Some weird things in life can be explained, even if they make no logical sense. Like, right after you wash the car, it's going to rain. Or as soon as the warranty expires on a new appliance, it's going to break. But nothing makes sense about how a service provider such as T-Mobile can pick up roaming charges for cellphone calls one did not make from another country.
Before I left for Viet Nam, I called T-Mobile to arrange for International Emailing. This sounded like such a cool service. For less than $20 a month, T-Mobile promised me that I could receive and send unlimited emails from my new BlackBerry Bold while in Viet Nam. I was warned that if a call came to my cellphone while I was checking email, I would incur a $4.99 roaming charge, even if I did not answer that phone call. And, if I made any outgoing calls, even to voice mail, I would be charged $4.99 a minute.
To get around this problem, I decided to check for email at a time when everybody in California was asleep. That was easy to do because Viet Nam is 15 hours (and a day) ahead of California. As long as I turned on my phone late mornings in Viet Nam, I could be relatively assured that nobody would call my cellphone from Sacramento. And if a night owl did call me, so what's $5 bucks here or there? My outgoing voice mail message directed all callers to my associate, with the caveat that I would not personally return calls but callers could send me an email.
International Email from T-Mobile allowed me to stay connected. I could, for example, forward a purchase offer from a Sacramento short sale agent to my associate, respond to listing questions and answer potential client inquiries. I happily pounded out emails with my thumbs as I wandered through Buddhist temples and munched on spring rolls. You can take a real estate agent out of the country, but you can't take real estate out of the agent.
Yesterday, I received my cellphone bill from T-Mobile. It showed $156 in roaming charges, all one-minute calls to my voice mail. Some of the calls were recorded in a series such as three in a row at 4 AM PST.
I immediately called T-Mobile to find out why. After all, I did not call my voice mail. Not once. Ever. I also turned off my BlackBerry and turned it on only once or twice a day to respond to emails.
T-Mobile said my Sim card registered those calls, which I did not make. It offered to charge-off half of the roaming charges. Maybe you put your phone into your pocket and bumped the voice mail number button, the rep offered. No, it was turned off when in its holster.
The strange thing is the roaming charges covered only 4 days of my trip -- 3 days after I entered the country and 7 days before I left. There were no roaming charges before or after that time period. Why would I place 3 deliberate calls to my voice mail all in a row? I didn't. Now, it was a matter of principle, not the money. You don't mess with Elizabeth Weintraub. By the time I was finished with the T-Mobile rep, he offered to remove all the roaming charges.
But T-Mobile had no feasible explanation why it happened, other than to say don't take your cellphone with you when traveling out of the country.
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Certified HAFA Specialist
My Sacramento Real Estate Listings
Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for The New York Times-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout the four-county Sacramento area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate. DRE License # 00697006.
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Elizabeth: Glad you fought this one and won. That's unbelievable. Not the best story about T-Mobile story. At least they, eventually, waived the charges.
This is going to be one of those rare times I am glad I have Verizon.
I have a friend who's a United Flight attendant who flies International. She had a similar thing happen on a trip and switched carriers to AT&T so she could have an international calling plan that was affordable. Her "calls" also happened when her phone was turned off.
I can't believe the rep said " Don't take your phone with you when traveling outside the country" So that only means, T-mobile is not a competitive in technology and globalization. I take AT&T with me to Thailand with $1.99 a minute before and no unexplainable charges.
By the time I was finished..... Ha Ha. Please, please Elizabeth. I NEVER want to be on your bad side...
You done good with clearing the roaming charges. They didn't seem valid AT ALL.
Hi Elizabeth... I am not sure technically how this happens, but I have always found T-Mobile to have very good customer service. Based on my experiences with another provider that I used to have an account with, I suspect you would still be arguing with them.
Elizabeth - I'm glad you were successful in having the roaming charges removed! It certainly sounds suspicious doesn't it! I know many people that travel and do business internationally. It is not uncommon for them to forward their email to either a Yahoo or Gmail account. But I'm not familiar if that would be beneficial working with T-Mobile and your Blackberry.
Apart from this little fiasco, T-Mobile has been a great service provider with wonderful customer service. But if I ever decide to change, I may take a look at AT&T. Because T-Mobile didn't seem interested in figuring out why this happened, and I suspect the rep still thinks it was operator error, in some aspect. However, there is a problem. Whether it's my BlackBerry or T-Mobile, hard to say.
P.S. You know, Gary, how some people say it's not the money, it's the principle? And then it ends up really being about the money? Well, in this case, it definitely is the principle. I'm one of those people who care about principles.
This is good to know in case I travel international. I have always been with T-Mobile since the beginning. I'd really love to have an iPhone, but know I'd have to switch to AT&T. Customer service has always been great with T-Mobile. Sometimes... it's better the devil you know than the one you don't!