International billing error

[gislin]

Can anyone advise me what to do in the following situation?

I am being charged $100 for a call from Quito, Ecuador, back to the US. AT&T claims that the call lasted 50 minutes; I know it was no more than a few minutes. I made about 15 calls during the same trip varying in length between 1 and 6 minutes, with an average duration of 2 minutes.

AT&T refuses to take me (and my mother in law who received the call) at my word that there is no way I would have talked that long; they flatly deny that there could have been a malfunction (e.g., in the switching equipment) that led to this error.

They've offered to reduce the cost by half, but I refused. Any advice will be most welcome.

[gislin]

Can anyone advise me what to do in the following situation?

I am being charged $100 for a call from Quito, Ecuador, back to the US. AT&T claims that the call lasted 50 minutes; I know it was no more than a few minutes. I made about 15 calls during the same trip varying in length between 1 and 6 minutes, with an average duration of 2 minutes.

AT&T refuses to take me (and my mother in law who received the call) at my word that there is no way I would have talked that long; they flatly deny that there could have been a malfunction (e.g., in the switching equipment) that led to this error.

They've offered to reduce the cost by half, but I refused. Any advice will be most welcome.

[Eric47]

i suggest you pay your bill. you realize that even if your on the phone for 1second that is 1minute right? or for instance, 2mins and 10 seconds is still 3 mins. the billing that occured is probably valid and you should just pay it and not stress. using your phone internationally you knew it would cost you, so why fight it?

[gislin]

Why fight it?

Well, for one thing because we're not talking about rounding up to the next minute, and $100 is not the same as $2 (the cost of one extra minute).

More importantly, if you multiply this by the number of people making international calls, and even if only 1 in 10,000 calls has an error, you're talking about $millions. And there is no way to check!

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by gislin

Can anyone advise me what to do in the following situation?

I am being charged $100 for a call from Quito, Ecuador, back to the US. AT&T claims that the call lasted 50 minutes; I know it was no more than a few minutes. I made about 15 calls during the same trip varying in length between 1 and 6 minutes, with an average duration of 2 minutes.

AT&T refuses to take me (and my mother in law who received the call) at my word that there is no way I would have talked that long; they flatly deny that there could have been a malfunction (e.g., in the switching equipment) that led to this error.

They've offered to reduce the cost by half, but I refused. Any advice will be most welcome.

I am always surprised by how high my bill is everytime I travel but I have never been billed for 50 mins when the actual call was only a few minutes minutes.

I have some questions:
1. Do all the other calls show the right duration?
2. What does OLAM show for duration?
3. Does either your phone or you MIL's phone's call log show details of calls made from Equador and their duration? If they do, since these cannot be altered manually, you may have some ammunation to fight this.

[gislin]

Excellent points!
1. Yes, as far as I can tell all other calls were billed correctly
2. Sorry, I'm a newbie. How do I check OLAM for duration?
3. That would be great, but both phones only retain the last 20 calls, and this call took place on January 1 '08; I didn't find out until I checked the bill, last week.
Thanks!

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by gislin

Excellent points!
1. Yes, as far as I can tell all other calls were billed correctly
2. Sorry, I'm a newbie. How do I check OLAM for duration?
3. That would be great, but both phones only retain the last 20 calls, and this call took place on January 1 '08; I didn't find out until I checked the bill, last week.
Thanks!

Hi there,

OLAM=On Line Account Management. I am presuming you are not signed up for it but you can now and it will hopefully show your prior calls. Here is the link for you to sign up for it or sign in if you already are. Unfortunately, the chances are OLAM will also show the call as 50 mins since that is what the system logged it in as.

PS: I am not sure if at&t can do much more than give you a discount at this pont, since they are getting their information from whoever you were roaming with in Equador.

[Kalimotxo]

Originally Posted by gislin

Can anyone advise me what to do in the following situation?

I am being charged $100 for a call from Quito, Ecuador, back to the US. AT&T claims that the call lasted 50 minutes; I know it was no more than a few minutes. I made about 15 calls during the same trip varying in length between 1 and 6 minutes, with an average duration of 2 minutes.

AT&T refuses to take me (and my mother in law who received the call) at my word that there is no way I would have talked that long; they flatly deny that there could have been a malfunction (e.g., in the switching equipment) that led to this error.

They've offered to reduce the cost by half, but I refused. Any advice will be most welcome.

It's not what you know, it's what you can prove.

Using cellular systems abroad, especially in the developing world, can often prove to be a major pain. Charges can be erratic and inaccurate. (At least this is what my personal experiences have led me to believe, others may not agree with me on that).

