You won’t BELIEVE how much EE, Three, O2 and Vodafone charge to upload a selife from Brazil
Heading to Brazil? Thinking of using your phone? Think again! Mobile phone operators will empty your bank account in minutes
Uploading a selfie on the Copacabana or tweeting about Steven Gerrard missing an injury time penalty in Manaus could cost you HUNDREDS of pounds as greedy mobile phone operators continue to charge outrageous fees abroad.
EE, Orange, O2, Three, T-Mobile and Vodafone all charge exorbitant fees to make calls, send text messages and use data in Brazil, landing anyone who dares turn on their phone in hot water.
The great roaming rip-off has been an issue for years but the thousands of England fans set to descend on Brazil for the World Cup could be in for a big bill shock. All the fees listed below are for pay monthly customers.
Don’t use your phone in Brazil – the World Cup roaming rip-off
Three is the worst offender, charging a flat rate of £6 per MB for data. If you want to call back to the UK from Brazil then Three will charge you £2 per minute. A text message costs 35p. Three has no data roaming bundles in Brazil, which means you’re stuck paying the outrageously expensive flat rate.
EE customers can buy a data bundle, although doing so will cost a fortune. Brazil comes under EE’s ‘Zone D’ list of countries, with 10MB of data costing £50. That gives you just about enough data to quickly check your email, Facebook and Twitter before it runs out.
If you fancy a bit more data from EE then you can buy the 50MB bundle for an astonishing £195. Calling home will cost £1.50 per minute and a text is 50p.
If you’re on O2 you can buy 200MB of data to use in Brazil for £120. Making a call costs £1.50 per minute while sending a text costs 40p.
People who don’t buy O2’s Data Abroad Bolt On for £120 will pay the standard network charge of £6 per MB capped at £40 (50MB), although this cap can be lifted.
Vodafone is comparatively reasonable. Making a call costs £1.65, while sending a text costs 35p. Data is charged at £3 per MB for up to 5MB and then £15 for every 5MB after.
You can also buy a Vodafone Data Traveller package, which gives you 25MB every day for £5 a day. Vodafone caps data roaming costs at £42.50 unless you ask it to remove the cap before you travel.
How to use your phone when in Brazil using local SIM cards
If you have an unlocked handset there is no need to get ripped off by the likes of EE, O2, Vodafone and Three. You can pick up a local SIM card for less than £5 and load it up with credit.
Networks such as Clara, Vivo, Oi and Tim all offer pre-paid SIM cards that can be used throughout Brazil for local calls, text and data. Click here for more details. For even more details about prepaid SIM cards and data roaming in Brazil click here.