Salt charges unjustified roaming fee

Complaints Corner
1
I have got a plan with Salt for 6 months.

Now I realised they charge roaming fee for incoming calls that I do NOT pick up and outgoing calls for I don't know what - it seems they link it to somehow to the voicemail (which I never call from abroad).

I wonder if anyone had a similar experience and how it was solved (at all).

Of course I made a complaint and asked for a refund.

Is there a consumer group, board where I can raise this issue?

I can see many other customers are complaining on the forums of salt but they did not do anything.

2
If your abroad & you don't pick up then it goes to voicemail, thats roaming.

Turn off voicemail.

3
Exact same thing happene to me a few years ago. I complained multiple times and eventually they lowered the fees to about half of the initial invoice; partially bc I asked them to send me the exact breakdown of the bill and it turned out they added extra fees. Another point I made was their borderline misleading contractual wording on 'unlimited roaming'.

4
Sometimes the voicemail is activated as a service by default from the beginning by the operator, but they don't tell you this, so unfortunately it is up to the user to manually switch it off or cancel voicemail completely themselves. It's best to annul all call-diverts as well.

Anyone in a border canton should do this, or set 'network search' to 'manual'/'locked', otherwise you can end up on the German/French/Italian/Austrian/Liechtenstein networks without realising, meaning you are roaming even if you haven't left the country.

The signal from the French, Italian and German networks at least, are stronger than the Swiss ones.

The Swiss network operator can claim such charges are justified as you have used a foreign carrier's mobile network, (even if you didn't intend to, you did).

5
Thank you for all the replies!

I have just found out how to switch it off and that they really charge on their bloody unwanted voicemail.

(I am not that lame, it is not that straight forward with salt....)

6
It used to be (when this was a common moan in the UK) that voicemail will charge you only if the call reaches your phone.

In other words ... if someone calls you and your phone is off, or you've set all calls to divert to voicemail, or no signal etc etc then the calls would go to voicemail with no charge to you.

If someone calls you and your phone rings and you push it to voicemail, or it times out and goes to voicemail, then you end up being charged for both an incoming (to your mobile) and outgoing (to your voicemail number) call.

I assumed they'd sorted that crap out, but it seems not. I used to divert all calls to voicemail, the sms telling me I had a message was free, and I could decide whether to listen to the message or not. Vodafone had a free voicemail-to-email function so I could simply download the .wav message when I had wifi somewhere.

I use Swisscom here and if I leave data roaming on, despite not having a data roaming package, then I notice only two things work abroad: access to their web-page to buy a roaming package and their data-based voicemail (iPhone). Totally free. If I turn data roaming off then both those don't work (and I save no money, so I leave it on).

7
Leaving data roaming on though can be risky. As if the phone (browser or app) does connect to the internet for any other reason than those you cited, this will be charged for, and the rate at which you are charged if you do not have a data roaming package can be exceedingly high depending on your subscription, price plan and network operator.

My roaming data is permanently off and network search is blocked on manual. I have no package set up. If I happen to use data whilst in Waldshut in Germany for example, I'm still actually on the Swiss network and benefit from my included data.

8
This is a known thing and is called Tromboning Roaming. This is now taken care of in the EU but not Switzerland as they are outside the EU.

It's shocking, deplorable and should be made illegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaming

9
I have read other answers, on a hurry now.

We had the same situation, it's some "voicemail" service that they activated by default. Surely it's cheating because if you turn off your phone abroad, someone call you many times, you will have to pay lot of money.

We called their support and made lot of complain, they removed the charge (which was only about 10-20chf).

But most importantly, I turned off their stupid "voicemail" service, by asking on the phone.

10
If you turn off your phone it's not an issue, only when the phone is roaming at the time of the call.

11
Unfortunately though, if the phone was on the foreign network before being switched off, it is still roaming.

A sim card is visible on the network to the operator even in devices which are switched off.

Thus you will be charged for calls missed or otherwise that are made to your number whilst you are abroad, even if the phone is switched off.

It's ridiculous, but it is like that.

12
Depends on the network. I would assume the Swiss ones all charge, because they can.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...nt-answer.html

13
I'll sit on my couch, in my house, in the middle of Basel and all of a sudden, you'll see the company name change.

Yesterday it was E-plus and I got a gratis-info about roaming.

It happens easily once a week.

14
Maybe this helps some of you (I have just found it ):

to delete all conditional call diversions: dial ##004#

To stop forwarding all of your calls, dial #21#

15
The Swiss network charges you because the foreign network charges the Swiss network a fee for the fact that one of the Swiss network's subscribers has utilized their network to receive a call (missed or otherwise, and whether they wanted to receive it or not).

You simply set the network search to 'manual', then it can no longer occur. Everyone in border cantons should do this, otherwise you can incur roaming charges inland all the time.

Those codes will remove call diverts. The voice mail service (even if you don't utilize it) though will still be active per se if you do not remove it manually or get your network provider to take the service off your plan.

16
Maybe the CIA might have a backdoor to turn the radio back on, but not your voicemail.

17
Nobody said anything about switching a voicemail back on!

If the voicemail hasn't been removed or call diverts are in place then the calls (missed or picked up) to the number will be charged for, even if the phone is switched off when abroad.

Some networks may have begun to waive these charges following complaints, but by and large Swiss networks always charge customers for these calls, for they are charged themselves by the foreign carrier for utilization of the network. This is the simple reality of roaming.

18
My experiences with getting money back from Orange/Salt have been absolutely terrible. They promise everything over the phone and nothing has happened I am owed 350 CHF that they charged us for a new phone we never received.

My suggestion would be to go to a busy shop during the weekend and refuse to move until you can speak to a person of power. Then at least you have a name.

19
Calm down, petal. Still nobody said that. (Well, you just did, but we'll ignore that.)

Not really sure what you're trying to say here, but if it's that calls will divert to voicemail if your phone is turned off, then sure.

But;

Well, that's nonsense.

20
No, it is not.

Absolute nonsense.

Do you understand how phones work at all?

No, it is not like that.

Tom