Roam Like Home Charges

[Anzats]

I want to start by saying that I have been a customer of Rogers since 2008 (15 years). Rogers changed their policy regarding the service to being able to charge customer for up to 20 days. I was under the impression that I would only be charged for 10 days.

I have disputed the charge and explained that I was not aware of the 20 days and I would have simply bought a local sim card had I known. I have paid my bill in full except for the 140$ that I was not expecting to pay. I have been in communication with 6 different customer services that keep telling me they need to follow the Rogers adjustment policy. My plan cost me more than that monthly and Rogers won't credit the charge even when I keep explaining to them that I was expecting 10 days of charge not 19. Being a customer for that long, you think they would care about losing me to another carrier but no one seems to care so Bell.. here I come. 

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[RogersCorey]

Greetings @Anzats!

When you arrive at your roaming destination, you should have received a text that provides details and a link to further details on our Roam Like Home program, which includes details of the 20 day maximum. 

Roam Like Home was increased to a 20 day period as of March of 2022. 

I would highly encourage you to look at our Roam Like Home offering compared to our competition before making any decisions. Our rates are competitive. 

Regards,

RogersCorey

[Anzats]

Respectfully.. buying a sim card in the country where I am travelling would cost me less than using Roam like Home. I am not worried about the cost. I am upset on the principle that the period was changed, I clearly was not aware because who really click on the link when what we want to know is how much we will pay which is 15$ a day when in Europe. 

Thank you for your input RogersCorey. I am still transitioning to Bell and will be taking my friends and family with me. 

[Datalink]

@Anzats fwiw, on March 9, Bell's U.S. roaming will go from $12 to $13/day, while international roaming will go from $15 to $16/day.  All Canadian telcoms / ISPs are equally competitive (guilty of charging high daily rates for roaming).  As you pointed out, the only solution, no matter where you go is to buy a local sim card and avoid the roaming charges. 

https://mobilesyrup.com/2023/01/26/bell-virgin-plus-roaming-price-increase-march-9-2023/

[DJG]

On the subject of SIM cards while travelling- I was in the US from Feb 26/23 until April 17/23. Roam like Home would have cost me approx 40 days @$12 = $480 Cdn. The US carrier mistakenly turned on my cell for a few seconds before installing their sim. Rogers billed me $12 for that inadvertent few secs.  My cost for a US sim with unlimited talk/text/data and ability to use in Canada on return was $184.23 Cdn exchange and fees included. I can’t explain that, it seems to me GREED on the part of our carriers who see clients who can afford to travel as a likely target who will whine the least.  I don’t mind paying for good services but this seems unnecessary in times like these.  Don   

[Pauly]

It is my understanding you need to turn Data Roaming ON while travelling to activate Roam Like Home.  Data roaming is often turned off by default on all phones, unless you manually turnt it on.

How would turning the phone on for a few seconds if data roaming is off charge you? unless your not telling us the hole storY?

[57]

Here's a link on how to avoid Roaming charges:

https://www.rogers.com/support/mobility/other-roaming-options-and-tips-while-travelling

As indicated in the above, there are several ways to avoid Roaming Charges.

1. Remove roaming from your cellular package.  If you leave your phone on (or use it) in the other country, then you will be billed at the "per use" rate, which may be low if you don't make/receive many calls or texts and/or turn data off.

2. Remove the SIM and/or use a SIM from the country you are visiting.

3. Turn on Airplane Mode. This is the surest way, other than leaving the phone completely off or taking out/disabling the SIM.

Please realize that you can trigger roaming charges as soon as your phone connects to a cell tower in that country for whatever reason, which can include updates or downloads to phone apps (many people forget about these), location services with various apps, notifications with various apps, a phone call, a text, checking VoiceMail, etc...

I definitely agree with getting a SIM in the country your visiting if your planning on using your phone for more than a couple of texts or calls.

I'm on a Prepaid plan and pay per use when travelling. My charges are usually very low overall because I use my phone very sparingly (at home and abroad).  Obviously the per-use charges can be very high, but if you only use them a couple of times, the overall bill is low.

[DJG]

I am always offered Roam Like Home when I leave the country - and I’m aware that my data is on but I I purposely left my cell off until it was convenient to  buy the new SIM card.. unfortunately,  I guess turning the cell off doesn’t necessarily protect against the brief touch of a power button. That part was my error. Be careful out there they are hovering.

[57]

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@DJG wrote:

I was in the US from Feb 26/23 until April 17/23.  My cost for a US sim with unlimited talk/text/data and ability to use in Canada on return was $184.23 Cdn exchange and fees included.   

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I'm a bit surprised it cost you that much. I guess you're a very heavy user.  Most people can find a US SIM that costs a lot less than that, but it certainly it depends on your usage pattern...

[DJG]

your the expert. I’m just the lowly Rogers customer trying not to spend $500.00 for $ 200 worth of service.

