Verizon to Lebara (Spain) text problem

[Andrew Liebhold]

Hi all - I recently purchased my daughter a Lebara Spain Sim card to use in a quadband unlocked Motorola phone that I purchased in France. My daughter is in Spain and the card / phone seem to work fine. She can send and receive text messages within Spain with no problem and she can send messages to my Verizon phone here in the US. However, none of my messages that I send her from my Verizon phone go through and similarly, her friends with Verizon phones here in the US cannot send her SMS messages. I can however send text messages with no problem to a friend in Spain who has a contract with a different company there (Telefonica - Movistar). I've spoken several times to various Lebara technical support and finally their explanation was that Lebara "doesn't have an agreement" with Verizon and this is preventing the messages from going through. Does anybody think this is a legit explanation or know more about this type of problem in general. Do you think she would have the same problem if she got a sim card from a different company in Spain (e.g., Telefonica - Movistar)? Thanks.

[Kalimotxo]

That's correct, Lebara does not have a texting agreement with Verizon Wireless.

I'm not surprised to hear that her messages get through to you... the cost of texting is usually something covered by the sender, not the person who received the message (we're a little different here in the US)

According to Verizon, they only participate in international texting (Spain) with Vodafone.

More information can be found here:

Calling Spain From the U.S.

I recommend calling Verizon to verify this information.

[Kalimotxo]

I would recommend getting a sim from vodafone...

Below is a link for information on voice plans from vodafone. I hope you know some spanish

Vodafone: Tenemos tu tarifa plana

[COtech]

Look at the upper right corner of the page bookmarked, and you'll see English, German, Itallian, and Arabic offered besides the Spanish default.

COtech