Broad Daylight Robbery, or This Astonishing Roaming

"People use these things called telephones

because they hate being together but are too afraid to be alone..."

Chuck Palahniuk. Survivor

Travelling the world has traditionally been popular among Europeans, Germans included. At the same time, given the realities of the modern world, staying in touch matters to the vast majority of travellers no matter where they're headed. To do this, when travelling from Germany to countries outside the European Union, you need to use network roaming services. Roaming. I think for most of us the concept of "roaming" is inextricably linked to GSM. Why is that? After all, D-AMPS and NMT — the two most widespread personal cellular standards at the time GSM began to spread — also had roaming, and no less automatic. The reason, it seems, is that these two standards had (and still have) a narrowly regional focus. NMT covers Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the states of the former USSR, especially Russia. D-AMPS is most widespread in America, and, again, in Russia and the CIS states. In other words, a European could hardly have dreamed of bringing their own phone to, say, the USA.

But no sooner had GSM appeared than it began spreading rapidly across the planet. Today, networks of this standard cover every continent (with the exception of Antarctica), albeit to varying degrees. Coverage density is highest, as one would expect, in GSM's homeland — Europe. Networks remain underdeveloped in the Americas, particularly South America, and are entirely absent in Japan and Korea, where other standards were adopted instead. You may be surprised to learn that a GSM network even exists on the world's largest island — the almost entirely ice-covered Greenland. In short, GSM has lived up to its name — "Global System for Mobile communications".

Roaming in Europe was partially abolished in the summer of 2017. European countries decided to create one vast common space in every sphere of life, making mobile communication abroad just as affordable as at home. As a result, tourists can now communicate across Europe at the same cost as in their home region. Free roaming doesn't apply to every country in the European Union. It covers 28 countries, plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. It's still unclear whether this arrangement will remain available in the UK after Brexit. Notably, providers in some countries have added Switzerland to this list, though the service isn't available for everyone. However, a roaming-free zone is still absent in many countries around the world, including Russia. Negotiations are currently underway to add Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Belarus to the list. This measure isn't expected before 2020 at the earliest.

Users who don't always study the terms of roaming services carefully may, sooner or later, run into the problem of receiving bills worth thousands of euros from their mobile operator for roaming use abroad. This happened to a client of our firm — let's call her Valentina — who had returned some time ago from a two-week trip to sunny Georgia. Valentina came to us for a consultation holding a bill from the local network operator for......3,850 euros. She told us that she had gone on this long-planned trip alone, and had been utterly enchanted by the local scenery, landscapes, delicious cuisine, and outstanding wines. During the trip she managed to forget about all her pressing problems, switch off from unresolved matters, and relax to the fullest. Given the low prices at local restaurants, our traveller went out for dinner almost every evening, the food was plentiful and delicious, and the red wine flowed freely. Naturally, Valentina wanted to share her pleasant impressions with her relatives and friends. Every day she stayed in touch, made calls, chatted online, and sent photos and videos of the local scenery. Valentina recalled receiving several different messages from her mobile operator during the trip. One evening, while at yet another restaurant, she received a long text message that, according to her, offered her some kind of service. Valentina tried to remember whether she had responded to this message in any way, but too much time had passed, and she couldn't say for sure — the message thread had since been deleted as no longer needed. As it later turned out, the message informed her that the amount charged for roaming services had reached a certain threshold, beyond which the user was asked to confirm they wished to continue using the service by sending a corresponding reply to the mobile operator. If no such message/confirmation was sent, the provision of the costly services was supposed to be cut off automatically. This safeguard had been introduced into the rules governing European operators' services under the relevant piece of legislation, in order to prevent users from being hit with bills worth thousands of euros for such services. Our client could not say for certain whether Valentina had accepted the provision of the above-mentioned services after receiving the warning.

The primary task of our firm's attorney, who represented our client's interests, was to obtain comprehensive information about the services actually provided and their exact cost. Having received the relevant power of attorney from Valentina, the attorney prepared a formal request to the network operator. In it, he asked for a detailed explanation of the nature of the services provided to the user for which a bill of 3,850 euros had been issued. The attorney requested a detailed breakdown of all phone calls and data sent over the network, in order to verify whether the amount stated on the bill genuinely matched the type and scope of the services rendered. In addition, the request asked the operator to provide proof that Valentina had sent the relevant consent to continue using the roaming services on offer. Since the amount Valentina was billed for was considered disputed, our client was under no obligation to rush to pay such a large bill before all the exact details had been clarified and the fairness of the claim confirmed. The mobile operator soon sent a written response containing only partial information. The report they provided contained general data on expenses and payments received, as well as more detailed figures on the number of calls made and the total minutes, text messages, and data used over the current month. However, there was no reliable information on exactly how many calls were made on which day, or how many gigabytes of incoming and outgoing data had been used. What's more, the operator was unable to provide any evidence that the client had been properly notified of the cost of the relevant roaming services, or that she had given her consent to their provision by sending a short text message. The fact that a major mobile network operator lacked precise information about the services actually provided to Valentina, and lacked proof of proper notification and consent on her part, formed the basis of the attorney's legal position. He prepared another detailed letter to the operator, pointing out that it lacked the itemised data needed for the bill to be accepted and paid. At the same time, it would have been unreasonable to deny outright that our client had used mobile services, including the internet, while roaming internationally. In closing his letter, the attorney therefore proposed reaching an agreement under which the company and he, acting on Valentina's behalf, would settle on a reasonable amount payable. In consultation with the client, it was agreed that this amount would be eight hundred euros.

The mobile network operator replied a week later, agreeing to the terms proposed by the attorney. Valentina, too, was glad to put the dispute behind her and pay a sum several times lower than originally demanded. She thanked the attorney for a job excellently done and promised to be more careful in the future when travelling abroad and communicating during such trips.

All that was left for us to do was add this case to the long list of matters successfully resolved with the help of our attorneys, and invite other users who have run into similarly frustrating "misunderstandings" to come in for a consultation at our law firm.

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THE LAW FIRM REPRESENTS CLIENTS' INTERESTS THROUGHOUT GERMANY

Civil Law

All rights reserved. Copying or republishing this article requires a link to the original source.