I’ve had this no-contract €2 a month sim for over 5 years and have never used it. I did try to cancel about 3 years ago but gave up.
Logging onto the account I cannot find how to cancel. Would some kind sole help me, please?
Hi.
Who is your account with, please?
Free, it’s in the title. Though, on first arrival it took me ages to realise that “Free” was “Free” and not free 
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Thank you John, I hadn’t thought about the capital letter. 
What capital letter? I too, thought it meant a “not having to pay” sim.
@lebeuil1 Maybe edit your title?
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Thread title adjusted.
Here you are. Either phone them, or do it online.
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Jane, thank you. Termination accomplished. I did everything right up to the last point but was not then presented with the actual cancel instruction. Plus the 3rd part i.d., where they send a code to the sim … bit of a problem, 'cos sim lost yonks ago. But done now, anyhow.
It’s in their t’s ans c’s. Best to check. Free is the only network that won’t just let you just do it by text. IME they are absolute ba$tard$, and not just in this thing.
You’ll have to send an LRAR of resiliation. If you google there are online free tools that will provide you a draft résiliation letter in French. You can even use a service that for about 50% more than the already high cost to send an LRAR, will let you approve the letter with your correct details online, and will print it out and send it to them LRAR. But I’d recommend printing and sending it yourself.
The thing to make sure you do is to actively track the LRAR and every day once it shows it’s delivered, call them, tell them you have proof they’ve received it and insist they accept that your notice period started on the correct day. Their internal delays don’t get them off this.
I’ll expect them to spend between 5 days and 2 weeks denying receipt and saying even if you can prove it they can’t action it. Keep calling and send them proof of the date of receipt. Keep at them.
Eventually tbe cuatomer service person will admit they can see it. Insist again about the date your notice has been active from and tell them to stop charging your bank account. Watch that they don’t. I can promise you that you will never get back any payment taken that shouldn’t have been.
I don’t know if there is the ability in France to advise your bank to reject debits from them after x date. But from what I know of French banks’ treatment of consumers, probably not. I suggest you see if this has become possible since my experience with Free.
This type of experience is why I think consumers are so badly treated in France. Practically speaking it’s inordinately hard to get consumer rights enforced here even where they do exist.
It would actually be easier and more reliable to port the phone number to, say, Lycamobile or Lebara, who’ll terminate you after 1 month if a renewal is not paid. Works a treat if you don’t want to pay 8-10 euros to La Poste for LRAR sending and much less chasing up to do.
Some people will say they had no problem with Free but I cannot tell you what thieves they were on this and something else.
Please let us know how it turns out.
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@lebeuil1 if you were able to do it without LRAR then perhaps Free have been forced by some authority to provide a decent easy route and action a cancellation duly received, since my experience with them.
I’m pleased for you but suggest you check your bank account to make sure Free’s taking of money actually stops.
I too was under the impression that you have to terminate by registered letter. And was not looking forward to doing that from abroad (we’ll
almost certainly need to keep our French mobile numbers for a period after leaving France).
So I am curious to know if you can in fact terminate without a LRAR.
If you look above it seems it may have become possible.
Helenochka …yes you can do it online ..I did earlier today. Follow JaneJones’ guide a few posts back.
Hi…used JaneJones’ route for online cancelation …and it has worked. Email confirmation received from free.
But I have to say, it is almost impossible to find how to do it, even when you are online, on your account.
I will print off that guide and keep it. Thank God for Jane!
Looking at the guide, though, it seems you do have to send an LRAR if you’re not keeping the number (eg if you’re leaving the country):
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You kept the number, right?
I can’t see how to cancel it without an LRAR if you do not want to keep the number.
How on earth would this work if you were trying to cancel from abroad? Given Free’s reputation (Karen is not alone in having problems with them) I imagine there’s a good chance they would just deny receiving the letter.
I’m thinking I’ll follow the advice given above and switch to another provider. One who lets you cancel online without having to interact with some w*nker who’s going to try to persuade you to stay.
I agree we’d been with them since before they were even Free! They allowed our son (14/15 at the time) to upgrade from €2 to €19/ month by texting oui with out asking us as account holder and didn’t care when we complained. Took us nearly 6 months to cancel . Actually no we still have the Sim but back on the 2€ as it was such a nightmare!!!
Ouch. Free are complete ba$tards. And even from the legal point of view I don’t care about saying it in public.
Take the easy route and ‘port’ your number to another network that has the usual easy cancellation method others do. Then cancel inmediatey once number moved, or fail to pay the tiny sub which will get it cancelled by the new network easily and job done and all quickly.
I did it with an old sosh contract, can’t remember why I needed to do it that way that time, it was ported either to Lyca or Lebara easy and very, very quick. All done and line gone. NRJ might work now too.
Looking agsin above it looks like the OP didn’t succeed in cancelling the line with Free and from what @helenochka posted Free is still persisting in this abusive nonsense and making the only way to cancel, by post and expensive LRAR. And will probably still steal payments from your bank account and refuse to give them back even though the LRAR process proves when they received the cancellation to the minute.
Just transfer the number to another network where you just resiliate on a minimun price no commit option it’s cheaper and quicker.
It astounds and upsets me that France continues to let businesses behave in these ways towards consumers.
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How about if I switch to, say, an Orange mobile contract sans engagement?
We’re nowhere near ready to leave France yet and still need a full mobile service so don’t really fancy Lyca, Lebara, etc.
Does anyone know if Orange let you terminate a mobile contract completely (ie without porting the number) depuis l’espace client?
I think @JohnBoy is keeping his French mobile for a bit so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on when the time comes to terminate the contract.
It depends what deal you sign up with. Some headlined sans engagement used to have a minimum period of, say, 6 months.
In general I would stay with Orange for future capabilities but they, and these days their barely distinguishable Sosh, take their price for it.
So far as I know, every other network than Free you can SMS them, call them or do it in your espace. I think a the networks you send a text to same number, I think it’s something like 6179, and the porting code to give to your new network comes back. Did you know that your porting code is always the same, so you could theoretically get it as soon as you sign up and keep it till you’re ready to use.