Forum Discussion
Forced to enter additional digits after dialing an international call
Recently we added the Unlimited Stateside International calling plan to all of our business lines. Then, starting last week whenever we make an international call we get a recording that says "to complete your call please dial XX" where XX is some random two digit number. I looked this up and found on this page: Realizar una llamada internacional which says, "
Lo que deberías saber
Al llamar a algunos países, es posible que escuches un mensaje automático que te pide que ingreses un dígito aleatorio entre 0 y 9 para completar la llamada. T-Mobile added this extra step to help prevent fraud, and it's only needed when calling certain international locations."
Of course we were not advised of this when we added the Stateside International Calling feature and to make matters worse it's not just to "certain international locations"- its on EVERY international call.
Over 90% of our international calls are to the UK and the UK is hardly a high fraud calling destination
This is causing a lot of distress for our users. And TMobile should take the same approach other carriers take- use surveillance software to detect fraud and unusual calling patters and put the recording on those accounts and not just on every international call from every phone.
We need to get this removed ASAP from all of our lines or at the minimum for calls to the UK ad EU. These are not high fraud destinations.
¡Hola!
Welcome to our Support Community! Having to dial extra digits just to initiate an international call can be frustrating and I'm sorry it's causing distress to users. This is a feature that cannot be disabled at this time but the request for the option has been forwarded.
The first post in this thread is 6 years old, and it is still impossible for users to turn this feature off. This is insane. Good job, T-Mobile! You show how much you care about customer feedback. 🤡
This issue has been going for years now. It looks like developers at T-Mobile are quicker to implement unnecessary features than to remove them. This is so frustrating. How many customer's complaints do you need to take this seriously?
Thank you all for posting this. I am running into the exact same issue as the OP on a number I call frequently in France (my father), and it has been driving me crazy. I too have been getting the exact same idiotic responses from Tmobile "support". It's nice to hear that I am not alone, and sad to confirm that nobody at Tmobile has the slightest idea about this "feature" or how to turn it off. I have given up on Tmobile because of so many issues with service, and will likely be transitioning to another carrier. I hate to lose their "stateside international" calling feature, but at this point it is probably worth it.
This "feature" is back. Support has no idea that it's even there. This is annoying enough to switch my account to someone else if they can't fix it.
i am trying to turn this feature off… i have been on the phone for 45 minutes with a rep who has no idea what it is..
I agree! Since you have unlimited calling to the UK, it's not like someone could run up your bill if they grabbed your phone and called UK numbers.
I pay for a package to have unlimited free calls to UK landlines and mobiles and reduced rates to a host of other countries. I don't see why I should go through the hassle of using Google Voice. When for 7 years I have had no issues.
Are you on a special "free calling to intl. numbers plan? If so, what do you pay? If you route your call via Google Voice, it would cost about 2 cents/min. Other methods can be free.
I started having this issue a few months ago. All of a sudden T-Mobile have decided that the numbers I call every day, namely my mother in the UK, I suddenly need fraud protection from. I have been calling since Customer Service for months and some haven't even heard of the problem. A supervisor by the name of Rachel went as far as telling me that it is not a T-mobile issue as she has never heard of it and it must be the carrier of the person I am calling. After calling several times and a front line agent told her about it she promised to call me back, I am still waiting! That was in July, we are now in October!
I spoke to another supervisor Brian, I still have to dial.
Today I spoke to the rudest supervisor Omar who couldn't be bothered to help and said he would have a manager call me back within 4 hours. That was almost 12 hours ago and I am still waiting!
I am constantly told that there is nothing that can be done to remove this. So after more than 7 years of calling the UK every day T-mobile have decided it is not safe!
If they have put this ridiculously stupid and incredibly inconvenient feature on surely they can take it off. Especially as now it is illegal to operate a phone while driving as I can't enter the 2 digits using the car hands free.
T-Mobile obviously can't value their clients by putting processes in place that make absolutely no sense and benefit no one.
A resolution to this would be appreciated and helpful. I am seriously considering taking all 5 of my lines and tablet line to another carrier.
Well, I took the effort to call T-Mobile and ask them to remove this "feature". Needless to say the front line reps had no idea what I was talking about. Their supervisor had been thoroughly confused as well and claimed they don't have this feature or it must be new. They offered to reset my phone settings on their network to see if that would help (didn't), but were nice enough to call back and follow up. The result is an escalated ticket to their "engineers" (second tier tech support, I presume), and someone should get back to me within three days.
On a side note, I'm sure phone fraud is a billion$ problem for phone companies, but I'm still scratching my head about what does this two-digit pin security feature prevents. Calls that potential malware could make without me knowing? Posiblemente.
