Germans and my other European friends: SIM card purchasing question.

Cellos88GT

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So tomorrow my girlfriend and I leave for Europe, we'll be going to Sardinia for two weeks to meet up with my family and then we'll be spending another week or so in Croatia. Now, I've just unlocked my iPhone 4S for international use with a Verizon rep over the phone as I plan to buy a SIM card in Germany to use during our time there. I have a few questions though....

My family and I have purchased phones in Italy in the past but we found that in Italy, one had to not only be an EU citizen but they also needed to provide proof of residency or some kind of mailing address. My family and I are all dual-citizens and my parents own property in Italy so this was never a problem. Is this also the case for purchasing a SIM in Germany? or do they sell special pre-paid ones to travelers?

In the worst case, I could wait until I get to Sardinia and have my parents provide all the necessary papers to acquire a SIM but doing anything like this on that island becomes 20x more difficult than it needs to be. So if I could, I'd prefer to handle this in Munich during our layover.

I'm also welcome to any other related advice.

Cheers.
 
I've been to Poland (EU also) the past 2 years, and I've never had to show any sort of proof to purchase a prepaid sim so I'm baffled by what you just mentioned.
 
Last time I bought a prepaid sim card in Germany, the sales rep. just made up an address from Google maps. Anyway you can also find prepaid sim cards in packets which you take off the shelf without the assistance of a sales rep.
 
I recon these days all pre-paid carrieres here require a local adress for registration ... wich is basically what you have to get past in order to use the card ... you can buy a prepaid sim at basically every supermarket these days ... but there always is some sort of registration process ...

I can?t really tell you if any adress would suffice in the sense that just giving them some adress in germany ... or how they check and stuff. Maybe someone else here has some insight to that ...

maybe this is helpful: from 2011 so forget it :D well there is quite recent help in the comments underneath ...
http://phone-guide-germany.com/overview-prepaid-plans-germany/
 
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You should have just gotten something like this and spared yourself the trouble:

http://www.onesimcard.com/international-sim-card/

I'd imagine most of your calls will be international to the USA and/or you just want to be able to be reached, in which case incoming calls are free in most of Europe, including Germany, Italy and Croatia. And you also get a US number with it, mind you, that number is free only for the first month, but still.
 
I've been to Poland (EU also) the past 2 years, and I've never had to show any sort of proof to purchase a prepaid sim so I'm baffled by what you just mentioned.

True.
 
I recon these days all pre-paid carrieres here require a local adress for registration ...
Yes, because our friends in America thing that being able to buy a phone without giving an address is helping terorrism. And as our own police agencies are all too willing to tighten the screws to fight "organized crime" they put their lobbying power behind this as well.
 
OK so I learned that there is no problem buying a SIM card for telephone use only, telephone + data requires the equivalent of a SSN or Tax number, at least in Italy. We were able to purchase phone + data SIMs using my parent's info. So far my gf's phone is working but mine is not...ugh. Guess I'll have to contact Verizon to get this sorted out...
 
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