Why am I charged for an incoming telephone call from the UK if it's from a Mobile?

Question

I have digital telephone in the United States. The flat rate is around 25 bucks a month for local and long distance and free calling to Western Europe.

Yet, a friend called me from Scotland on his mobile because his home phone wouldn't show up on caller ID and therefore, rejected by my telephone company.

I told him I'd call him right back as it was a free call for me. Then, I get the bill and was charged 31 cents for that one minute phone call he made to me from his mobile. That's not much, but our conversation, when I called back was 47 minutes which was free for me.

Why does it costs me to receive a call from a Mobile from the UK? I called the company and said this is correct but that domestic calls from mobiles in the U.S. wouldn't be charged to my account.

What's the rationale?

Answer 1

something is wrong here.

You should never be charged for RECEIVING a call unless you agreed to pay beforehand (that's called a collect or reverse change call)

I think what happenend is you called his cell hone in the UK for one minute. Calling a cell phone or a land line in europe from the US is charged differently and while land lines may be in the free minutes, cellphones never are. Cellphones have a different prefix (7) so you are supposed to know you are charged differently.

your phone line should be able to differenciate between witheld and unavailable CallerID and let the unavailable go through. in the case of witheld the info is there but the callerid device gets the info plus a flag asking it not to display it.

If you actually got charged for RECEIVING a call, you should complain to your phone operator.

Answer 2

It's a charge made by the phone company for transferring you to their line. It's called "d**k Turpin the highway robber"" rides again

Answer 3

It's the same for us here in the UK we are charged as well for incoming calls from mobile phones when used from abroad...it's just the mobile phone companies that are greedy bar stewards

Answer 4

It's a charge made by the phone company for transferring you to their line. happens everywhere. for instance, if you have cingular and where you go they dont have it, they will charge you for letting you use the countrys cell phone waves