[falcon10]

Its obvious that TMO USA does NOT allow the customer to disable ALL call forwarding so my phone will ring and ring and ring instead of forwarding to VM and incurring their bogus .99 charge.

What is the best way to avoid this?

1. If I set up the unconditional call forwarding in the call settings to forward all calls to VM before I leave the country will I be charged anything when I turn on my phone overseas to use the BB data features?

2. What if I set the phone to forward all calls to another number? Will I be charged even though my phone does not ring when turned on overseas?

3. Is there any work-around to cancel all forwarding so the phone rings until the caller hangs up by using GSM codes etc?

Any other tips on avoiding bogus roaming charges will be most helpful!

Thanks.

[falcon10]

4. What about called 611 and having them turn off my VM...will I be charged if my phone rings overseas but is not completed (ie. I do not answer the call)?

5. It seems this is a well documented scam, fraud, or whatever you want to call it. Has there been any legal action brought against TMO for not disclosing this to their customers?

[yg17]

Right from the T-Mobile International Roaming FAQ page:

Unless you switch your device off or activate Unconditional Call Forwarding on your device, you will be billed for calls delivered to your voice mail box while you are roaming internationally.

Not only that, when I called T-Mobile to activate international roaming on my line, the rep told me about the charge and recommended I keep my phone off or do unconditional forwarding to minimize charges.

It's not a scam. This is how EVERY carrier works. If they have to send an incoming call to your phone while on another network, they have to pay that carrier and in turn, charge you. Thus, activate unconditional forwarding and calls never go to your phone, and you never get charged.

[takeshi]

Originally Posted by falcon10

Its obvious that TMO USA does NOT allow the customer to disable ALL call forwarding so my phone will ring and ring and ring instead of forwarding to VM and incurring their bogus .99 charge.

I don't think this is correct. I seem to recall disabling call forwarding on my BB while traveling internationally. In any case, you can always call 611 and have voicemail disabled (IIRC that will do the trick) if they can't disable call forwarding for you.

99 cents is optimistic. Roaming rates will vary depending on the country and in some cases you'll actually get billed twice that rate -- once for the outbound call and once for the return call to your voicemail center back in the US.

Originally Posted by falcon10

It seems this is a well documented scam, fraud, or whatever you want to call it. Has there been any legal action brought against TMO for not disclosing this to their customers?

It's not a scam. It's how GSM works.

When I was with TMO they had always mentioned this to me when I discussed international travel with a CSR. IMO you would have a hard time proving that they are intentionally trying to avoid disclosing this to their customers or mislead anyone. I don't have links handy but I'm sure it's documented in their international roaming info as well. Reading and understanding the TOS is the responsibility of the customer.

Is it really worth the hassle of a class action suit to get a coupon for TMO service (consider that you've also increased their operating costs with the suit) while fattening up some lawyers?

In any case, this is true of all GSM carriers so it's not specific to TMO or unique or secret in any way.

[falcon10]

Thanks for the info. As for the scam or whatever it can be called, I was referring to all the unsuspecting customers who turn on their phone only for a minute to check someting while overseas and then turn it back off, yet from that point forward they accrue roaming charges for anyone attempting to contact them. From their standpoint the phone is OFF. This part is NOT disclosed by TMO, nor is the fact that they disable the option to allow the customer to turn off call forwarding completely from the device.

When I attempted to turn off call forwarding (conditional or unconditional) by selecting "DO NOT FORWARD" from the call settings on the 8100, it appears to accepts the command. From this point forward all I can assume is that it will NOT forward any calls. However, if I check the call settings again, it defaults back to forwarding all calls to VM. This is NOT disclosed by TMO.

Regardless, it appears the best and only ways to avoid this problem is to either call CS and disable VM, or set the phone to unconditionally forward ALL calls to VM before leaving the country. Hopefully this will do the trick.

[yg17]

If you turn the phone off, you don't get charged for incoming calls as they go straight to voicemail. The only way to get charged is if your phone is on, and you don't have unconditional forward, and at that point, you should be expecting to get hit with some sort of fee.

[falcon10]

Originally Posted by yg17

If you turn the phone off, you don't get charged for incoming calls as they go straight to voicemail. The only way to get charged is if your phone is on, and you don't have unconditional forward, and at that point, you should be expecting to get hit with some sort of fee.

Umm...this is not what happened with me. I had my phone OFF for 2 weeks in Europe this month, except for a few times I turned it on to get a phone number or check email. I was charged $68 in roaming charges consisting of brief incoming calls and then calls to VM, all in the wee hours of the morning while I was sleeping.

TMO refused to take the charges off. I complied with what the disclosure says and had my phone OFF! TMO on the otherhand does not tell you that all it takes is 1 time for your phone to register with the foreign network before getting hosed on roaming charges while your phone is OFF.

If anyone has any good tactics to get TMO to remove these charges please let me know.