Hi! I am looking to travel to Russia at the end of August, and I can’t seem to apply for a Tinkoff Black Card here in Singapore, because the OTP would not go through. Any tips on what I should do?
Thanks!
@jorduhn I think most banks now only allow Russian citizens to apply online.
I applied for VTB card in-person. Bring USD to exchange in Moscow.
cash.rbc. ru for best rates.
@DimiDons I think most banks now only allow Russian citizens to apply online.
Tinkoff ie T-bank now still provides for applications with foreign passport and foreign phone number. I just did a test, but as @jorduhn with a non-russian number I haven’t received OTP, so couldn’t run the test further. Maybe they no longer take foreign numbers, but the choice is still on their form. The difference from before, like couple years ago, is that the form is only in Russian.
@jorduhn at the end of August
you could buy a Megafon (or Tele2) SIM, they are sold on Ebay from Kazakhstan. This will cost.
you could pay for a Russian SMS number only for some duration from a provider like https://www.smspool.net
There are others, I mention this one because I used it order to do OTP elsewhere, and it worked well.
No guarantee, you may have to try different numbers inside the duration/time you buy. Last month I needed a French number and it worked on 2nd try. But the service is cheap and I use it sometimes because i can pay in XMR (Monero).
If I buy a Megafon SIM from Ebay, then I’m guessing it won’t work in North America?
@bbhirsch If I buy a Megafon SIM from Ebay, then I’m guessing it won’t work in North America?
there are no bans at telcos levels, for Russian numbers (excepted the ones specific to local operators in Crimea and Abkhazia).
I have Megafon and MTS and roaming works here in Norway, as well as in my experience in Estonia, Latvia, Belgium, France.
Europe is GSM only. No idea if cards will work on CDMA networks that are a USA-Canada thing.
this one on Ebay are adverted with roaming enabled. You should ask seller about details for topping and control panel where options are set. Because you can’t top yourself without a MIR card, so it means the seller does it, probably for a fee, for instance by selling coupons.
A business in Germany used to do so and I forgot to mention them:
(I have experience with them but from 2006…, can’t tell by now)
Ask them, because I am not sure how it goes for them to be able to get Russian SIM in Germany and re-ship, in the context of EU bans also at postal level. But they may also ship SIM from outside EU, like Georgia for instance.
the one listed now on Ebay mentions location in Kazakhstan, but the name of the place is VKO-MOW and these are the abbreviations/codes of Vnukovo airport in Moscow…
@antoniob Thanks! That’s very interesting. Once I’m in Russia and have a MIR card, perhaps I’ll get a Megafon SIM and ask whether I can use it from North America. Some Russian apartment websites require a Russian number, so a Russian SIM could be useful for managing reservations from North America.