<p>Another Verizon customer her…Need more info on the unlocked phone/sim card plan. Assuming, we buy an unlocked phone on Ebay–Is it a simple thing to buy a sim card in Italy, stick it in and you’re good to go??? Sounds too simple…must be missing something…</p>
<p>@Panhandlegal</p>
<p>I’ve done the phone thing twice where I bought one on ebay (worked great). Make sure they are explicit about what you are buying. Quad-band, unlocked.</p>
<p>I decided to buy the sim card online, so kid had the phone ready to go when he got to Europe because I didn’t know how long it would take him to find a place to buy the sim card. I am sure I paid a little more for the sim card than I would have if he had bought it there, but that was my decision. If you want to do this, google “(country) sim card” and you will see places to buy.</p>
<p>They do cell phones differently in Europe, at least the countries I am familiar with. You have so many minutes on your sim card, and when you get low, you go “top up” your sim card with more minutes. You can top up your sim card at practically any convenience store, or even department store. I am not sure where all you can buy the actual sim cards. Maybe someone else knows.</p>
<p>Panhandlegal, check my link in Post # 9 on this thread. Verizon will loan existing customers a phone that works in Europe for $9.99 (which is the cost of shipping the phone to you and a prepaid label to ship it back), as long as you don’t plan to use it for more than 21 days and you return it within 30 days. You can keep your same phone number and transfer your contacts. Can’t remember the per minute and per text rates but they were reasonable, and it all goes on your current bill.</p>
<p>If your student is going to Europe for a semester or a year, the easiest thing to do is buy a cheap prepaid phone when they get there. They sell them everywhere, and the kids can just re-charge the minutes online. I think my son paid 20 Euros for a Vodafone in Spain and it works great. They’ll have to call/contact you to give you their number though.</p>
<p>Also, re money: I told my kid to spend as much of his foreign cash as he could before he came home. He did keep a little bit as souvenirs. </p>
<p>Like everyone else (it sounds like) he had a debit/ATM card that he used every day with no problems anywhere. Plus, he had one of the AAA cash cards as a back-up in case something happened to his ATM card. When he got home, he had money remaining on this AAA card. I went back to the AAA office to “cash in” the remainder. While I stood there, they called Visa (who actually issued the AAA cash card) and I arranged to have the balance mailed to me. Visa warned me it would take them several months to get me the refund, and they were right.</p>