AT&T Community Forums

Do I get charged if I answer an international call?

I have a friend living in the United Arab Emirates who wants to call me directly from his cell phone. My AT&T Motorola razor phone is part of a family/business phone plan here in the U.S.A. that is not in my name, so I never see the bill. I hae a large bucket of free minutes per month nationwde. Will it cost me anything beyond those monthly bucket of free nationwide minutes to receive a phone call directly from my friend's cell phone from the United Arab Emirates while I'm still in the U.S. with my U.S. based AT&T phone (without roaming on my part)? Is the answer the same with all AT&T wireless /cell phone plans or just certain ones? I read a post on here back from 2008 that says that all received calls in the U.S. (not roaming out of the U.S.) on AT&T phones based in the U.S. from anywhere are treated the same, but I want to make sure that this is still true in 2010. Should I ask my friend to use a prepaid calling card to avoid extra fees on my end, or would that even made a difference for me on my end? Any advice on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks. 🙂

Responses

Accepted Solution

Official Solution

wilcre

Expert

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13K Messages

11 years ago

Unfortunately the rep was wrong, incoming calls no matter where they are from are treated a domestic and applied to day time or night time or weekend calling, the only time a incoming call would be charged is if you go over your plan minutes and if you are on a unlimited plan then there is no charge.

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Virtual

Guru

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1K Messages

14 years ago

Only the outgoing international calls are charged the international fee. If you receive calls from the outside then it will only use the minutes of your plan.

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language_learner_lu

Contributor

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2 Messages

14 years ago

Thanks a bunch for your reply. 🙂 I would also like to know whether international texting is similar in that only outgoing international text messages are charged the international texting fee, but incoming texts from overseas will only use the texts of my texting plan. Is that true? Again thanks for your assistance.

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Virtual

Guru

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1K Messages

14 years ago

Yes, it's the same. You only get charged for outgoing messages, $0.25 for SMS and $0.50 for MMS. Incoming messages are charged as a regular pay per use SMS or MMS or it's discounted from your messaging feature if you have one in your line.

You can also add a 100 international outgoing messaging feature for $10.00 that includes SMS and MMS.

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stufried

Guru

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1.1K Messages

14 years ago

I used to live in the UAE and get calls from there all the time. I have never been surcharged.

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ezalocusky

Tutor

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11 Messages

13 years ago

What about the opposite? If someone in the US calls me and I am in a different country receiving that call, what happens?

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erichamion

Guru

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637 Messages

13 years ago

@ezalocusky wrote:
What about the opposite? If someone in the US calls me and I am in a different country receiving that call, what happens?

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/faq.jsp

If you're roaming internationally, then all calls, regardless of source or destination, are billed based on the international roaming rates, which depend on your location and whether you have a World Traveler feature on your line.

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Debbiec75

Contributor

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1 Message

13 years ago

What if you have unlimited texting with AT&T? Do you pay for texting to Afghanistan?

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DWC1

Master

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2.4K Messages

13 years ago

@Debbiec75 wrote:
What if you have unlimited texting with AT&T? Do you pay for texting to Afghanistan?

International texting is not included. Received texts are no extra charges but sending will cost.

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stufried

Guru

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1.1K Messages

13 years ago

Does your friend in Afghanistan have a smartphone and do you? I use Whatsapp to message with my friends abroad. It is just like texting but only uses a few bytes of data. It supports Blackberry, Nokia (Symbian), iPhone, and Android.

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