waste of $180.... read more

I'm not sure how it works with unblocked phone but it doesn't work with iPad. Total waste of time and money. It is much easier to buy SIM card from local provider than get any support from Cellularabroad. read more

I just returned from a trip to Italy for two weeks. I rented a Cellular Abroad MIFI for over $200 for my trip. The instructions were to not start it until I arrived in Italy. I had fully charged it before leaving but when I arrived the battery ran down to zero in about an hour. I charged it again overnight the first night there and it only lasted an hour again. I contacted Cellular Abroad by email and their answer was to purchase a new battery and they would reimburse me. Well, I spent over 3 hours of my vacation searching in three different cities to find a battery to no avail. When I explained this, I received no reply. The next time I will rent something after I arrive in Italy. read more

Would love to tell how their phones work in Italy; however, the phone they promised never arrived. I ordered it several months in advance. I even called them two weeks before my departure to make sure it would arrive before I left, and they assured me it would. The day before I was scheduled to leave, I called to see where the phone was and they told me something happened and it was never shipped. Oops! They did promptly reimburse my account for the $140+ that they charged me. When I arrived in Rome I went to a phone store and bought a simple phone with 400 minutes and unlimited texts (within Italy) for about $75, and it worked OK while we were there. I used my i-pad to contact people in the U.S., with either face time or e-mails. I can't tell you how their phones work, but I can tell you their shipping department does not communicate well with their sales department! Hope it's not the same guy. read more

I cannot recommend this company. Was shipped an expired chip and unable to contact anyone at the UK help numbers provided. We did get full refund without argument. read more