TD's phone bill shock prompts action call

dahamsta

breakingnews.ie

Labour’s Joe Costello today called on watchdogs to intervene after he was charged €740 for messages left on his mobile phone during his honeymoon.

Costello said that when he arrived in Mauritius in January he switched off his phone and charges built up when people left messages on his voicemail.

Mr Costello, 57, said he was surprised to receive the exorbitant bill as he did not use the telephone for making calls during the trip.

“I never once roamed, I never sought to get a network in Mauritius,” he said. “I never activated my phone yet I have a bill that runs into hundreds of calls,” he said.

[...]

Hobart

Sounds like a billing F**K- up by Vodafone. Although even if he had been roaming sounds like far toooo much on the bill. Maybe he's bin cloned?

MadKevo

Did he have his phone on all the way over on the plane, then, if he turned it off when he got there. Tut tut, shoulda switched it to "the off position".

A genuine related question: if you register on another network with a roaming agreement, turn your phone off and leave it off, how long before you revert back to your home network, if you do at all that is?!

/mk

spongebob

Joe could still be roaming .........

Voodoofone billing cockup is the most likely answer at teh moment. If its all Joes fault I wonder if he'll fess up to it.

M

Hobart

Originally posted by MadKevo

A genuine related question: if you register on another network with a roaming agreement, turn your phone off and leave it off, how long before you revert back to your home network, if you do at all that is?!

/mk

If you turn it off you are no longer roaming. It's as simple as that. When you register on another network, if you are allowed to, the foreign network talks to your home network and simply re-directs all calls to that network. When you shut off you phone,or you become unavailable through a week signal etc.... the foreign network picks this up and informs your home network. If you have instructed your voicemail to take all calls when you are not available well then in theory there should be no charge for that.

RainyDay

You can hear his radio interview onMorning Ireland - The Vodafone lady was making a distinction between calls which divert to voicemail when your phone is switched off (which don't incur any charge) and calls which divert to voicemail after ringing out when your phone is switched on - which do incur a roaming charge.

I was amazed the Vodafone lady released details which I would have considered to be confidential during the interview. She mentioned that they hadn't recieved his last payment and claimed that he made a call as soon as he arrived at the location. Surely any details of your bill/account/usage/calls held by Vodafone should be confidential and not released under any circumstances, even during a radio debate?

sceptre

“I never once roamed, I never sought to get a network in Mauritius,” he said. “I never activated my phone yet I have a bill that runs into hundreds of calls,” he said.

Either he's lying there ("misquoted" maybe?) or was misquoted in yesterday's Sunday Times. He was quoted in that paper as having made a few calls from Mauritius and mentioned the cost he was charged by both networks (there and here) for making those calls. What he said doesn't quite add up.

BigEejit

TD trys to pull the wool over peoples eyes shocker!

BKtje

apparently he took his sim card out and used it in his wifes phone or something. He doesnt consider this turning on his phone

seamus

Seems to be ignorance/arrogance on his part. If your phone is on, and you don't answer a call, you're going to incur big charges. If you're ringing people, you're going to incur big charges.

Best thing to do is to divert all your calls home, and only text people. Much cheaper.

Irish_Ranger_IR

Just wait until Vodafone try and do anything new, i am sure he will try and block them from doing anything new, well he should give them a hard time anyway,

Richard Barry

Yours truly copy e-mailed the TD in question using his oireachtas.ie e-mail address on 17 Feb with info on possible causes. No acknowledgement received. Are TDs that pig ignorant or do they simply ignore their e-mail?

R.

Quote from e-mail:

The IRL-Vodafone spokesperson interviewed on RTE R1 about Deputy Joe
Costello's roaming charges was economical with the truth this morning!

I can think of three conditions under which one will be charged (on the
double) for each call that is diverted to voicemail:

1) After arriving in the roamed in country the subscriber powers their
phone down in a place where there is poor coverage (eg elevator, large
hotel, shopping mall, etc). When one powers off a GSM phone it sends a
short signal to the network to say "I'm being switched off". If this
"e-mail" isn't received by the network it will continue to try and connect
new incoming calls to the phone (assuming it is in poor coverage and not
switched off). If a "divert on non-reachable" to voicemail setting is
present (**62*) the call will be re-diverted back to Ireland - costing the
subscriber two calls - to and from the country in question. As
IRL-Vodafone don't have per second billing for non-Irish calls, each
incoming diverted call could cost the subscriber perhaps EUR 10 or more -
based on the outrageous international tariffs imposed by m.Rat! (Minimum
european and international call charge on Vodafone is one minute, with 30
second increments thereafter). A "Mauritius bounce" would work out at about
EUR 6.25 minimum per call attempt.

2) When you roam, your mobile is assigned a temporary number by the roamed
on network. When an incoming call arrives, IRL-Vodafone divert it to this
temporary number. If the roamed in network doesn't send the appropriate C7
signal back to the Irish network (i.e. relaying the "I'm being switched off"
e-mail from the phone) - you will also end up paying twice for calls that
should be free according to the tariff (ie incoming calls to voicemail).
When GSM came out first most networks did NOT send this power down "e-mail"
and as a result roaming subscribers ended up with massive bills. I have no
doubt that some networks still don't diligently send these power down
e-mails - if they can get away with it.

3) The phone sends the power down e-mail and the network relays it - but it
gets lost by a signalling transfer point ("e-mail relay service provider")
operated by some backstreet company. Given all the other C7 type problems
one encounters roaming on the Irish networks since Vodafone and BT took
over, it wouldn't surprise me if global end-to-end C7 bugs and fiddles are
costing Irish mobile phone users millions of euros every year.


[concluded]

spongebob

jayzus Richard.....SS7 signalling explanations.

He shoulda mailed back for an explanation in plain english at least.....along with his thanks.

ask him if his phone can transmit a 1st party cleardown on incoming calls before answer (a red button) ?

M

sceptre

jebus Richard, you really do care about our elected representatives:D

Might be nice to send that mail to RTE/Sunday Times/anyone who ran with the story letting them know you let him know etc.

Nice one btw.

Are TDs that pig ignorant or do they simply ignore their e-mail?

I'm going to go with "probably mostly" and just "mostly" on those two questions