Border Towns Issue

[EandBD]

I work close to the US border and today I received a text from public mobile welcoming me to the USA and offering me to purchase some add-ons.  Of course I do not wish to purchase add-ons since I am not crossing the border, but how can I avoid receiving an extra charges on my account?

[Grinders]

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[dust2dust]

@sohosynergy  - All wise warnings to everyone. But at the end of the day for here, there are no extra charges for anything.

[sohosynergy]

and that was the problem, when a person installs any app from the play store or sideloads an app, pop ups request to accept access to features of the phone, aka (this  app is requesting access to your contacts, phone (and when it says phone that can also include dialling from your phone) so while the app itself may not show you the option to force it to use the internet to dial, the actual installer may initially pop up the message above which is the same as you manually letting the app use your phone dialler.  Once you accept well any fees associated become your responsibility.  I know we're maybe getting a bit off topic but at least I hope our replies will help prevent others from future difficulties.

[dust2dust]

@sohosynergy- I didn't know that about whatsapp. I use a different voip app. I don't let it integrate with the default texting app or the dialer. I'm not sure I even remember seeing an option to integrate to the dialer.

My favourite benefit here are the add-ons. Other than roaming (I would not use them for this situation) the add-ons stay on the account until all used up. They don't expire at the next renewal. They don't re-charge at the next renewal.

[sohosynergy]

dust2dust,

RE: 

"There are no extra charges here. But to avoid connecting to a US tower you will need to manually connect to"

and that statement above is only one of so many reasons why, even though I worked for your competitors and had a deep discount, still switched to Public Mobile.

Here's some of the others:

• Your cost to benefit ratio for your plans alone make the switch worth it
• rather than boasting 24x7 phone support and hiking the plans to cover the costs of the employees and infrastucture, you thought out of the box and said, "hey if you are ok with email and forum support, we'll cut your cell plan costs to about half of what you are paying now AND since we sit on two of the largest cell providers Canada Wide you'll get the best coverage you can ask for (with *ll Mobility and **gers Wireless I was paying over $90 a month and with you when I started my bill dropped down to $35...I don't know about you but that extra $660 a year in my pocket means you have a loyal client. The fact that Bell and Telus share the same networks Canada Wide and Public Mobile also rides both the networks makes it a no brainer to switch...for the layperson who may not as technosavvy, that extra $660 is incentive to do a lil online reading for support and reward themselves with that money in their pocket afterall you do know that skipping that drive through coffee each morning saves you the same amount that's a LOT of money back in your pocket without compromising the quality of cell service. 
• as you mentioned above no extra charges is again a massive incentive to switch, as I mentioned I had to deal with the escalations when the client was billed, and having to politely say that the $350+ cannot be waived....yes I'd easily shell out $15 a month for and add-on for roaming were I living in a border town

Same caution goes for the clients who use 3rd party software to save on international long distance and yes I mean  *WhatsAPP...I personally would NEVER use them unless you are mid knowledge in cell applications and Internet as well as VoIP config...., the clients who called me because they were using  WhatsAPP to have free overseas calls on their cells and had 900-2000 dollars charges..sorry but they cannot be waived and what's worse, since the terminating provider (the country you calling) does not have the same regulations as CRTC, they can and DO charge upwards of $5 a minute to your current provider which they cannot reverse hence the reason you too cannot reverse those charges AND in case you didn't know the terminating provider have 30+ days to finalize the charges so just when you thought that 900-2k was the end...the next couple of months more charges come in as they finalize the billing period.  All that because the app would use you cell provider dialling instead of internet...I can't stop emphasizing to people the importance of self education for the technology they use.

So to sum up, few people I know want to pay more for bills each month, but international ld add ons and roaming addons are definitely worth it and this is coming from over 5 years in cell provider customer service and escalation Management ( I was one of the team who had to call back the clients to explain this and also tell them we could not reverse the charges and the worst gut wrenching, heartbreaking one I had was a refugee not 3 months in Canada calling her family every day on WhatsAPP thinking it was free only to find it that it reset to defaults and started dialling through her regular phone app resulting in the unwaivable $2000 Canadian and the next month she called back in as the final tally was charged yet another $300)  so while some of my examples may not completely apply to Public Mobile, they do completely apply to nearly all the other cell providers which is a really good reason to encourage your friends and family to join Public Mobile!

