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Charged Fido Roam for unknown services

Floras18
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

I have been a Fido customer for quite a long time. I have a good understand with the Fido Roaming services as I have multiple traveling experience with the Fido phone.

Recently I have been traveling back home and had lost my device including the SIM card. I have reported lost/Stolen of the device with the online services to lock my SIM card and phone number as well as made a case with the police. Due to the pandemic, I have to stay in my home country for longer than expected period, so I have asked my friend as my authorized contact to get a new SIM card with the same number for me then mail it to me. That way I can keep my phone number alive and to receive text messsages from work if needed - those services should be free of charge as per this forum . 

I reactivated my SIM card immediately when I recieved it from the mail which is around Jan 3rd, 2022. Couple days later, my bill period ends. I received the Fido bill that I have got 3 roaming charge stated that I have made calls/ send text message to 2 unknown numbers in3 separate days- Jan 3rd Jan 4th and Jan 5th, and so I got charged by that.

I tried to reach out to the Fido customer services and let them know that my phone and SIM card had got stolen, I have not been making those phone calls or sending those text messages, and I have not been able to find those number from my call logs or message log. However they insist those are valid charge and kept them on my bill.

 

My concern is that: the new SIM card suppose to be replacing the old SIM after it has been activated and after it has been reporting lost. However, if unrecognized calls have been made (not by myself) and unknown message have sent with the old SIM that has been reported lost, will I still get charged like my previous bill in my new bill period? Right now I am not able to view my bill until it has been publish by the end of cycle. I am super worry that I will got charge with couple more hundred dollars for roaming on servies I did not even use, and fido do not accept my appeal.

4 REPLIES 4

Cawtau
Senior MVP Senior MVP
Senior MVP

Hello Floras18,

 

  Welcome to the community!

 

  Sorry to hear you lost your phone and SIM card. You did the right thing by reporting your device as lost or stolen on your My Account.

 


@Floras18 wrote:

...That way I can keep my phone number alive and to receive text messsages from work if needed - those services should be free of charge as per this forum ...


  Firstly, it should be mentioned that while receiving SMS would not incur the roaming charge, any data contained within MMS (incoming or outgoing) would be considered roaming data and charged accordingly. You should note that MMS are not solely restricted to pictures or video messages. Messages with subject headers or group messages etc are also considered MMS.

 

  You might consider disabling any MMS auto-retrieve settings on your phone. You would then receive a SMS notifying of a MMS (no charge) but the data contained would not download automatically. You could then choose whether or not to download the associated data contents. You should also note that, with the exception of Wifi-calling, MMS does not generally get transmitted via Wifi. Downloading MMS while connected to Wifi would likely incur roaming charges. That said, if your device is supported for Wifi-calling, some types of usage would be considered roaming.

 


@Floras18 wrote:

...My concern is that: the new SIM card suppose to be replacing the old SIM after it has been activated and after it has been reporting lost. However, if unrecognized calls have been made (not by myself) and unknown message have sent with the old SIM that has been reported lost, will I still get charged like my previous bill in my new bill period?...


  I understand your concern, however, once your account is updated with your new SIM card information, your old SIM card would not work anymore. It is not possible to have two functioning SIM cards for a single line or phone number. Now that you are using your new SIM card, it is not possible for anyone to access your services with your old SIM card.

 

  I also understand you are concerned regarding the charges incurred in the beginning of January being from your old SIM card. Since the charges occurred after you updated the SIM card information, they would have been made using your new device and SIM card and not through your old SIM card. I further understand you were not aware of those calls or messages. What phone do you have? Is it a new phone or was it purchased second hand? Is it a smartphone? The calling behaviour you note could suggest a possible virus or malware had infected your phone. Charges for unknown calls/messages is a rather common symptom of infected devices (see here). You might consider obtaining anti-virus and anti-malware software to scan your device and remove any culprits, if present.

 

  If this is a new occurence, have you verified that any newly installed apps are not the culprit? You might consider deleting any new apps and re-installing them one-by-one to identify a potential culprit.

 

  You should also note that 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. 

 

  You should further note that some phones might consider certain system data differently from user data and continue to allow the former usage despite data and roaming data settings disabled. To ensure unintended data usage, you might consider enabling Airplane or Flight modes for the duration of your trip. You could manually enable Wifi when required. I understand those modes would also prevent receiving SMS, however, you would need to know how your phone behaves in order to prevent unintentional data usage.

 

Hope this helps 😀

 

Cheers

 


Floras18
I'm a participant level 2
I'm a participant level 2

Hi Cawtau,

 

Thank you so much for your detail responses! It is a good point that you mentioned there maybe different type of messages received and may considered as roaming.

To give you more context, my phone is a new phone, Xiaomi lite 11 5G, it does have WiFi calling function. However, since mine new phone has 2 SIM slot. I have put my Canada number SIM card to off since my last bill, which means no messages or calls can come in to my phone, and that I am not using any roaming services. Unfortunately, when i get the bill today, there are 3 roaming charges again which cost me almost 100 dollars including my usual charges, when I have not been using the service at all. I will chat with a live agent again to see what happened, but it is quite disappointing that it happens more than once and I will consider changing service provider if the third happens...

 

Thank you for your effort in resolving this again!

Have a nice day.

 

Hello again,

 

  Sorry to hear you've incurred additional roaming charges.

 

  Firstly, you should note that while your phone may be capable of Wifi-calling, it's unlikely that feature would be supported with Fido since it is not a model or manufacturer offered by them. As such, it would not have been tested on the networks.

 

  You would only get charged for roaming if there is any usage on your SIM card when abroad. In fact, Fido would not even know you were out of the Country unless the Fido SIM connected to the local networks. I understand your device is dual-SIM and you have disabled that SIM so that no calls or messages are used on that SIM. However, we don't know how Xiaomi manages its dual-SIM functionality. It's possible the phone may still connect to the networks and allow system data to transmit even though that SIM-card is user-disabled. Unfortunately, there is no standard as to how a dual-SIM device should function.

 

  Without knowing how that device behaves when roaming, I would personally remove the Fido SIM for the remainder of your time away. I understand the point of a dual-SIM device is so that one wouldn't have to switch SIMs, however, that functionality is only useful if you know exactly how the device behaves under its various settings.

 

  I understand it's disappointing to incur roaming charges even though you thought the SIM was completely disabled. You should note that if the phone is somehow connecting to the networks despite that SIM being disabled, it's possible the same issue could arise with any of the other providers. They all determine roaming usage the same way.

 

Hope this helps 😀

 

Cheers

 


Hi @Floras18 , sorry to hear this. I don't know what to say except you might want to start a conversation with fido customer support about your concerns and have some documentation on file to work from. You can contact fido by any of the methods mentioned Here and have them check your account activity. I hope you get your answers