I know you aren't going to like me saying this, but I would take AT&T's offer and just pay the rest. It might not be worth all of your time to try and fight this. My recommendation is to try calling back and see if they'll shave off a little more money.

This is why, if I have the opportunity to do so, I use prepaid cellular systems abroad. That way I know I'm less likely to see surprises.

[Eric47]

Originally Posted by Wumpusva

It's not what you know, it's what you can prove.

Using cellular systems abroad, especially in the developing world, can often prove to be a major pain. Charges can be erratic and inaccurate. (At least this is what my personal experiences have led me to believe, others may not agree with me on that).

I know you aren't going to like me saying this, but I would take AT&T's offer and just pay the rest. It might not be worth all of your time to try and fight this. My recommendation is to try calling back and see if they'll shave off a little more money.

This is why, if I have the opportunity to do so, I use prepaid cellular systems abroad. That way I know I'm less likely to see surprises.

WELL PUT. definetly the best way to do it.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by Charlyee

PS: I am not sure if at&t can do much more than give you a discount at this pont, since they are getting their information from whoever you were roaming with in Equador.

If your mother-in-laws phone in the US you were calling was also ATT, then they should also have a record of the call since it also passed thru thier switch. If the call was to a non-ATT number, then it's like Charlylee says, they have to take the Ecuador operators word on it. Well, they can ask them to check their records again, but it depends on how willing and able they are to do that. And even so, it may be too late since usually operators give each other a fixed time to pay each other (usually 30-40 days and then they close their books).

One other thought: is it possible you thought you hung the phone up but didn't, and the call really did stay active that long? Just a thought...

[gislin]

Originally Posted by RadioRaiders

If your mother-in-laws phone in the US you were calling was also ATT, then they should also have a record of the call.
...
One other thought: is it possible you thought you hung the phone up but didn't, and the call really did stay active that long? Just a thought...

Fair questions.

MIL's phone is also AT&T, and it shows a 51 minute call (go figure how the receving call could be longer than the originating one, which takes extra airtime to dial and establish the connection).

It's possible that one party didn't press the off button correctly when we ended the call, but AT&T confirms that this would not be enough to maintain the connection. Both phones had to be on to get a valid call duration. I know this doesn't look strong, but both MIL and I are pretty ____ about hanging up the phone properly, and we never talk for more than a few minutes.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by gislin

MIL's phone is also AT&T, and it shows a 51 minute call.

Then ATT should be able to check their call records to verify that it wasn't an error from the Ecuador operator. However, given that the call is over 40 days old, they may just have a "too bad, too late" attitude since ATT probably has to pay the Ecuador operaotor anyway.

I'd take Wumps advice and pay (half) the bill, chalk it up as a loss, and get a pre-paid next time.

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by RadioRaiders

I'd take Wumps advice and pay (half) the bill, chalk it up as a loss, and get a pre-paid next time.

The one problem I have with a pre-paid local SIM is that unless I carry two phones or keep switching SIMS to make phone calls, anyone calling me from the US in an emergency or otherwise, incurs long distance charges.

[gislin]

Again, thanks for the good comments. I'll wait to hear back from the BBB before deciding whether to take the 50% offer.

And I'll probably carry a separate phone (with local SIM) for outgoing calls from now on. That will still keep me within reach for calls from the US.

[mrcamp]

Since, the other phone showed 51 mins, and If it's showing 50 mins on your January bill or OLAM there is a good chance both phones forgot to hang up. If I were you, I would go ahead and take the AT&T offer and consider this "lesson learnt". It's best not to roam at all if you can, if you are going to be making more than a couple of calls. I always take more than 1 phone with me. I will have my AT&T phone alread forwarded unconditionally to an international sim(Directly or inderectly via a 3rd party such as voicestick), and then leave my AT&T sim in my phone, and the international sim in another phone. That way I will not be charged for any roaming calls, except if I make out going calls from my AT&T phone. And I can still receive my texts and use the AT&T phone to check email briefly if I need to.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by mrcamp

Since, the other phone showed 51 mins, and If it's showing 50 mins on your January bill or OLAM there is a good chance both phones forgot to hang up.

Or maybe you both really did hang up, but the network didn't register it for some reason (it happens sometimes, especially in international calls) and it remained active.

Or sometimes the clearinghouse (the intermediary) has a mistake in the billing file. There can be alot of things that can go wrong. But operators may not bother to investigate if the error is only $100 (ok, it's alot to YOU, but they have bigger fish to fry). Maybe for "small" errors of $100 they just automatically offer to split the bill instead of investigating, which takes their time and resources.

PS- If you really want to know the billing process for roaming, here's a good read:

GSM World - Using GSM - Tapping the Potential of Roaming