Text To Home Phone charge

[qvtt]

I am a happy Fido customer with 3 cell lines. I have been pleased with Fido service until I saw a charge of 0.25c for Texting To Home Phone. It was simply a mistake on my part to text to a landline instead of a cell line, but this kind of mistake is very common especially when you pull a contact with more than one numbers from your contact list and chose the wrong number, and I am sure that this is likely to happen to anyone. Texting to a landline triggers some sort of service that result in a 0.25c charge. I strongly think that there should be a warning message when such attempt is made instead of "secretly" charging me 0.25c.

I have contacted Fido and got the 0.25c credit, but this is not a question of getting the money back or not, it is a matter of PRINCIPLE. This kind of mistake does happen often to anyone and Fido makes money out of it, not very ETHICAL.

[FidoSamantha · Accepted solution]

Hey qvtt!

Welcome to the Community

On the first use of Text to home phone, you'll receive a text message to confirm the language to be used and the price of the service. In your case, it's most likely not the first time you use it which explains why you didn't get the text message notifying you of the charge. Also, first time use of this service is not charged because you know, mistakes can happen  

If you prefer to block the feature permanently, then just send an email to support@telemessage.com indicating that you wish to block all Text to Home messages from your Fido phone number (include your number in the e-mail).

Once you send your email, all Text to Home messages will be blocked within 2 business days.

Hope this helps!

[Scooby-Doo]

Hi I need some helps.with this too please. (Current waiting time 18 minutes to speak to a representative)

Ihave a text to home charge on my latest bill  I have the 85$ device10Gb plan that includes unlimited calls video and texts plan + unlimited long distance !?!

There is no detail about identifying the number dialedit refers to Event  I do not believe it's my doing    could this be a charge from someone send me a text if so I will whitelist. 

Please let me know!

Thanks 

[Cawtau]

Hello Scooby-Doo,

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Scooby-Doo wrote:... could this be a charge from someone send me a text if so I will whitelist....

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  Fido does not charge for any received SMS/MMS. Note, however, the data portion of a MMS while roaming would be considered roaming data and be charged as such.

  As noted previously in the thread, sending texts to a landline (home phone) is a 3rd party (TeleMessage) service which incurs additional cost. If you would like to prevent sending texts to a landline, you would have to contact TeleMessage directly and ask them to disable the service for your number.

  Contacting support@telemessage.com does indeed work as this community member has indicated here.

Hope this helps

Cheers

[Scooby-Doo]

Hi & Thank you so much Cawtau 

[qvtt]

Hi Samantha, thanks for your reply. My point is this kind of mistake will likely happen again and again in the future, and each mistake will cost 0.25c. Why isn't Fido providing a warning message everytime an attempt to text to a landline instead of cashing in on user's mistakes Fido knowingly knew that would happen all the time ?

To me, this a money trap from Fido as simple as that. 

[FidoSamantha]

The warning message is only sent once since it's not a very common issue. If you prefer, we can have it blocked for you. Is that something you'd like me to look into?

[Moomoosaurus]

Can Fido reps disable this now?  I was told on live chat there is nothing they can do, and I don't really want to text telemessages.com my phone number as I don't know who they are. It's incredible that they provide a "feature" taht i never wanted and cannot turn off, which chaeges me 25 cents without a warning each time i text to a landline by mistake.

[FidoClaudia]

Hey @Moomoosaurus,

Welcome to our Community!

I assure you that sending an email to support@telemessage.com is a safe procedure to follow to have all Text to home messages blocked from your Fido phone. 

Once it's done, messages will be blocked within 2 business days.

Hope this helps

[qvtt]

Yes. Please block the service (Text To Landlines) on all my 3 accounts. Thanks.

[FidoSamantha]

Sounds good!

I'll send you a PM so we can get started  

[647nk]

Hello I would also like to block this feature it is costing me money each month.

Please Help Asap! I have two lines.

[FidoAmanda]

Hey 647nk!

You can block this feature by sending an email to support@telemessage.com indicating that you wish to block all Text to Home messages from your Fido phone number. Once you send your email, all Text to Home messages will be blocked within 2 business days.

Hope this helps! 

[SgtWilko]

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@FidoAmandaN wrote:

Hey 647nk!

You can block this feature by sending an email to support@telemessage.com indicating that you wish to block all Text to Home messages from your Fido phone number. Once you send your email, all Text to Home messages will be blocked within 2 business days.

Hope this helps! 

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Anyone try this? Does it work? I'd like to know before texting my phone numbers to a company I don't know much about. I went to the telemessage website to see who they are and the Fido "text to home" connection is not obvious to me.

[ronyb]

This mistakes happen frequently when we forget that the number is not a cell one.

There definitely should be a warning before delivering the text message and charging the sender. Numbers as you know do not indicate if it is a landline, which is not the same case in European countries where cell phones have different area numbers.

[Scooby-Doo]

Hi @ronyb welcome to the community

Just so you know if you contact support@telemessage.com  ask them to disable and it  will stop and you won't occure charges anymore for text to landline. 

Something is going to give...soon

With wifi enable and new technology coming out like smart city etc I'm sure something is going to change eventually. It would be great if a messaging app  had this feature enable disable but I don't know any app ( or settings on phone) like that so far. 

Have a super day!

[ronyb]

Hi Scooby-Doo,

Thank you for your reply, I have indeed read the thread and sent already an email to Telemessage support.

Will see how it goes, but users who don't know about this community will need to call and waste a lot of time before they can obtain the right procedure.

I would rather suggest that It should be integrated in the FIDO user online profile rather than another app to add, where user can tick to block this feature and then Fido will automatically contact the Telemessaging support for that, I think this will improve the service and make it available for all customers.

[FidoAmanda]

Thanks for the suggestion, ronyb!

And, don't hesitate to spread the word about our Community to your friends and family so that they don't miss out on all the useful information that we have here!

[Kara0325]

I sent the message (E) because I thought there was no extra charge.

Please let me know to stop the service. I don't need any extra services.

Thank you.

[FidoCharles]

Hi @Kara0325 , welcome to the Community!

I moved your post here, you should be able to find your answer with the solution to this thread

The service in question is "Text to home phone", it charges $0.25 when you send a text message to a land line number that will be automatically converted to a voice message.

You can read more info on this service here.

[Scooby-Doo]

Good stuff  @ronyb 

Fido phone customer support  billing should be able to direct clients to contact telemessage meanwhile.

I will link it to Fido feedback section!

Cheers!