Phil-99

You will need to just move onto an Australian provider. I had EE in the UK, they assured me it would work here. It does, but man the charges for some things are beyond madness. If you stupidly send an email in Singapore on the way, it could cost around 30 pounds, for one email.

ALDI in Australia has some excellent offers, no mucking around, just go to an Aldi, get a sim and you can have long calls to the UK immediately with no lock ins etc.  I don’t work them, don’t get anything for saying this. They also use the Telstra network on 4G and it covers about 98% of Australia. It is a lot to cover. You can check it out online before you leave.

Just a salient note on this Freedy,

Some things to think on. We had a bad experience, no particular people to blame except the dock handlers. Went like this.

We we’re suddenly moving with a couple of days notice, we then had to do the insurance estimate. Estimate the whole value of all of your stuff in 30 minutes. Being completely honest I’m thinking, how much are my second hand clothes worth, etc etc. I didn’t want to overstate the value of my things so put honest prices on them. I put $1000 on my amplifier which is what it cost new. The same item in Australia was $3000. So we get a call from the shipping company - there is some good news and some bad. Your container has arrived. The bad news, it was dropped in the Brisbane River. They held it unopened for three days in 38 degrees, then opened it. At this point I was accompanied by a loss adjuster (a captain from P&O). I recorded the whole conversation by accidentally leaving my video recorder on. It went like this, each item’s value was questioned, because if you undervalue an item by 20%, they then reduced the payout by 20%. So my amplifier, undervalued by 60% is now paid out as being worth $400. I asked the loss adjuster how much the amplifier would cost in Afghanistan, he had no idea, so how was I to know how much they were here.

Anyhow, I luckily have a friend who is a specialist maritime lawyer. He said, do not engage any arguments, just tell them to pay the full amount, or get ready to go to court. I said my valuation was in good faith and asked if they would like to talk to my lawyer. They didn’t and paid out the full amount.  So if you reckon your Spurs jersey is worth $200. Don’t hold back on the valuation. Good luck with your move.

There’s a lot of good advice from the other members, so you need to work through this.

Just a couple of things to consider.

If he stays, forget about the poor lonely guy stuff, just warn him to be on his guard against the females that will no doubt try to rescue him. Not all of them will be altruistic or even single.

If he goes, think about whether he is going to be the person you love if he does dislike being there and always longs to be back here in Australia. It may be difficult to see the person you love if they are depressed despondent or unhappy. Plan to deal with that.

Good luck.