dtsm

I know from turning on and off every few months the international data package when I travel overseas that it is SOP for TMO CS to read off a checklist of 'warnings' re data usage, etc. That includes that voicemails will incur international roaming unless you turn off or forward calls, etc.

Again, check your bill. I'd be curious where the $3000 came from....

ClueByFour

deleted

GoingAway

How do you surf via BES?

I was charged 5 or 6 dollars because my phone RANG in China (I did not answer the call, and did not use it to get to the voice mail message). TMo waived it for me, now I'm careful to forward all voice calls before I leave the country.

luv2ctheworld

Yes, they can tell email from internet data... this was the point of ScottC's post (#2):
I had a lengthy conversation with a rep regarding how things are charged when roaming, and here's the following things to keep in mind:

1) Having unlimited international email is only email, as noted above. Anything else is considered roaming data and charged at a hefty rate. I also found out the hard way like the OP did.

2) If you have your T-Mobile SIM and the phone is on, any call that "RINGS" (you do not answer) is automatically charged

3) Any Voicemail notification from the said missed call will likely result in a charge

4) Solution:
a) Request T-Mobile to shut off your voice mail service temporarily (recommended by T-Mo rep).
b) Go to your Blackberry phone Options and Forward ALL calls to another number (obviously a US land line number that has a voicemail feature). This will allow the caller to leave a message on another system where you won't get charged an arm and a leg and you can access those voicemails via Skype or calling card
c) In addition to step b, I have a free voicemail box (not sure if new accounts are free anymore) that I fwd incoming calls to. The vmails are accessible as wav files from the Ringcentral website, so I can listen to the messages from those fwded calls via the web
d) Incoming TEXT messages are free; however, if you reply to it, be prepared to pay... a lot, like $2 per message

Hope that helps those who have been bitten or may be bitten by roaming charges (from any carrier, not just T-Mobile).

gfunkdave

Correct. If the person leaves a voicemail, you're charged two minutes' worth for each minute of voicemail that the caller leaves, since T-mobile charges you to forward the call to your phone overseas, AND to forward the call BACK to voicemail.


No. The voicemail NOTIFICATION doesn't result in a charge. Calling to check your voicemail does, however.


That's just silly. All you have to do is set unconditional call forwarding to your T-mobile voice mail BEFORE you leave the USA. All callers will be shunted immediately to voicemail.

Or, you can use your phone normally overseas but turn it off when you do not want to be charged. If you turn your phone off (as opposed to, say, pulling the battery or losing service by going into a tunnel or something), your phone signals the network that it is going offline (called a Detach message, I believe). Within a few minutes, T-mobile's database that has the last known location of your phone will be updated, and T-mobile won't forward your calls overseas anymore. If you lose service, as opposed to turning your phone off, the network will take longer - up to an hour - to recognize that your phone has gone off the air.

You are charged for all text messages, received or sent, at the rate for the country you're in. For the vast majority of countries, this is $0.35 per SMS or MMS sent and $0.20 per SMS or MMS received.

jsnydcsa

You could also set forwarding to another U.S. number (e.g. GoogleVoice) to keep your calls from bouncing overseas, going unanswered and bouncing back to your T-Mo U.S. voicemail box.

To do that, before you leave the US enter
**21*+<country code><phone number># [SEND]
where <country code> would be a 1 (for the U.S.) and then <phone number> is the U.S. number you want to forward to.

To prepare this response, I googled and went to
http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.p...all_Forwarding
there's actually a whole lot there that I'm going to read through before my next trip.

Of course, that means no calls would come to your phone while traveling abroad (because they all go to VM or your forward-to number).

Perhaps the conditional call forwarding notes in the abovementioned link might be useful to get some calls while abroad. But, I've no idea if that's the case (like I said, I'll be reading through the link for more info).

