Telestial Inc.Reviews of telestial.com

So far--so good. Just starting service. Instructions good.

Bought 2 Sim cards in 2012 prior to a planned trip to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately health concerns came up and we could not go. Kept putting extra $$ on both SIM cards so when we did go on foreign travel I could still use them.We are going to New Zealand this month, March 2014, and tried my SIM cards, both had been kept up SIM card 1 had $90 on it (I thought), ans SIM card 2 had $19.75 (I had sent one text to another phone using SIM2. Well, lo and behold, SIM1 had $0 on it when I asked for account balance (ZERO!!). SIM2 had the $19.75 I expected. I tried feedback, and their feedback page refuses to recognize the "unscrambled" letters they use to make sure I wasn't a spammer.. tried for over 20 minutes!! Lousy company, buy a phone when you get off the plane in whatever country you are traveling to.. that's what I'm doing this time.. (Incidentally, their phones included in the package deals are crap, mine didn't work, so I purchased one from Hong Kong and used the SIM cards in it. Plaaned a trip

The calling rates are reasonable and data rates look reasonable but they charge in increments of 1MB and they always round up no matter how much data you use!!! So if you send a small 10-20kb e-mail or text message you are being charged $0.50 in a country like Japan. It could be more, depending on which country you're in!!! So far, according to Telestial, I've used 43MB of data in 48 hours and I've never accessed the internet, plus background data on the phone is turned off. Each one of these data charges is in 1000kb increments even though the actual data used is less than 1% of that!!! They should calculate data usage daily...not every second! Bad on you Telestial! Especially when you are advertising great rates! Using real calculations I'm being charged $2.50/MB, not your advertised $0.49/MB.

Be warned any reviews giving this company 5 stars must have been written by the company and/or whoever they paid to do so. Poor customer service, card fails to work 90 percent of the time in countries that you would expect it to work, including the US. For every call that I was able to make it took more than 10 attempts prior to do doing so and even days, text messaging was even worse. This crappy service caused me to be stranded in airports because I could not make calls out. Good luck getting a refund for the poor services rendered, I have been trying and they refuse to do so or even issue a credit. They will also deactivate the SIM card even though there is a balance on it if you have not made a text or call within 6 months and to reactivate they want you to pay them $30 or buy another card and only then will they transfer the money back. I have a huge problem with this since I am not sure why they would deactivate and keep your money BUT if you spend more money with them then suddenly your card is activated and good again with the same balance as before. Before I purchased this card I honestly thought It would have been too expensive to use the local country SIM's now wished I had spent the money purchasing a SIM card for the countries that I was going to and using it since this has turned out to be more expensive and the biggest mistake ever getting this card!!!!

While the sim card does work in some countries I visited, it didn't work in Cambodia (where, until Telestial updated their website for phone compliance as a result of my complaint, it was supposed to work) and Nepal, where it didn't work in the 2 cities I visited, the capital Kathmandu and the 5th largest city, Bharatpur. Customer service was polite enough by email, but I would have to go through multiple debugging procedures with their technicians over the course of 48 hours, none of which I particularly had time for. Bottom line - I cannot rely on their list of countries this card is supposed to work in, and plan to use my ATT sim in the future (which worked everywhere I went).

Although I have dealt with this company in the past without issue my recent experience was terrible. We purchased a phone for an extended trip to Asia for our son. Two and a half weeks into the trip the battery died and would not recharge. He contacted the company and they shipped him a new battery. It took 10 days for him to receive it. They shipped it without any tracking capability so they could not say where it was or why it had not arrived. When I called and asked why the order was not rushed or traceable I was told "we are a big company and they would charge us more for that". I also work for a large company and we rush things everyday if appropriate for a warranty situation. Her statement was completely ridiculous. They shipped it at the absolute bottom cost they could. In the meantime my 19 year old son was 7000 miles from home, by himself in a foreign country, with no way to contact anyone other than email.

