Data Roaming

I had recently went Desaru over the weekend. While there, I received an SMS telling me that I had amassed more than $50 with data roaming, and it goes on to entice me to sign up for the Data Bridging service.

Interestingly, my phone has an option to uncheck data usage while roaming. It has always been unchecked, as I never have intention to use data roaming service at all. I decided to clarify with my service provider SingTel when I got back to Singapore.

I called, logged an issue, and they took down some information from me. It took a while for someone to call me, and tell me that I had indeed chalked up quite a fair bit for using data roaming service. To be fair, I did reject a call from SingTel the next day, as I was in a meeting.

I was advised, to check the applications on my smart phone, and disable the internet connectivity, as they said some applications will still stealthily access the internet even if we may not be using, even when phone was set to stop data roaming.

I was thinking, if I have 100 applications on my phone, I would be quite busy to check all applications to ensure no data roaming is active.
The simpler way is to have Telco stop the data roaming access isn’t it? That’s a form of protection as well.

#1. I never signed up for data roaming, I don’t think it was part of my subscription plan. I did sign up for data plan though.
#2. I had requested SingTel to stop the data roaming service. I was told it cannot be done.

In the end, he told me he can give me a waiver of 20%.
Ultimately, I have to pay for something which I didn’t ask for, and best of all, to pay for not using at all.
I do not need it. I do not want it.

Perhaps IDA can look into it, and propose ways to best protect consumers from unsolicited charges. This is in many ways similar to the various forms of SMS which entice consumers to reply as subscriber, and keep sending charged messages.

Can anything be done to help consumers?
I guess they won't really care.

I guess even if other providers cannot do anything to data roaming, I will probably still switch provider when the contract expire.
HELLo!