If moving back home: what to do with all those Chinese-cellphone-linked accounts?

[歐博思]

If one were to move out of China and wanted to close his Chinese cellphone account, what would be a good way to deal with all the various Chinese linked accounts which login using said number (banks, etc)?

 

I currently don't have a cellphone back home, but I would have wifi, so I was wondering if anyone knows an Android app where I could register a free phone number and shift Chinese accounts' contact information to?

[889]

The problem is that most Chinese banks and such will only accept Mainland mobile numbers, and I am not aware of any site or service that makes Chinese phone numbers available free, like Google Voice in the U.S.

 

Further, if you want to receive texts and phone calls outside the Mainland on your mobile number, then you have to register it and open up overseas roaming service, and there's usually a hefty pre-payment, something like 500RMB, to do this.

 

There's also the possibility of getting a Hong Kong dual-number SIM card, which gives you both a Mainland and a HK mobile number. You'll have to read the fine print to be sure, but I believe you can receive texts and calls overseas from the Mainland number on this card without making the hefty roaming pre-payment, though the monthly service charge is a bit more.

[vellocet]

Nope, in China the government controls phone numbers, so no luck with a Google type service.  You'll have to enable overseas roaming and take your phone home with you.  It's not that much to roam if you don't use voice and SMS.  You can keep your phone filled up with money by Alipay, etc. 

[onebir]

Not mainland China, but Plivo offers offers HK numbers for in/outgoing SMS for $5:

https://www.plivo.com/pricing/HK/#!sms

 

Unfortunately it's an API, designed for coders, not an app. But I (=lousy coder) hacked up something very basic for Twillio's SMS API easily enough.

 

This also came up & seems to offer apps:

http://www.my-cool-sms.com/en/sms-pricing-sms-prepaid-sms-gateway/china-sms-apps-mcc-mnc-networks

[889]

I said nothing available free. If you search around, you can find places like Sonetel offering Chinese numbers, but at US$22/month it's not really worth mentioning.

 

HK numbers generally won't work for Mainland banking and other SMS purposes, though a few sites are the exception.

[onebir]

Ok - I thought the $5 one-off HK number might have been an affordable solution