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Charged $400 for long distance calls

ms40
I'm a contributor level 2
I'm a contributor level 2

I am 80 years old and my wife and I have cell phone for emergencies. I was charged $400 in long distance calls made to Antigua, Morocco, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic that I did not make.  We have never called those countries and we certainly did NOT use our cell phones to call any of those countries, EVER.  Fido insists we did.  What can I do?  I feel like I am being extorted as they are threatening to cancel the lines. 

Has anyone else experienced a situation like this?  Please help.

28 REPLIES 28

precious23
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

I am going through the same thing right now, they said i made long distance call to USA twice when the i dont even know anyone in the usa I can talk to for that long. How do you even win a case like this? its sad that when i googled if people are billed for calls they did not make, and the first page complain is from Fido and Rogers. I keep getting calls from people saying i gave them a missed call when i clearly did not call anyone. I feel compromised and paying for  fraudulent bills.

hd9
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

Two months in a row I have long distance calls the US that I have not made 

We are sorry to see you are experiencing this @precious23. Please reach out to us to go over the charges, you can contact us here.



precious23
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

i did reach out twice and i was told i am the one who made those calls. i dont understand why i would make such calls when i know they are expensive. infact i am very upset about how my regular calls i make within canada no longer exist. seems you all say give us a call and we do, yet you cant really help your customers. cant wait to stop using fido after paying off my phone. i have been a loyal customer as an immigrant since i came to this country but you guys dont deserve my loyalty, my bills have been going up for like two months only for me to check into it and i am being accused of making long distance call when i did not. its really annoying that i am paying for a scammers call being redirected to my phone. 

 

this is not a regular habit, so why cant you guys wave the bill for the first time at least and if it happens again you can accuse your customers or find a better way of addressing such issues rather than completely calling your customers liers. 

 

now you want me to reach out to you when i have done that twice and no sympathy from your fido workers.  what will you do for me? its annoying the hell out of me because you are saying i made long distance call when i did not, then you slam me with an outragous bill, made me pay that bill by force and still telling me to call your Fido for help? you must be joking 

Gottabmxd26
I'm helpful level 1
I'm helpful level 1

This is happened to me twice now, the first time was for almost $25 the second time was for under two dollars. I am not making these calls and I am really tired of this company trying to get their money anyway they can and not listening to the consumer. Why on earth would I spend an hour on the phone to fight two dollars if I made the call.  Obviously not isolated as I read this happened multiple different people.  

hd9
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

Yes second month in a row for me ... couple dollars is not the point. I didn't make the calls is the point. Exactly 

Hello @Gottabmxd26,

Welcome to the community!

I'm sad to hear about your experience as this definitely isn't what we aim to provide you with. If you haven't made these calls, well you shouldn't be charged.

Feel free to reach out via these methods and we'll be happy to help.



No I shouldn't gave been charged but I was... so you're directing me to call Fido back again and do what exactly?   It's all well and good to put this in writing that "hey you shouldn't have been charged and just reach out and we will make it right" but you didn't make it right....so explain to me how you will make it right.  This is cost me money and my valuable time. Guide to Holding Space Facilitating Healing, Attunements, Blessings, and Empowerments for Self and OthersThis is cost me money and my valuable time. You're redirecting me to just callback into a call center who didn't give a rip the first time I called so what's different now?   

CIREGNUK
I'm a participant level 1
I'm a participant level 1

last month noticed on my dads fido  account  there was a long distance charge of over 1400 cad for a call of 938 minutes to   hong kong. the call stared at 1207 pm.

i ask him and we checked the phone for calls and of course he did not make any such  call and no record of the call at all.

938 minutes is 15.65 hours. one has to eat aleep and pee. we are in 2021 and no one  does things like this any more, there are many apps which you can do this for free. one month and 6 calls later with fido we are actully nowhere. kept on getting refferred to the presidential office call back which never happens.  has anyone ever gotten a positive result from fido?  how does somethig  like this get resolved? one agent attempted to tell me that it much be a third party app that has some coding error? really?

oh i forgot to mention my dad is 85 and has the basic package and this is totally not consitent with his usage profile.

any  help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

thx

 

Gottabmxd26
I'm helpful level 1
I'm helpful level 1

Funny how I can't reply to a moderator, the link to "reply" takes me right to their sales page.   In answer to your question, the answer is no. Fido will redirect the blame back to anyone that they can including Apple which is a load of nonsense. One of my best friends actually works for Apple and told me this is complete and utter nonsense. There are scammers out there hijacking the technology to make it look like the calls are coming from us. Fido should be doing something about this. When I called them they absolutely 100% refused to give me a credit for the calls saying that they don't do that anymore as of November 2021., Hmmmm I wonder why probably because it's happening so much. I asked the manager what their long-term plan is for this problem and the answer I got was nothing.   The last time this happened I had Fido check my IMEI number and they told me it did not match the outgoing call. They refused to do this for me this time around as "they don't do that anymore" they just kept insisting I made the calls when I did not. So I will blast this information everywhere and anywhere I can all over social media with MY TRUTH and inform people what is going on with this company.     Like come onnnn Fido.  

Hello again,

 

 


@Gottabmxd26 wrote:

...There are scammers out there hijacking the technology to make it look like the calls are coming from us....  


  Spammers/scammers have been spoofing phone numbers for a while now. While spoofing would make calls look like they are coming from our phone numbers, the calls are not actually made via our SIM cards. As mentioned in my reply to your other post here, mobile providers would only charge for usage via your SIM card. That is, calls which are made spoofing your phone number are not charged to you.

 

  I don't think it's possible for an incoming call to be registered as an outgoing call. There have been some scams (ie One-ring) which rely on getting victims to return calls. However, a potential victim needs to return the call in order to be scammed.

