Hello Viveksagar,
Welcome to the community!
Sorry to hear you've incurred unintended roaming charges.
@Viveksagar wrote:
I'm in Indonesia and I put in an eSIM from my local provider but I cannot turn off data roaming. Otherwise the local Sim card will not work....
What device to you have? Where was it purchased? Have you tried to disable roaming data?... As far as I am aware, if you are using a local SIM (physical or eSIM), that SIM would not be roaming in its local area. I understand some older devices might have needed to have roaming data enabled even with local SIMs if outside of their intended target market, however, I haven't heard of one of those devices for a while now. If you hadn't already, you might consider trying to disable roaming data. That said, you should note that some devices might allow some data usage despite data and roaming data disabled (see here).
Does your device have dual-SIM capability? If so, there may be a setting to prevent the physical SIM from using data. Unfortunately, there are no standardisations of how dual-SIMs should function. If there are no options on your device to prevent data usage on your Fido SIM card, your only option might be to remove the SIM card and replace it when receiving verification SMS. When doing so, you would need to ensure your device does not use data when replacing the SIM.
If you did not wish to use Fido Roam, you would need to opt-out of the feature. In doing so, any usage would be on a pay-per-use basis. You can view those rates here. If you wished to opt-out of Fido Roam, you would need to contact customer service. In addition, they can also be contacted via Live Chat, Facebook, or Twitter. Those methods can be accessed via the contact page posted above.
I also understand you wish to access your roaming usage abroad. Unfortunately, I don't think there is anyway to track your roaming usage in real-time (see here). As far as I am aware, Fido does not receive your usage in real-time:
For post-paid roaming, when the user first switches their phone on, the visited network checks in real time whether the home network authenticates the customer and authorises its use abroad... ~ taken from here.
That would result in the Welcoming text message we receive when our phones connect to a foreign network.
...But the data records (CDRs) with the details on each SMS and data session are sent to the home operator with some delay (up to several days).. ~ also taken from link above.
If home networks don't receive usage information in real-time, it's not possible for them to provide customers with notification that a roaming session has begun without a delay.
The situation is different with pre-paid services where a real-time exchange is required to prevent the balance of the roaming customers' accounts from becoming overdrawn. That's likely the reason why pre-paid roaming often costs more than post-paid roaming.
Hope this helps 😀
Cheers
Hello again,
Thank you for the additional information. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with iPhone devices. It seems strange to me that a local SIM (physical or eSIM) would require roaming data to be enabled, though. You might consider reaching out to Apple to see if that is indeed the case or whether there are settings available to address the situation you are currently facing.
Hope this helps 😀
Cheers
