International phone usage: I need your advice guys!

Bargainer

I travelled abroad for more than three months and on arriving back in the UK, I realised that I had been charged for calls made to my phone. To my horror, I found that I was charged twice (£1.50 + £1.50) for each call. One for the calls coming through and the second for the calls being diverted to my voicemail.
The annoying thing is that I did not use the phone at all - it was switched off the whole time!
Is there a remedy for me? How do you suggest I handle this? What can I do?
Thanks

grumbler

If you are in EU, they cannot charge you for this. Otherwise you are at mercy of your provider and can only appeal to their goodwill. I am not sure though that it was correct to charge you twice. Did you listen the messages from abroad?

ETA: I think that T-mobile have the most clear information about this: http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-support/index?page=home&cat=WAYS_TO_SAVE.

Ways to save
...
Turn off or set up your voicemail

You may pay to receive and retrieve your voicemails so the easiest way to save is switch it off. You can do this by clearing your call diverts on your phone.

I guess if the phone forwards/diverts a call to the provider's voicemail it's understandable that you get charged twice even if you don't retrieve the voicemail.

MSE article: Mobile Roaming

mrcamp

Yeah. Some carriers pull this double-charge nonsense off! If the phone was off all the time, I am surprised that you are getting charged twice. It's a known fact though, that if the phone is one, some carriers will charge you for both the incoming call, and the divert back to VM.

Bargainer

Thanks folks.
My mistake was thinking that it is sufficient to switch it off and not use it. But I have, since complaining about my bill come to realise that I am not immune from the charges. But my anger is that I am charged for the calls coming in at all and also charged for it being tranferred to the voicemail. More upsetting is the fact that most of the callers did not leave a message - going by the recorded timings ranging from 0.01 0.02 seconds!!!
It would help if I can talk them into paying just £1.50 not £3.00 for a 0.02 seconds call.
Ideas are still needed as the amount involved is much.
Thanks

grumbler

Bargainer wrote: »

The annoying thing is that I did not use the phone at all - it was switched off the whole time!

Bargainer wrote: »

My mistake was thinking that it is sufficient to switch it off and not use it.

I think there has to be no charges for anything happening when the phone is switched off. How does the network know where the phone is?

mrcamp

The phone was definitely switched on at some point. At which time it registered on the foreign network. However, the network did not de-register the phone when it was switched off. Hence, the reason for the double charge.

grumbler wrote: »

I think there has to be no charges for anything happening when the phone is switched off. How does the network know where the phone is?

NFH

Just deactivate voicemail or have it removed from your line permanently. If someone really wants to get hold of you, they'll try again or send you a text.

grumbler

mrcamp wrote: »

The phone was definitely switched on at some point. At which time it registered on the foreign network. However, the network did not de-register the phone when it was switched off. Hence, the reason for the double charge.

If so, this is very odd, not to say wrong. E.g. I switch the phone on/off abroad, then the phone breaks down or I go to another country with lower charges or come back to UK and don't switch it on for a while...

mrcamp

I know - It sounds odd, but I have heard a lot about this particular scenario. BTW, once you go to another country, the phone will register on another network, which will automatically deregister it and stop calls from being sent to the previous one. I had a friend in the US that went toNigeria, he turned his phone on the first day, however took the sim out and put another sim in the phone. Well, somehow, the entire 5 weeks he was there, AT&T still thinks he was on the Nigerian network (was never deregistered), and charged him twice for all the calls, since they rolled to voicemail. He came back to thousands of $ in roaming charges. I must say though, that AT&T remove all charges after investigating.

grumbler wrote: »

If so, this is very odd, not to say wrong. E.g. I switch the phone on/off abroad, then the phone breaks down or I go to another country with lower charges or come back to UK and don't switch it on for a while...

Bargainer

Yeah folks, you can say that again! It is damn odd and unfair to be double charged for a call I never received. Having read the 'small prints' on their website saying I have to deactivate my voicemail to save costs, I guess I now have to look for a different line of attack (appeal). I hope to touch their 'goodwill' whereever that may be. I shall keep you posted. Thanks again.

john1

QUOTE
Ofcom has today set out an action plan to tackle the problem of consumers being hit with unexpectedly high phone bills.
It follows an extensive review into the causes of ‘bill shock’ in the communications sector, which identified that mobile contract customers were the most likely to be affected by this problem. Research conducted as part of the review revealed that as many as 1.4 million mobile phone contract customers may have been affected by ‘bill shock’ in the past six months.
Ofcom will now work with the mobile industry on a series of measures to address the main issues identified by the review. If these do not sufficiently reduce consumer harm, Ofcom may consider mandatory options to tackle the problem.
Ofcom is also calling on providers to do more to educate customers on how to avoid bill shock. As part of this drive to raise consumer awareness, Ofcom has published a guide on its website with information for consumers about how to take steps to protect themselves. END QUOTE Date 01 March 2012

http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/03/01/tacking-unexpectedly-high-phone-bills/


Strange :rotfl: nearly 12 months on and still no movement as far as I can see