Does anybody else have Viber or Whatsapp charges on their AT&T phone bill?

Hi @pratana

This is an official representative of Viber Media.
The bill you are describing couldn't have been issued by Viber as you're describing, especially when it's WiFi that was used.
Viber works over the internet, and for this reason AT&T 'couldn't have known' that Viber was used.
What probably happened was that your internet connection was temporarily low, so a regular call was placed instead of a Viber call. You can notice the different between the two by the fact that Viber's purple screen switches to iPhone's regular grey interface.

There is unfortunately nothing we (Viber) can do to help.

If you have more questions - please feel free to ask,

Viber.

Hi @suman.ganta -

First, please relax.

We have found that some users get confused and accidentally make GSM (regular) calls instead of the free Viber calls. When you make a Viber call, make sure your screen stays purple (Viber) and does not turn grey (regular call). Sometimes the call is switched to a normal cellular call because your internet connection is disrupted or the destination contact is temporarily not recognized as a Viber user.

Viber prevents this confusion by popping up a message alerting the user that the call is switching to a regular, cellular call (thus costing money). The user has to accept it. The only way for the message not to pop next time, is if the user manually and intentionally checks the box that says: "do not show me this warning message next time"

Regarding the question "why would anyone need this feature" - well, many users use Viber as their regular dialer. So it is easy for them to ring their non-Viber friends also through Viber. This feature is actually very popular among our users - and we have numbers to prove it.

Hi @Tatopani -

Viber itself is totally free, meaning we (Viber) don't charge anything from you.

Since Viber uses the internet, both sides of the conversation must be connected to either WiFi or 3G. If a user is connected to WiFi - that user is not paying anything for sure. If the user is connected to 3G, the user *may* be paying his cell company for the data (about 0.3MB per minute of call), but that depends on the specific data plan that he has with his cellular company, and needs to be verified with them.

* Note that when a user is abroad using the cellular network (and not WiFi), there may be high Roaming charges by your cellular company for the data used.

When you make a Viber call, make sure your screen stays purple (Viber) and does not switch to the regular calling screen of your phone (meaning - a cellular call). Sometimes the call is switched to a normal cellular call because your internet connection is disrupted or the destination contact is temporarily not recognized as a Viber user.

When this happens, a message pops up alerting the user that the call is switching to a regular, cellular call (thus costing money). The user has to accept it to continue the call.

Hi @etalik1467 -

Thank you for sharing the details of this issue.

Look, as we explained earlier in this thread, Viber itself is totally free, meaning we (Viber) don't charge anything from you.

Since Viber uses the internet, both sides of the conversation must be connected to either WiFi or 3G. If a user is connected to WiFi - that user is not paying anything for sure. If the user is connected to 3G, the user *may* be paying his cell company for the data (about 0.3MB per minute of call), but that depends on the specific data plan that he has with his cellular company, and needs to be verified with them.

The purpose of this option, that you deem useless, is for people to easily and quickly switch to a GSM call, in case their internet connection (3G, usually) is disrupted, and cannot allow a Viber conversation to be held. This feature is actually very popular, and is very convenient to most of our users.

The warning messages that pops up when trying to call a user THROUGH the application is not a small, negligble one. You can find more specific details in this page, in our official HelpDesk: http://helpme.viber.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/18/6/iphone-what-i s-viber-and-is-viber-really-free

I am so frustrated with Viber AND, to a lessor extent AT&T. I downloaded Viber so I could message and speak with my friend in Canada. Just 8 days into my billing cycle I noticed I had racked up $270.00 in charges from AT&T. So I called AT&T to see what was going on. They told me that the reason for this high amount is that AT&T is charging me for my international messages. Now the only international messages I sent were to my friend in Canada and only through Viber. I told AT&T this and they said that made no difference and that iPhones catch these messages and they are billed like any others. They went on to say they did not recommend 3rd party messaging services. So the exact thing that Viber says is not supposed to happen with their product actually happens. And of course AT&T would reccomend not using 3rd party services like Viber becasue it means more $ for them, but for international messages, it is just too cost prohibitive for me to use anything other than a 3rd party.

So, I only message my friend from Viber and only when I have a Wifii connection. There is no, and has never been, any type of warning from Viber that the message I was sending through Viber was being sent non-wifi. This defeats the whole purpose of having Viber or any other 3rd party messaging/calling service. If you suggest I turn off all non-wifi functions on my phone in order to use Viber, I will just erase the worthless app and use facebook instead.

In AT&T's defense, they credited me for all my Canada messages up to this point, but I can't very well go back to using Viber and expect that AT&T will be so gracious in the future. I learned my lesson with Viber.

