AT&T Wireless Company attempts to charge $3.49/minute for unanswered international roaming calls! Atlanta Georgia

The charges on your bill are correct and 100% valid. You took your phone with you on an "overseas trip" and left it on so that you were able to recieve incoming calls. It does not matter if you answered those calls or not... AT&T is your service provider in the UNITED STATES -- NOT OVERSEAS...when you take your phone with you and leave it on this means that your phone is picking up the international carriers towers and whether or not you answered the call or you let it go to voicemail this does not change the fact that the towers were used and that provider will then bill AT&T for YOUR use of THEIR towers...you are quite lucky to have had those charges waived and in the future, you should do a little more research before taking your phone with you on and international trip.

Maybe the point is misunderstood: if one wants to dial in to retrieve voice-mail messages, then it is quite fair to charge the customer the going rate. But I was charged for non-answered calls from callers who did not leave any voice-mail messages. I hope that this clears things up.

Thanks.

The OP doesn't state whether his "one minute" unanswered phone calls went to voice mail, just that he states "I never answered or spoke with anyone". IF his "unanswered" phone calls went to voice mail, he got the benefit of having and using his phone without "answering or speaking" with anyone. He leaves that part out. I remember in the old days, when we wanted to confirm or pass information along, WITHOUT paying for it, by calling collect and asking for a particular name. When our party at the other end said John Smith wasn't home right now, the operator would tell us Mr Smith wasn't home and couldn't accept the charges. The information was passed for free. As the other poster said, If the phone was turned off while overseas, there wouldn't have been a charge. Who's trying to rip who off.

Thanks for bringing AT&T's operating procedures to light. Seeing this all in print makes one even madder that they justify billing for services not rendered-calls not received. Any advertised advantages of AT&T's international roaming really go up in smoke when reconciled with their billing practices.

It seems best-and much cheaper to leave the AT&T mobile phone at home and have a separate phone and card for the countries visited. I believe that there are some companies which will sell you reasonably priced international sim cards before you leave the country. Certainly well worth investigating.

Straight from the AT&T faq on International roaming:

Q. How am I charged for Voicemail calls while roaming internationally?

A. Voicemail calls are charged as follows:
When your device is on:

-calls that you do not answer that are routed to the AT&T voicemail system will be charged as an international roaming incoming call to your device.
-In addition, the foreign carrier's routing of that call to the AT&T voicemail system may generate an outgoing call charge from your device's location to the U.S.
-These charges apply even if the caller disconnects from the voice mail system without leaving a message.

If your device is turned off:
-When someone tries to call you, the call will go directly to your personal voicemail greeting.
-Since the network does not try to deliver the call to you in a foreign country, there are no international roaming charges.


Be happy they refunded those charges, they didn't have to.