The nice thing about the unconditional forward to GoogleVoice is that you'll receive an email from GoogleVoice with a notification of the voicemail message in your GoogleVoice inbox and the voice-to-text of the GoogleVoice voicemail message. That would at least (a) let you know someone tried to call you and (b) subject to limitations of voice-to-text, give you an idea of what they said in the message. You could then be the judge of whether to call them back. That's the reason I use this setup as it at least gives me an idea of who's calling and what's up.

mbreuer

Not quite - answering or forwarding (conditional) incurs the charge.
Actually, the only thing that matters is disabling conditional forwarding. That can only be done by entering the correct gsm codes... #4 something. I have a link somewhere - will post if I dig it up and no one beats me to it. Nothing you do with blackberry or tmo or your voice mail will affect this.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, no. If you have unconditional forwarding enabled, you won't be charged... but also your phone won't ring. When I travel, I disable forwarding and then don't answer unless by caller ID it's something really important... or if I'm on UMA.
Anectodal evidence say you can be charged when your phone is off and conditional forwarding is enabled. How - I have no idea. But I got hit with a couple of these while the phone was off and at about 39000 ft over the atlantic. This was my first time disabling conditional forwarding, and I relied on a CSR who claimed it was disabled. Next time I found and used the GSM codes and all was well. They undid all my roaming charges based on the original request to disable forwarding that the CSR mis-handled.
Nope - as noted earlier in this thread, many countries don't charge for incoming sms.

gfunkdave

That's what I said (or at least what I meant ). But even with all forwarding disabled, you'll get charged the per-minute rate if your phone rings and you don't answer. What's happening is the foreign carrier is billing T-mobile, so T-mobile turns around and bills you. This is nothing unique to T-mobile; it's the standard way that international roaming works for all carriers.

It may very well be the case; if all is working then you shouldn't be charged after your phone deregisters off the foreign network, but maybe I'm wrong. I have heard that if your phone registers on a foreign network even once, your home carrier will continue to look for it there until it registers on someone else's network or on the home network. But that never made much sense to me.

Operators in many countries don't charge their own users for incoming SMS on their home networks. But if you have a T-mobile US SIM in your phone, no matter whose network you're on or where in the world you are, you will be billed by T-mobile US according to its terms. T-mobile charges you 20 cents for SMS/MMS received when roaming internationally and 35 cents to send. The only way around this is to change the SMS service center in your phone, but then you likely won't be able to send/receive SMS messages in the first place.

mbreuer

I've disabled call forwarding and not answer the phone. I have not been charged.
Yup. That's what it does - as long as conditional forwarding is in effect. If you disable forwarding, then there should be no charge.
Nope again. Not charged for incoming sms at least in the UK, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Austria that I know of.

From the fine print on international roaming (varies by country):
Now that I checked this - when did roaming for voice calls go from $.99 to $1.29/min? That was a bit of a surprise!

mrcamp

With AT&T, I thought it was the same with tmobile, incoming sms is charged when roaming only if you do not have an sms plan or you have exhausted your sms bucket. So, if you have a 500 sms plan, you will not be charged for incoming sms as long as you have not exhausted your 500 sms limit. It will be taken out of your sms bucket If you have unlimited, then no charges at all for incoming sms.

gfunkdave

Ah, that pesky fine print...

dtsm

Two other options that i use:

1. Set call forward to your skype number - set up skype to either forward directly to skype's voicemail or use skype's call forward to your local sim card.

2. Set call forward to optimum voice service, which then either txts or emails an alert to check for voicemail.

JMN57

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet (I didn't read the entire thread) and I'm not TMO (haven't been for over a year) but I have done the following with Verizon and my BB Storm:

1) forward calls to a phone # that sends an e-mail as mp3 or wav file as an e-mail attachment (they can be found for pretty cheap)
2) retrieve voice mail message attachment in the e-mail
3) listen
4) if needed respond through Skype Out or any other cost effective mechanism.

With Verizon's unlimited intl data ($65/month) which allows all data except tethering btw, it's particularly cheap way to hear vmail when abroad.

We just switched our company's vmail system to a VOIP service and the forward as attachment option is standard. It's great. I get an e-mail pushed to me with the vmail as an attachment and all I have to do is download/play (one press) and I can hear it. No having to dial-in to pull voice mail (which is still available).

GoingAway

Wirelessly posted (goingaway's phone: BlackBerry8900/4.6.1.231 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I forward to voice mail - using google voice for this is a great idea. Thanks!