[David1987]

 hi I'm searching for information regarding roaming internationally and US. I have a 100 gig plan, but I can't find any information if it's unrestricted am I able to use all my data as freely as I like till I run out of data or is there a limit cap when roaming

[DJG]

Assuming your 100 gbs is with Rogers your Roam Like Home will subject you to overage fees if you exceed the 100 gbs - that’s my understanding. My SIM purchase in the US provided “ Unlimited” gbs

Data as well as text and talk plus I paid $5.00 for text / calling to Canada. Hope that answers your question.

[DJG]

I’m not aware of any restrictions on how you use your data. I wanted to be sure I could use Waze or whatever GPS type data I needed for travel as well as feel free to access internet for info without data restrictions.

[Kristy-MM]

Seems like Rogers is up to some seedy practices! I was in Aruba for a week in May with data and roaming both turned off. When I arrived there I got the usual text messages that I could "roam like home" for $15/day blah, blah. Same message I have received from Rogers every year I go there for my time share for 5+ years. THIS TIME though I returned from my trip to an $80 bill for roaming charges without authorization. I opened an investigation immediately to dispute the charges as I was on WIFI ONLY as I have been every year. I was told 4-6 business days to investigate. No word back and no one followed up. I called back a week and half later and it was still "in progress." I was again told to wait another 5-7 business days. I called back a third time and still "in progress" for basically a month total. I asked to be transfered to the investigation department but was told that there was no way to escalate with status "in progress." So I was in a loop of "no resolve" for a month. After all of that (and 3+ hours of my own time getting to the bottom of it on the telephone or on hold) I was told that I texted while away and therefore was charged for roaming with no reimbursement (charges are valid they said). I was also told the same thing as everyone else in this forum about putting the phone in airplane mode. And even to remove the SIM to be 100% sure I would not be charged. Since when is scrapping your device and going entirely off the grid while out of country now the answer to this bogus reason for roaming charges...???? I highly suspect that due to the upgrades to the network that were enforced after the July 2022 outage has contributed to this problem. Now the onus is on the customer to "intuit' what needs to be done because the network inexplicably charges customers for roaming even with data and roaming off?? Remove the SIM to be sure?. And go buy a SIM from the other country and go by a temporary phone number while out of the country that no one knows?? What's the point of having an already set up device if no one knows how to reach you and you're incognee?? Give me a break. Just as the telecom companies were forced to warn customers about data overages to avoid "billing shocks" so TOO is their obligation to INFORM customers when they are, in fact, roaming. It's not enough that I CAN roam like home I need to know if I AM roaming without my knowledge or express consent. And further, the customer should be educated when they are roaming and what they must do to AVOID roaming charges with instructions rather than automatically charging their customers for their entire trip abroad without knowledge or consent. It's about awareness, or lack thereof, and then leaving it to customers to duke it out with billings and investigations. I was told that I'd have to absorb the roaming charges despite not having done anything differently than in previous trips over 5+ years. I was told "then consider all the previous years you weren't charged for roaming and sending texts a bonus then. ". What?????? If I was roaming the whole time I was away (which I did not know as roaming/data were off) why wouldn't I have used what I was paying for by just turning everything ON and being on the grid (getting what I was paying for rather than relying on WIFI exclusively)? Instead all of my emails and texts, etc all dropped ONLY when I was on WIFI. Why did that happen if I was being charged for roaming anyway?? It would stand to reason that there would be no"dead space" since I was getting billed and roaming without knowing it. Yet my phone was behaving like expected while relying on WIFI only. Dirty, dirty, back door unscrupulous business practices here. I plan to file a complaint with CRTC as there must be some accountability to the consumer. Obviously things have changed, whether to policies or practices, and not explicitly educating customers and equipping them with the ability to make informed decisions on what they do with their device and phone plans isn't right. Nowhere else would this be tolerated. Is this a way to make back the revenue being lost for people dropping their land lines? What's the excuse? Or maybe fixing the network problems that caused the catastrophic outage last year are introducing all new problems like this. Remove the SIM card to be 100% sure of no charge - pppssssshhhhh! Ridiculous!! And if I'm out of country and any SOS or other local warmings (weather or other emergencies) are occurring at home how will these messages be received if I'm on a other country's SIM card and network?!? Especially if I have to dump my own SIM card to and from countries while in transit and be in a black hole for a period of time. There's gotta be a better (and more honest and above board) way!!

[SusanV1]

I too was surprised to find I had been automatically charged for Roam Like Home on a recent trip to Mexico for the first 8 days I was away. Fortunately after a week I installed a Telcel Sim card (cost about $25 Canadian for 30 days). As a new customer to Rogers, a recent transfer from Shaw, I was not aware that Roam Like Home would kick in automatically. I have since un-enrolled in Roam Like Home after an on-line chat with a Rogers Rep. I was hoping to have the $120 in charges, that is evidently not going to happen. I'm not happy about what happened, so beware that Roam Like Home will automatically kick in, unless you un-enroll, sort of like negative billing.

[SusanV1]

It is much cheaper to get a Sim or an ESim for where ever  you are travelling too.