AT&T service iPhone International Data Roaming - excessive fees

For info:
I mailed below message to AT&T Customer care: [email protected]
Am sure for many international travelers this will be a nice customer service improvement.
Send them a mail as well. It may help all of us traveling overseas.
"I do have following concerns on AT&T's iPhone International Data roaming service.
I voiced them as well to your service center reps.
The feature is a nice useful service.
But I encountered a number of flaws:
- Long time for service calls.
- Misrepresentation of costs (overcharge of 150%), and
- Resulting in excessive costs.
I am fully aware of all stories on international calls/data roaming with iPhone (ref suggestions on AT&T FAQ)
No need to fill me in on that.
Here is what happened:
- before a month of overseas travel (mid Dec - mid Jan), I had the service activated:
it took me 1/2 hr waiting at the phone before I got to speak a AT&T service rep.
- I was told the service will be charged pro rata (ie days of usage) and for a month travel that would be 25 USD.
and I had to call back upon return to disactivate/cancel service.
- Upon return I called back AT&T service center , again a long on hold waiting time,
and I was told I needed to wait for my next invoice statement to see the my completed overseas period on the bill, and could only cancel the service then.
- This week I received this next statement, called back AT&T service center , again a long on hold waiting time,
and now I was told the service would be cancelled only as from this very day, and no retroactive cancellation.
I was told the reason is to allow bills from overseas carriers to be taken into account for the invoicing and the international feature.
In other words, if I had cancelled immediately upon return, overseas charges booked into my bill after my cancellation call (but incurred before) would be hitting me at full charge.
Thanks for doing so, but all this results in a 2.5 months service period for this feature, while I had only wished a 1 month service period and was told I would incur only a 1 month service charge !
A number of suggestions,
- make the feature true pro rata charges, now it is a misrepresentation and an excessive overcharge.
- AT&T has a nice individual account profile online, why can one not activate/disactivate the service there ? Will be much faster.
- or have the service activated with a separate credit card purchase/billing ?
Hey, and advertise it on iPhone/Apple.
Loads of people who are traveling overseas will be interested ! "
Cheers
Tom

DexGtr,
If you go to Settings -> Network, there is an option to turn off data roaming.
However, if she hasn't updated her firmware since she purchased it that option may not be available.
iPhone Firmware updates are downloaded via iTunes. Connected the iPhone to iTunes, and if it doesn't prompt you to update, then click on "Check for Updates" in the iPhone Summary tab.
Hope this helps,
Nathan C.

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