So in the end, for the clients who did not know the above, now that you do, I am sure you agree that either paying a small amount for the addons (or at worst disabling certain functions) greatly outweighs the repercussions of not doing so. Save yourself a LOT of grief ...if you are not sure what you need take the time to send you question to the fantastic support staff here in Public Mobile.

P.S. If you see any value to my posts, pm me and let me know, I'd gladly share my knowledge if I know there is interest (without of course breaching my non-disclouse agreements with past and preset employers which included 310-Bell (VoIP for condos, billing, retention, Bell Mobility billing and OneBill), Rogers Wireless Bilingual Customer Service and Escalation Management team, Contract I.T. support for CRTC, several other Federal Goverment Tier II Deskside and Servicedesk, Microsoft Platform Support Specialist, Corel WordPerfect Suite Support (yep they're still quite alive and kicking) DEC and COMPAQ Consumer, Commercial and Server Support.  I think it's time to share the knowledge for free what some of the above companies charge upwards of $150 an incident for free...my way of paying it forward.

[dust2dust]

@sohosynergy- A good read. Thank you for your input. The catch-all here though is that there are no extra charges. You can receive texts. Free. You just can't do anything else. So in the case of being near the border and picking up those more powerful towers, we just need to turn off automatic and connect to Public so as to be able to use all the services. The roaming add-ons are also only for 10 days. That can add up fast.

[sohosynergy]

Hi,

I was support for two different telecom companies (**gers Wireless and 310-*ell) and received many escalations regarding this exact same issue.

What happens are the U.S. Cellular Towers are broadcasting a higher amplified signal than us and quite a bit more towers than we do , so your cell "naturally" wants to try and connect to what it calculates as the best connection, it's built into both your cellphone's hardware and software and yes about 98% of the calls were from border town residents and other two were people travelling along side a lake which also bordered the US.  and the other percentage willfully knew they were going to be charged and tried to argue hundreds of dollars of data and talktime...so until the "geofencing" technology is implemented the cellular technology (where you would be able to effectively block any and all types of data and cellular roaming based on your geographical place of residence) For now you really have only two options. 

1) Turn off cellular and data roaming in your phone and check that you smartphone hasn't already jumped to a roaming tower (if it doesn't say Public Mobile click your setting and connect back (yet again the ability to do so will depend of which smartphone you have)  and keep an eye on the settings as some smartphones have a software and hardware built-in "feature" that will automatically revert  back to enabling cell and data roaming after a certain amount of time.  The drawback is if you are in an area that only had roaming towers IE: there are no towers for Public Mobile, you will not be able to send or receive calls, date access internet send text or mms.  It's a tough call.

OR

2) Purchase a roaming package  or CAN-USA package so you won't have to constantly micromanage your smartphone.  While we're all in a period of tight budgets, 10-15 a month more is much better than bills that can go up to the thousands..LITERALLY!

Disclaimer: At the time of this writing, CRTC has not mandated geofencing for cells, neither has the US and on the cellular plan you and any Canadian agreed to activate you are accepting the responsibiltiy for ALL activities that your phone does whether you knowingly or unknowing did, be it fee based roaming, long distance charges incurred because your free long distance software you installed started using the Public Mobile dialler (which is the same as you pressing the buttons to dial the number yourself) rather that it's own internet dialler that uses only you data..this happened  as recent as 3 years back with WhatsAPP... it was the second highest escalations I had with overseas charging $5 a minute because you were on their network (can you say $500-2000 dollar bills!)

[dust2dust]

@BKNS27- That won't stop the phone from connecting to a US tower. The setting also doesn't really matter because there are no extra charges here.

[BKNS27]

@EandBD 

This is a standard message from all carriers once you enter USA.

Best thing to do is to check if Settings>Cellular>Cellular Data Option>disable (turn off) Data Roaming.

[dust2dust · Accepted solution]

There are no extra charges here. But to avoid connecting to a US tower you will need to manually connect to Public and turn off automatic.