 


@Gottabmxd26 wrote:

...they don't do that anymore as of November 2021.,...  


 

  I don't know for certain to what that refers, however, customers at one point did get charged long-distance for receiving calls outside of their local calling-areas (LCAs). Since most plans now include Canada-wide calling, there are no longer long-distance charges for incoming calls received anywhere in Canada. That could be what they meant.

 

Hope this helps 😀

 

Cheers

 


Gottabmxd26
I'm helpful level 1
I'm helpful level 1

No, your response doesn't help me at all because we are still getting charge for calls that we are not making. I don't care if it's $.50 or $50 I do not expect to be billed for these things and Fido should be doing something about it ....this is not a one off....it's very clear that is a problem going on and it's your responsibility to deal with this and fix this. Instead, you're handing it back to clients and telling us that we are lying or that you don't believe us and you're billing us.....so you're not out one cent you're just passing all of this loss onto your customers. This is extremely bad business and as I said before I will tell every single person that will listen to me what you were doing and how wrong it is.  ADDRESS THE PROBLEM, stop passing the buck 

Hey @CIREGNUK

Are you an authorized contact on your father's account? If you are, you can contact us using these methods so we can take a closer look.



Good morning ms40, wow that's a lot of long distance charges. If you live close to a Fido store or kiosk maybe the customer service reps can help you with  tracking down the time of day the calls were made and then maybe figure it out. I wonder if they can check for something called sim cloning or swapping.  The locations the calls were initiated from using their data analysis. I'm pretty sure one of the mods will reach out to you on this and help track it down. I wish you luck and some fine sleuthing help.



Cawtau
Senior MVP Senior MVP
Senior MVP

Hello Ms40,

Welcome to the community!

Sorry to hear you've received that awful surprise on your bill. I understand that you might not have intended on making those calls. However, if the calls are on the system, they would have been made using your SIM card. What phone do you have? Is it a smartphone? It's possible that the phone has been infected with some sort of virus or malware. Charges for unknown calls is a rather common symptom of infected devices (see here).

If you do have a smartphone, you might consider running a virus and/or malware checker to see if your device has been infected. Unfortunately, some viruses/malware have been designed to fool anti-virus software. If antivirus and anti-malware app fail to remove viruses, it might be necessary to  perform a factory reset of the device. However, even doing so might not remove all viruses (see here and here). It depends on what part of the device the virus was able to infect (see here). If they are able to identify the virus, there might be more effective means of removing it.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers


ms40
I'm a contributor level 2
I'm a contributor level 2

The phone in question is an Iphone, all your articles refer to android devices. Additionally, I do not have any "apps" on the phone.  As I said, I am 80 years old and use the phone only for emergencies.  Are you trying to tell me that this can happen again?  Are you saying that anyone who owns a cell phone and is a Fido customer runs the risk of getting charged hundreds of dollars every month in long distance calls because of a bogus "virus" and Fido will do nothing about it?  No one in their right mind would ever own a cell phone if that were the case.  I can't afford to pay $400 in long distance calls I DID NOT MAKE.  I am retired, living on a measly pension.  

I need you to do the right thing and remove the $400 charges for long distance calls I did not make. I do not buy your story about my phone having a virus. Please advise. 

Hello again,

Thank you for the additional information. However, iPhones are not immune from the issue making random calls (see here, here, here, here, here, here, etc). It appears as though the issue is rather long-standing. That would be an Apple issue rather than a mobile provider issue. Yes, if the issue is not adddressed, it is entirely possible that they could happen again. Customers are responsible for the actions of their phones -- even if they weren't aware of its actions. As mentioned in my reply to your other post, it's not really possible to make calls on your account without your SIM. It's also rather unlikely that your SIM might have been cloned. In order to clone a SIM, they would need access to your SIM. 

Mobile providers will just transmit what a customer's phone initiates. It the phone sends a text message, the provider will transmit that text message. If the phone makes a call, the provider will connect that call. The mobile providers cannot connect calls which were not initiated by a customers' phone. If there is a glitch in the iOS software causing those randmom calls (or virus/malware in android), mobile providers can't know those calls were not intended. Why would it be the mobile providers' responsibility for those charges, if any?

I'm sorry if this reply seems harsh. However, having a smartphone does not come without responsibilities. There are basic phones which can be used for emergencies and are not susceptible to OS glitches or viruses/malware.

I do understand your situation. If you are unable to pay that amount in full, you might consider contacting Fido's Credit Operations department to arrange a payment arrangement.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers


Gottabmxd26
I'm helpful level 1
I'm helpful level 1

I checked out a couple of these links however they refer to the phone making random calls to people already on your contact list. That I could understand being a MY problem.  BUT...the calls that were made were NOT in my contact list. They were to random business in California and NY

Hello Gottabmxd26,

 

  Welcome to the community!

 

  I understand you have checked out a couple of those links. However some of those links do include references to calling numbers not in a device's contact list:

Random calls.jpg

~taken from link above.

 

  I understand some of those examples are from quite a while ago. However, that is only a small selection of replies.

 

  Unfortunately, if the calls are made using your SIM card, the calls originated from your device. Even if you did not intend on making the calls, you are responsible for your device. The mobile providers will only charge for usage via your SIM card.

 

Hope this helps 😀

 

Cheers

 


Gottabmxd26
I'm helpful level 1
I'm helpful level 1

Nope it doesn't help just more blah blah blah.  Just more of Fido passing it off to someone else instead of actually dealing with the problem. I did not make the calls and I certainly wouldn't spend an hour on the phone trying to dispute a two dollar phone bill if I did.  Ridiculous.  Stop insulting our intelligence.