T-Mobile Roaming Ripoff

[lampiejohn]

Hi All,

I could do with some advice. I've just received my latest phone bill from T-mobile. Last month I spent 5 days in Turkey on business and had several phone calls come through to me on my mobile which I ignored and let them go to voicemail.

On my bill, I have been charged £2.40 for each of these calls. Yup, the calls I didn't answer.

I would never have signed up to a package that included charges like this, and I haven't managed to find anything on their website that lists these charges either.

has anyone got any advice on what I can do next?

Thanks

John

[missm]

Did you check your voicemail? if they left a message, and you checked the messages it costs you £2 each time.
I frequently travel with my t-mobile phone and either turn my voicemail off or change my message to say do not leave a message or face penatly of death.

[jackboy]

Even if you don't answer the calls and it goes to voicemail, you get charged for the call being sent back to the UK to your voicemail box as the phone network in the county you are in is being used and you will be charged. I went to Canada last year and the rep in the T-mobile shop recommended that I turn my voice mail off so that this wouldn't happen to me.

[lampiejohn]

It wasn't charges for me checking my voicemail, it was charges for them being put through to my voicemail. maybe one or two of the calls actually left a voicemail, most of the others didn't.

Thanks
John

[lampiejohn]

Originally Posted by jackboy

Even if you don't answer the calls and it goes to voicemail, you get charged for the call being sent back to the UK to your voicemail box as the phone network in the county you are in is being used and you will be charged. I went to Canada last year and the rep in the T-mobile shop recommended that I turn my voice mail off so that this wouldn't happen to me.

This is what I was just told by the callcentre when I queried the bill. However noone warned me of this when I first signed up to T-mobile, and had they told me this I would never have signed up with them. Since I use my phone for business I can't really just turn off my voicemail, as then I'd miss client calls.

Just wondered if anyone has any experience of fighting this kind of thing. I believe I was mis-sold the contract, as it was never mentioned.

Thanks
John

[snu]

I was hit up for this by Dot Mobile (MVNO using Vodafone network) to the tune of £80. I've been fighting it for nearly 6 months, including going to the telecoms ombudsman and everything. They've basically said that I'm responsible for the charges.

This is a ridiculous racket. They never warn you about this. Unfortunately for you, T-Mobile do mention it on their web site at http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/p...-up-your-phone and suchlike, and the Ombudsman will almost certainly say it's your fault for not fully educating yourself on the pricing structure for this service before you left.

In my case, however, there was aboslutely no mention of it at all anywhere on Dot's site, and the Ombudsman has still said that I'm liable. I'm currently trying to get the full reasoning out of the Ombudsman (their Provisional Conclusion was riddled with errors), as their Final Conclusion was basically "uh, no". I'm seriously considering suing, because as far as I can tell they didn't fulfil their obligations to disclose the tariff to me (I did research it in quite some detail).

[buzby]

I'm surprised why there is surprise in the costs charged whilst roaming. Just because your phone works in a different territory is no reason to assume the cost will be the same, or indeed even in the same ball-park. If your own network provides you with its tariff, then a roamed network will similarly have ITS own - and all of the UK networks have on their websites what the approximate charges are. Sure, many of the resulting charges are dreadful - but if you don't check, it is hardly the network's fault. Abroad, I use Internet cafe's in preference to my mobile. 3UK has now allowed you to access certain specified networks abroad for the SAME price as your home tariff. Excellent, and they deserve credit for this. It'll be up to the other networks to follow. As for consumers being recompensed, I cannot see why, as the onus is on the user to find out the cost before using the service, not complaining about it when they get the bill on their return.

[snu]

Originally Posted by buzby

I'm surprised why there is surprise in the costs charged whilst roaming.

This is not about roaming charges in general, this is specifically in regards to the receiving of voicemail. It is very surprising that when someone in the UK dials your UK phone number, and is forwarded to your voicemail which is in the UK, that you have to pay for an international round-trip for the call. In my case, this happened when my phone was off. Are you surprised that I was shocked to learn that I was incurring charges when I was not using my phone?

Also, I did make reasonable enquiries about the tariff before I left - it's not detailed anywhere on the service provider's tariff information on their web site (which is what they directed me to). Since moving to T-Mobile (and being aware of this), I decided to check their literature, and it is mentioned. It's still surprising - you don't normally see entries for voicemail in your phone bill, it's normally free.

Also, there's no technical reason for the call to be handled in this way as far as I can tell - it provides no benefit to the consumer.

[buzby]

The issue is more you must have actually been logged in to the foreign network as some stage. This would have made the VLR (Visitor Location Register) of the foreign network tell your home network were you were, and the 'virtual' foreign mobile number it had allocated to you whilst on their network.

So, a call arrives at the UK network, and it's been told you're in Hawaii (or wherever), so the call is sent there, to ring out the virtual number the foreign network gave your mobile when you first switched it on. If the call cannot connect to you - because you turned the phone off because of the time difference - then the call goes back to the UK, as if you dialed it in Hawaii and because it it inbound to the UK, it goes direct to voicemail.

