Diaspora
Stay reachable, and stay useful, from a distance
Living abroad is two phone problems at once: staying reachable where you come from, and being able to actually help someone who stayed. Both are handled from one balance, with no subscription and without asking anything of the person at the other end.
What is hard today
The codes that stop arriving
A bank, an administration, a service back home keeps sending codes to a number you no longer have. Without that number the account becomes unreachable — and recovering it from abroad takes weeks.
What a long call costs
A normal operator’s international rates discourage the conversation. You cut it short, you call back later, and you end up calling less often than you meant to.
Sending money to buy credit
Sending a sum so someone can go and buy credit means transfer fees, a trip to collect it, and an amount that can be spent on something else. The need was precise: credit on a line.
What we do about it
Keep a number there
A virtual number in that country receives texts and calls in the app. Your accounts keep working, and family dials a local number to reach you.
Top up a line directly
You enter the number, you see what will actually land on it and what will be taken from you, you confirm. The credit reaches their line in under a minute: nothing to collect, nowhere to go.
Call by the minute, no plan
A rate shown before it rings, taken from the same balance. You are not maintaining a subscription for the months when you call little.
The recipient needs nothing
No account, no smartphone, no internet. That is the condition for this to work at all: the person you want to help is often the one with the fewest tools.
The services involved
Questions we are asked
Can I top up any operator?
Supported operators appear as you type the number. Coverage changes: an operator missing today can be added. If the one you need is not there, tell us — that is what moves the list.
Will a virtual number let me recover a bank account?
It receives the texts sent to that number, which is the most common use. Some services do refuse numbers not tied to a SIM card as a matter of policy: that is their decision, and we cannot compel them.
How long can a number be kept?
As long as you pay for it, with no maximum term. The reverse matters more: a number that is not renewed goes back to the operator and cannot be recovered, so change it at your bank before you stop.
Can I pay from Cameroon with Mobile Money?
Yes — MTN and Orange work today, for whatever amount you want. Card, transfer and crypto are in preparation and will appear when they actually work.
A question this page does not answer? Ask the assistant, bottom right.
Ready when you are
One balance, three uses: stay reachable, talk for as long as you want, and top up someone’s line without going through an agency.
Pay with
- MTN MoMo
- Orange Money
- Visa· soon
- Mastercard· soon
- Bank transfer· soon
- Crypto· soon