Roaming text messages sent

[maya8]

Would someone tell us why Fido does not have more details on the bill on Roaming charges. I was in Cuba last month, talked to your Rep before leaving and learned that you don't have travel packages, ok no problem, I will pay for all sent text messages. After my trip I get one bill with additional charges on around $15 ($0.75 /msg) for Roaming text msgs 19 sent msgs .. ok, Fido took money from my credit card. The following month again charge of around $10 for 13 Roaming msg sent, no details again and the money is taken from my credit card again! I did count now all my text msgs that I sent from Cuba and it was in total 15!! .and now I have to call and talk to your Rep again and spend my time on the phone...very anoying and dissapointing... (no offence to your most of the time nice Reps).. I tried to use Fido chat today (Sat Dec 23)  with no luck...

[maya8]

Hello Maya8,

  Just to clarify, did you travel to Cuba more than once? If you only made one trip to Cuba, did your trip span two billing cycles? If it did, that could account for your receiving two bills with roaming text charges.

  I understand you only sent 15 messages. However, you need to keep in mind that the SMS or texting protocol is strictly limited to 140 bytes. If any of your messages exceeded that limit, it would have counted as more than one SMS (see here and here). While there are some phones which send these long-SMS as MMS (rather than multiple SMS), this does not seem to be the case with your phone. The data within roaming MMS would have counted as roaming data.

  Did any of your messages exceed the character limits?

Hope this helps

Cheers

[Cawtau · Accepted solution]

Hello Maya8,

  Just to clarify, did you travel to Cuba more than once? If you only made one trip to Cuba, did your trip span two billing cycles? If it did, that could account for your receiving two bills with roaming text charges.

  I understand you only sent 15 messages. However, you need to keep in mind that the SMS or texting protocol is strictly limited to 140 bytes. If any of your messages exceeded that limit, it would have counted as more than one SMS (see here and here). While there are some phones which send these long-SMS as MMS (rather than multiple SMS), this does not seem to be the case with your phone. The data within roaming MMS would have counted as roaming data.

  Did any of your messages exceed the character limits?

Hope this helps

Cheers

[maya8]

Hi Cawtau,

Thank you for your answer and the info. I have checked my msgs and maybe three of them were a bit longer which means that I still did not have more than 20 msgs in total and was charged for 32.  It was one trip to Cuba for five days and yes the billing cycle was in the middle of my trip but still does not make sense to get charged so much. I will call the customer svcs to talk to them.