Forum Discussion
Overseas Travel: How can I avoid incoming call costs but still use free text/data roaming while abroad?
We're planning to travel to Europe later this year and would like to take advantage of T-Mobile's free international text/data roaming. However, I saw that incoming calls are charged at one minute even if you don't answer; per T-Mobile's website: "If your phone is on when you get an incoming call, even if you do not answer it, the call is charged one minute for delivery to the phone. (There are no charges if your phone is turned off.)" I get multiple robocalls/telemarketer calls per week, and I don't want to rack up charges for unwanted calls. Is there any way to temporarily turn off incoming calls or route them directly to voicemail to avoid charges? If so, what are the steps to do that?
Great question. The easiest way to do this is to enable unconditional call forwarding. This will tell the network to immediately forward the call to a selected number without trying to pin you first which is where the charge comes from.
To enable unconditional call forwarding, you will need to follow these steps https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041#secondheading
Dial **21*18056377249# from your phone to enable CFU and ##21# to turn it off when you are back in the states and want to resume being able to get calls.
The 18056377249 number is the same number that your calls are forwarded to when you do not answer the phone so that the people calling you can leave a VM. Since we are enabling unconditional call forwarding, the call will be automatically routed there instead of ringing your phone first.
Great question. The easiest way to do this is to enable unconditional call forwarding. This will tell the network to immediately forward the call to a selected number without trying to pin you first which is where the charge comes from.
To enable unconditional call forwarding, you will need to follow these steps https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041#secondheading
Dial **21*18056377249# from your phone to enable CFU and ##21# to turn it off when you are back in the states and want to resume being able to get calls.
The 18056377249 number is the same number that your calls are forwarded to when you do not answer the phone so that the people calling you can leave a VM. Since we are enabling unconditional call forwarding, the call will be automatically routed there instead of ringing your phone first.
I have an iPhone 6. Can't I just disable incoming calls by using my phone's settings?
Settings > Phone > Call Forwarding > turn Call Forwarding "on" and then Forward To my cell number...which will then automatically go to Voice Mail?
Why won't that work instead of using long string commands on my phone?
Can I listen to my voicemails on iPhone without getting charged? Or do I also have to turn off voicemail while traveling to avoid charges?
With unconditional call forwarding, the call is not routed to your primary number. when someone calls your number, the network will not try to ping your device but rather send it to the number you set as the UCF number. Normally the charge for the call being routed to the VM comes from when your phone has send the request back to the T-Mobile network to send it to voicemail. Since UCF bypasses the need to ping your device, the call never touches your physical phone/SIM card to be routed back.
This has been proven by us in actual practice over the years UCF to VM (or any U.S. number) will NOT incur a charge.
They still come through here, though some, maybe half, are labeled "scam likely" so we know not to answer. Many others come through clear with spoofed numbers so they appear to be local calls. It may be getting better, but it's far from perfect. To reference my original post, even the calls that are caught and identified as "spam likely" get through to the phone, so without engaging direct to voicemail while traveling, each of the spam calls is going to cost a quarter.
I was told the same. If you don't pick up a call, and if you don't listen to your voice mail, you won't be charge: it would not be legal. Pffff!
I think I'll change my message asking callers to send me a text and set up unconditional forward to make sure that I don't get charged. I called perhaps 5 times to figure these issues out before I found the community feature, and have been told something different every time.
One told me that I could call France on WIFI calling for free. I did, just a few minutes and was charged $3/minute, and received a $57 bill. Thank goodness, T-Mobile agreed to remove the fee. They are nice folks, but boy, it would be great if they were better trained.
First hand experience: Does not work. You will be charged the minutes that the caller use to leave the message. Junk calls included.
Just ask T-Mobile to disable phone calls internationally. You can still use WiFi calling.
I did experiment with unconditional forwarding. Got charged.
Kharma99 wrote:
Looking for any recent experience with this.
In addition, is it possible to enable/disable unconditional call forwarding while abroad or does this only work in the U.S.?You can change your forwarding anywhere you can get a GSM/UMTS signal. It doesn't work over WiFi. In fact, you'll probably have to turn WiFi off for it to work.
You might also want to change your voicemail greeting to ask callers to send you a text message rather than leaving voicemail. Also, understand that unconditional forward to voicemail will also block your receiving calls when on WiFi (which are free). You may want to study up on how to easily suspend and resume unconditional forwarding.