Here is some advice for the designers at Viber. The whole reason anyone uses this app is so they don't have to pay the ridiculas international messaging rates. So why not make the app impossible to work unless it is working only through Wifi? It shouldn't be able to even switch back to cell service in the middle of a call. Who the heck looks at their phone while they are talking? Even if this mysterous warning message were to appear, you would never see it. And with messaging? Well, there is no excuse. If I am hooked up to Wifi, Viber is not apparently able to keep AT&T from charging me for messages sent through Viber on my iPhone. And viber should be designed so it can't send a message except through wifi. Anyway, Viber is very dissapointing but you get what you pay for. Maybe I am just too frustrated.

@MT2MB -

Thanks for your feedback.

Since Viber's launch (well over 2 years ago), we have received very positive feedback regarding the feature of switching to a regular (GSM) call. This is very comfortable for users whose internet connection becomes choppy, and they wish to switch to a regular, cellular call.

As you said yourself, we show a very clear warning message that requires the user's confirmation before making/switching to a GSM call.

@viber team: I think it's not right that viber switch over to regular call even though I placed the call over Viber app.

The right thing to do is display a warning message to the user or end the call. Switching over without letting the user know can cause user lots of money. How many users constantly look at the screen while talking to notice that it's grey or purple. That's just not user friendly, in this case you advertise that call international free and in this case if it happens to other users and they not looking at the screen which can go black over time, right?

Based on your explanation, it could happen to anyone, I am not looking for you to reimburse me or anything, I just don't want this to happen to any users.

I disagree that Viber team would say nothing you can do. At least you can improve your app to take care of this issue!!!!.

@geraldinefromenglewood cliffs

Hi,

We are sorry that you feel this way, but let me emphasize again what I wrote above: we *do* have a warning message notifying that the call is switching to a regular, cellular call. You might have disabled it and forgotten about it.

At any rate, they money you were charged goes to your cellular company, not Viber (nor do we benefit from the fact that you accidently made an international call).

I too have been a victim of Viber swtiching to gsm whilst in a call, just receiving a 200+ bill. I was just looking at the description for Viber in the App Store and it said, I quote: Avoid mobile phone "bill shock". I sure don't think that worked. Could this be considered as false advertising as well as not stating the fact that Viber WILL switch to GSM mid call? I understand you keep explaining there's a pop up box or whatever and yes many people may have disabled it. But even if the box comes up, does it stop Viber from switching? I doubt so. Like someone said before, no one constantly looks at the phone while ON the phone. Don't get me wrong, Viber is a quality product. However, this flaw is way too big. I absolutely agree with "pratana" to add an option in settings to FORBID Viber from switching to GSM whilst in a call. I mean if I wanted to call a regular call, is it that hard to press that home button? This option could also be kept on, for your regular users who you claim use Viber to make all their calls (something along those lines). It's win-win for Viber and their users. This incident has put me off using Viber. I know you'll pass it on to your management etc, but I think it's time for Version 2.1.5 and actually do SOMETHING about it. Thanks.

@kcjbd -

Viber pops up a warning message that lets the user know that it is switching to a regular (cellular) call. This message always shows up, unless the user manually checks a box (in that warning message), choosing to "not show the warning again".

swissgirl wrote:
I have WiFi in my home and AT&T data processing when I'm i.e. in my car driving > around and calling my Viber friend. Is that the reason I got charged?

@bngui -

Since evidently it's still not clear, I'd like to emphasize again - Viber does not automatically switch to GSM mid-call. This option does not exist and cannot occur (there's a technical reason for that, not just "wishful thinking" from our part).

The only way of switching to GSM is by pressing a button, which either opens up a pop-up, or not. In both cases, this causes the Viber call to disconnet (and that, obviously, can be noticed by both sides!), and only then the ringing sound of the GSM call is heard (which sounds different than Viber's), etc. etc.

Having said that, as I mentioned in my reply above, I will pass on this request and we will see what we can do to better prevent such cases in the future.

@ suman.ganta-

We're quite surprised and sad to see such hostility in your post above towards us. We are one of the only app developing companies (if not the only one) who actively reaches out to forums and blogs, and care enough to personally reply to each and every comment made by our users - even if these are bad comments and criticism.

Anyway, as an answer to your question - the reason why many (many) users use Viber's dialer as their default one is actually the opposite of what you describe - they take into account that Viber's dialer can either simply direct them to the person they want to call anyway (so - the call will be made through the cellular provider, and the charges will be what they would have paid anyway), OR they can call them through Viber, at which case it will be free.

And yes, we acknolwedge there is the rare possibility described by @bngui . