Roaming Rip Off

T

TimTDP

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Joined
Feb 23, 2007
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Under the slopes of Table Mountain
I need to activate roaming on my phone as I am travelling abroad
I am on pre-paid
The guys at the MTN shop advised me to only activate roaming at the airport, as MTN will charge roaming rates as soon as roaming os activated. EVEN IF I AM MAKING A LOCAL CALL
What a rip off
#$#$^#$& MTN
 
Maybe they are just trying to cover themselves.
What does roaming actually mean, maybe the sim will connect to competing towers even if still in SA and therefore bill roaming rates?
 
Nonsense. I just came back last week. Roaming is always active on my phone. When you are roaming there is an "R" on the signal bars. Otherwise charges are all local until you leave SA. Remember to change your mobile data settings to switch off when roaming if you don't want to pay exhorbitant data fees.
 
TimTDP said:
I need to activate roaming on my phone as I am travelling abroad
I am on pre-paid
The guys at the MTN shop advised me to only activate roaming at the airport, as MTN will charge roaming rates as soon as roaming os activated. EVEN IF I AM MAKING A LOCAL CALL
What a rip off
#$#$^#$& MTN
Click to expand...

This is BS. International roaming is permanently enabled on my prepaid MTN sim card, whether I'm in SA or abroad, and when I'm in SA I'm charged exactly what you would expect to pay for a local call.
 
Also, I divert incoming calls to my mailbox when I'm abroad and always look at a local SIM (or something like www.ubigi.com if you have a eSim dual-sim capable device).
 
Non- related question:

If I'm in the UK, on MTN roaming, call my brother who is also in the UK, also on MTN roaming, will that be charged normal international rates?
 
Caliph said:
Non- related question:

If I'm in the UK, on MTN roaming, call my brother who is also in the UK, also on MTN roaming, will that be charged normal international rates?
Click to expand...

You both get shafted. You get shafted for making a call to a South African number (regardless of the fact that he's also in the UK roaming) and he's gets shafted for receiving a call.
 
I use the Freshphone app which uses the local wi-fi. In USA and Japan was still paying between 39c and 69c per minute

This applied to calls to SA and to a UK friend who was with us. I was in New York and called his UK mobile number to find out where they were (also in NYC). The 2-minute call deducted R1,38 from the call balance
 
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