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New Member

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17 Messages

Saturday, August 13th, 2022 12:36 AM

International Roaming enabled by default, raking charges without informing customer

I am spreading the word about how AT&T has taken one of the oldest crimes of pickpocketing, put an Enterprise mask on it and has been milking money off unsuspecting and naive customers. Sadly, I was one of them, been  charged $400 for data roaming. The charged stemmed because it looks like the phone triggered a scheduled backup, and I was under the assumption that if no international plans were enabled, the phone would not connect anyway so I left the SIM inside the phone, instead I feel now that I should have taken the SIM off and burned it. Neither was I informed or alerted that my international roaming was active by default, with no option to turn it off, nor was I alerted at the time that my charges were going to be pay per use. Last I traveled out of US was 2016 and roaming was disabled by default. Looks like that option was stealthily removed. Customer care says there is nothing they can do as charges are valid. Here are my questions, 

  • Why is international roaming enabled by default without the customer’s approval?
  • Why isn’t the customer alerted that they are on pay per use? If you can send all the other advertising texts, you surely can send this alert.
  • Even if you cannot add or answer questions 1 & 2 apart from the fact that it helps you legally extort money from customers, why cannot you display in the Device add-on section on myatt website or mobile app that this feature is On by default so customers can take measures to avoid these charges. 

Is this what AT&T has become now? Is there no better way of making money your executives can think of?

New Member

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17 Messages

1 year ago

Hi ATT,

Thank you for calling me, understanding what the problem is and agreeing to raise an internal ticket for your teams to look into. Based off what we spoke, posting some recommendations in case they seem feasible, these would help the customer a great deal in understanding that International Roaming is always active and that we need to take pre-emptive measures (Day pass, suspend line etc) to avoid any unavoidable charges like I did in my specific scenario. All the other services are displayed, either in Add Ons or Plan Details, add International Roaming to one of these:

1. My Addons: Should be a permanent feature. Add International Roaming -<Pay per use/Daypass etc depending on the plan that is active>

2. Or Show it in My Plan details. Should be a Permanent Feature - International Roaming - <Plan - Daypass, Pay per use etc>

ACE - Expert

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13.7K Messages

1 year ago

Are there more details if you expand the last line item?

New Member

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17 Messages

1 year ago

No. Believe me, I checked everything in myaccount when talking to customer service agents  when they told me I had International roaming active without an addon to cover costs and they could do nothing about it.  I had a single instance of Intl Data charge of $400 odd(phone ran a scheduled backup, my lucky stars) . ..FYI.. I did not travel to Mexico, Canada or Latin America in which case I would have a service from my plan active. Which is why I decided to lament on this forum, hoping something productive comes out of it for near future.

Here is the rest of the screen

ACE - Sage

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113.5K Messages

1 year ago

Where are the international add ons? 

Even if none of them are active on your line, there's still a section in your online account for enabling and disabling International and long distance options

New Member

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17 Messages

1 year ago

Thats what all this thread is about. I did not have any International Addons showing up as well, not even the Pay per Use. But I still got charged. Att did call me up following this discussion, they understood what my feedback was and is going to raise an internal ticket to see what can be done. My post, 2 posts back is about a few recommendations that can be impelemented. Please check it out. 

ACE - Sage

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113.5K Messages

1 year ago

I think you misunderstand me. Even though you have not added them to your plan, they exist somewhere. All of the international including the long distance calling plans exist somewhere online. You're not showing any of those you're only showing us what's included in your plan now for free.

ACE - Expert

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13.7K Messages

1 year ago

@formerlyknownas I think @suds objections isn't so much that the pay per use isn't on there some where but that, if it is, it's not somewhere that's reasonably easy for the average customer to find. 

The issue is more around whether it's reasonable for the average customer to assume that if they remove the Day Pass that their account defaults to PPU. And I can see arguments both ways. If you didn't know how things worked and assumed you had to chose some sort of international service or your phone was a brick over seas, I can see that. At the same time, I can see that argument that the default is "service works" no matter where you are unless you specifically tell AT&T or your phone not to work. 

New Member

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17 Messages

1 year ago

@MicCheck That is correct. Thanks for understanding my point. 

@formerlyknownasI did check with the customer service agents and they mentioned International Roaming,  is not listed in MyATT account, only addons show up if subscribed, however the service is always active, addons or no addons. There are screenshots of their responses over chat that I have attached in some of the previous posts as well. Please go through it. I have posted two areas from MyAccount as well, My Plan Details and Addons where you can see its no-where listed. And those services I have right now are not free, I do pay a monthly bill for all of them. :) All I am asking is any active service should be listed somewhere in MyAtt account, and specifically those that can result in enormous charges. If you can point me to a section in “My account” where I can “Permanently” find it, since the service is always active on “my device”  ( addons or no addons),  I can be satisfied that it was my fault for missing it and call it a day. Until then, will keep pestering you all. 😉

ACE - Sage

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113.5K Messages

1 year ago

Well since there's nothing we can do about it, pestering us is rather pointless. None of us work for at&t

New Member

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17 Messages

1 year ago

@formerlyknownas : I believe Att is monitoring this forum, coz I got a call from them, and said they would be creating an internal ticket on the same. 
Also, this topic also says that the Customer is not always wrong, coz 90% of the time all the responses I saw here was in BLIND defence of AT&T rather than trying to understand the problem and then provide clarity. 

@ATTHelp : Any update on that internal ticket you promised you would create after our phone call?

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