Originally Posted by
TGarza
Your dad was scammed in his home country by the quick call hang up which he returned to incur the charges. That’s an old scam which is blocked on my plan.
When traveling internationally, my domestic esim uses the data of the local esim for WiFi calling. Absolutely no reason to remove/disable my sim with this setup. My son has been deployed to Europe and hasn’t incurred any international charges while traveling in Germany, Latvia, Poland and the Rep of Georgia.
Not a scam… well, except for the rip-off charges from the phone company.
He gets legitimate calls from someone (relative, friend, old business contact, bank, utility, whomever) on his home phone number, since they don’t know he’s travelling. He picks up, since someone wants to contact him, but doesn’t look at the screen to see whether it is incoming on the home number or the local number or even WhatsApp/Skype, and then continues the call without thinking further — until he sees the monthly bill.
Most such calls, the mobile provider charges ~$3/min, or more if in a less-travelled country (Greenland: ~$5), despite that it probably now costs them pennies on the dollar, if that.
The regulator has no interest (unlike in the EU), and the home and roaming providers happily go on sharing the fees between them…
I’ve made some recommendations to my dad… but he doesn’t want to change. *sigh*
(Thankfully, I’ve gotten myself a plan with WiFi calling, doesn’t happen to me…)