Forum Discussion
T-Mobile is frauding and charging for international calls made on wifi
I have been noticing increases on my monthly bill life $180 and called in to verify. The agent told me the extra charge is due to an international call. But guess what: I have been calling my Spain for years using WhatsApp Call and I have never been charged, since I have unlimited data. When I google the question I realize I'm not the only one who has this problem with T-Mobile. On my first call to the billing department the agent told me that international phone calls made through WhatsApp can be charged; Customer service didn't want to remove charges so I will be transferring my business to AT&T. I even visited the store here in Dadeland and manager will no remove the charges. They rather loose business, incredible.
Jamoreno27 wrote:
I have been noticing increases on my monthly bill life $180 and called in to verify. The agent told me the extra charge is due to an international call. But guess what: I have been calling my Spain for years using WhatsApp Call and I have never been charged, since I have unlimited data. When I google the question I realize I'm not the only one who has this problem with T-Mobile. On my first call to the billing department the agent told me that international phone calls made through WhatsApp can be charged; Customer service didn't want to remove charges so I will be transferring my business to AT&T. I even visited the store here in Dadeland and manager will no remove the charges. They rather loose business, incredible.
I am getting charged for international calls when using WiFi. T-Mobile Support claim I must have dropped off wifi and was picked up by a cell tower hence the charge. I have pointed out to Customer Support that the bill details show a 'W' which indicated a WiFi call but I'm still getting billed, same support answer. In fact support went as far as to suggest I have been very lucky not being billed for all international calls! After 9 years and roaming the world with T-Mobile and religiously using WiFi I am noticing billing occurrences are more frequent this year. Maybe they can cover under the excuse for some calls, but I cannot fathom how they can justify billing when they indicate it's a WiFi call on the bill!
The problem with WhatsApp has been hotly debated on various forums. The bottom line is that in some (perhaps rare) situations WhatsApp completes calls via the phone's dialer. This is one reason I avoid using WhatsApp. I've never heard of anyone having this problem when using Signal or Telegram.
This has popped up with other calling apps even down to FaceTime. I honestly think the culprit is DNS servers and routing. In some countries there is a toll to pay and always goes to the person who initiated the call. If the call gets routed through the country the toll applies. You can find other stories in other countries about paying these types of calls.
found a couple of them.. point is its by far not a specific carriers issue..which starts to point more towards the app being the culprit..especially when everyone has the same stories
https://community.verizon.com/t5/Samsung/Exhorbitant-bill/m-p/1216709
¿Me cobrarán por usar wifi en el extranjero?
El precio que pagues por las llamadas wifi a números internacionales cuando te encuentras fuera de EE. UU. depende de tu opción de roaming internacional. La buena noticia es que, con la mayoría de nuestros complementos de roaming internacional, pagarás menos por estas llamadas que antes. Las llamadas wifi a números de EE. UU. son sin cargo.
adding onto the above though..this has been brought up numerous times on numerous carriers forums when it comes to WhatsApp. you can type WhatsApp into any carriers forum and see just how many run into this when using it.. heck you can do the search in here and im pretty sure ive posted multiple links to threads on V and ATT talking about exactly this..