I paid a significant premium ($49) for a pre-paid Italy SIM Card (TIM) in February for my trip in May -- that only has 5 Euro credit on it. The reason that I paid the large additional amount compared to purchasing in Italy is that I needed to meet a Villa Owner upon arrival who had to drive quite a distance to meet me and transfer the Villa key -- it was imperative she could reach me (or me reach her) to arrange a time as soon as I arrived in Italy. I wanted the peace of mind to have the TIM card registered and working when I hit the ground. I followed all the advance registration instructions – filled out the paperwork, emailed scans of my passport, etc. and was assured by the customer service rep it would work when I arrived on Sunday the 12th of May. Well, wrong!!!! The card would not work and we couldn’t find a TIM store at all that evening. Two Tabacchi stores couldn't help us either with the card we had purchased-- they could sell us a new one easy enough and for the same price as the credit on it but I'd already provided the phone number to every contact for my trip. As a result, I had to wait 2 hours for the Villa Owner to arrive (after I had traveled 21 hours, mind you) because I couldn’t get her called until I finally bought an International Phone Card and was able to call her. All of this shouldn’t have happened since I invested $50 to avoid this very scenario. Finally, I went to a neighboring town the next day to work with a TIM store to get the card registered. I shouldn’t have had to do this and it cost me quite a cab fare, not to mention the delay, frustration, etc. I've contacted the company for a refund and received an e-mail back that they "would review and get back to me", however it's been 8 days and I've heard nothing further. Very, very disappointed! People -- trust me on this: I know you, like me, want peace of mind and are tempted to pre-purchase a card but just WAIT until you get overseas to purchase a SIM card-- it's much cheaper, more reliable and easier! __________________________________________________________________ Update - still unresolved. I've filed a complaint with the BBB (by the way - this company has an "F" rating with them). Here is a timeline of the events attempting to resolve my claim: 5/26 (day returned from Italy) - I sent e-mail message outlining complaint. 5/26 - Mike from Telestial Customer Service sent me an e-mail "I have gone ahead and forwarded a report of your issue to our refund department to see if they would be willing to credit a portion of your purchase for the inconvenience. Once they review the claim and make a decision, you will be contacted via this email address about the resolution." 6/3 - I sent a follow-up message inquiring as to status. 6/4 - Aya from Telestial Customer Service sends me a message "We write in reference to your refund request, report [53465]. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. Your refund request has been approved upon return. Please send us the complete original packaging, including all components, quoting the Return Number [53465]. Incomplete packages may result in delay in the processing of your request." 6/5 - I sent letter, SIM card and all original packaging to company as requested at my own expense. 7/2 - I sent follow-up e-mail requesting status. 7/2 - Karen from Telestial Customer Service sent e-mail stating "You should be hearing back from us by the end of the week." 7/6 - I did not hear back from them by end of week so I sent a follow-up e-mail requesting status and expressing continued disappointment for unethical and unprofessional conduct. 7/8 - Adelmar from Telestial Customer Service sends e-mail "We wish to advise that your refund request has been approved. However, your order is over 90 days old. We will have to send out a refund check to you. Can you please advise a mailing address where to send it to?" 7/8 - I send the mailing address which I'd already provided with the package I returned. 7/21 - I follow-up via e-mail AGAIN inquiring about the promised refund. 7/22 - File BBB Complaint.

I purchased a TIM sim from Telestial so that I would have a phone number ready for use when I arrived in Italy. To my frustration, the sim would not allow me to make outgoing calls. I contacted Telestial via a Skype connection, and was told to find a TIM store to have it fixed. Had to spend several hours tracking down a TIM store in Venice, Italy. When they examined the sim, they found that it had been activated, but the €15 credit Telestial was supposed to have supplied was never applied to the account. I wound up having to buy a recharge card to get the sim going. Repeated emails to Telestial result in promises of a refund (of the full price of the sim, or of the missing €15 credit, I still don't know), but they've been stringing me along for over a week. You pay a premium price for the convenience of having an activated phone number ready to use when you hit the ground, but that's certainly NOT what you receive.