It’s official, ‘bill shock’ can cause untimely death. At least that’s what Thai CSP, TrueMove, says. As a roaming customer of TrueMove I was trying to activate my voicemail service whilst in France.

After negotiating the TrueMove website, that changes regularly from Thai to English, depending which page you are viewing, I came across the following:
“Voice Mail and Call Forwarding services are active even when you roam abroad. Charges for received calls and calls to Thailand may cause a heart attack. To avoid costly charge, you should deactivate the service on your mobile phone or call TrueMove Care.”

That really got me interested so I called TrueMove customer care to find out why using the voicemail service was a risk to my health. A very courteous and English-speaking CSR explained not once, but three times, that if I activate voicemail, whilst roaming, all third party incoming calls to my voicemail will be charged to my account at international roaming rates and that when I call to listen to my voicemail I will also be charged the roaming rates relevant to the country I am calling from.

Wow, no wonder I am likely to suffer from a heart attack! Needless to say, I’m also not in a rush to activate voicemail either!