If you then retrieve it, you pay for a second call back to the UK to retrieve it. IF another network somewhere else says you've logged in to them, your UK network terminates the link with Hawaii and replaces it to the new network. Alternatively, if the Hawaii network finds your mobile remains OFF for 12-18 hours, it assumes you've left the area and tells the UK you are unavailable. Calls will then no longer be offered to Hawaii (but the virtual Hawaii number you had will be kept handy for up to 21 days should you re-register again.

The system is clever - but if you don't register abroad by turning your mobile on, the chances of your calls being charged are slim - and you can guarantee this by selecting the 'Unavailable' option which, after the 12 hours timeout, will stop inbound calls and allow SMS texts instead.

[snu]

Also there's a CancLoc MAP request sent when you turn your phone off which should clear the VLR entry in the HLR. These happened over a period of several days, so it looks to me that the HLR was never reset, probably because of some sort of fault in their network. I articulated all of this to the Ombudsman, but they said there was "no evidence" that this was the case - I doubt they followed up with Vodafone to actually determine what happened, and Vodafone obviously isn't going to volunteer that it was a screw up on their end.

To be honest, I was surprised that it's not possible for the VMSC to drop the channel and return the call back to the GMSC, which would then forward internally without having the international round-trip. It looks like there have been some discussions about doing this, but there's little impetus to implement it because these charges are a nice little earner for the MNOs.

Anyway, the fact of the matter remains, the fact that calls are handled like this is non-obvious and it's hardly suprising that people aren't aware of it. I made efforts to fully educate myself on the roaming tariff, and I was aware that it would be expensive to make and receive calls, but I completely didn't foresee this and it was ommitted entirely from the tariff details I was presented with (which I was led to believe were the full details). I don't really see how that's a fault on my part.

[buzby]

Actually, this facility was part of the original spec - 'tromboning' in layman's terms, where the call setup cleared back to the UK and saved on needless billing. However I can't imagine why the networks didn't ensure its early implementation.

As to the 'need to know' well, the equation Home Network = OK and Roamed Network = $$$$ has stood the test of time, and still does today!

[snu]

Well, I fully expected to be charged lots to use my phone - it was only for emergencies (and was handy for that). Point is, I wasn't using my phone. I think my situation is particularly unusual and weird, and normally I wouldn't think I had a leg to stand on, but I fail to see how on earth I could reasonably have discovered these charges before I incurred them.

I will also be making my thoughts known to Ofcom on this issue, as it seems wrong that the industry can get away with this.

[davethorp]

When a call is diverted to voicemail when you are roaming the following happens

Call routed to your UK network
UK network realise you are roaming and forward the call to the foreign network
Your phone rings.... you don't answer it or forward to voicemail
The foreign network routes the call back to your home UK network who then take the voicemail

Both the element when your home network route the call to abroad and the element where the foreign network routes the call back to your home network can be chargeable.

Generally if your going abroad and don't want to be stung by high roaming charges either

1. Totally disable your voicemail forwarding so the phone will just keep ringing
2. Divert all calls to voicemail prior to leaving the UK
3. Consider buying a sim for the foreign networks to use when abroad
4. Consider buying a pay as you talk sim for the UK networks and top up as much as you are prepared to spend. Vodafone is possibly the best move as their passport service means apart from a 75p per call standard charge calls are charged at your home rates on certain networks in certain countries
5. Leave your mobile at home

[buzby]

I can guarantee OFCOM won't care. They look after the Networks and have other fish to fry. If you feel hard done to, they'll expect you to raise it with OTELLO,, which IMHO is not much better.

However, I fail to see why you feel you should be somehow told about how the system works? I found out because I asked. If I'm going into hospital for brain surgery, I'm not going to let the surgeon root around without first boning up on the procedure and look for caveats. This is no different!

[snu]

Originally Posted by buzby

I can guarantee OFCOM won't care. They look after the Networks and have other fish to fry. If you feel hard done to, they'll expect you to raise it with OTELLO,, which IMHO is not much better.

However, I fail to see why you feel you should be somehow told about how the system works? I found out because I asked. If I'm going into hospital for brain surgery, I'm not going to let the surgeon root around without first boning up on the procedure and look for caveats. This is no different!

It is different, though. I made best efforts to discover all the charges that would apply before I went abroad. I was referred to a tariff which did not indicate that voicemail would be charged in this way, and was therefore misleading. As far as I can tell, there is no way that I could have discovered these charges before I started incurring them, and at that point I was exposed to a non-trivial amount of charges due to the delays in TAP.

For some reason Otelo don't agree, but they haven't explained why.

[snu]

Originally Posted by davethorp

Generally if your going abroad and don't want to be stung by high roaming charges either

3. Consider buying a sim for the foreign networks to use when abroad

I did that... Obviously I would have disabled voicemail, but I was given no indication that it would be potentially chargeable at roaming rates (other than for collection).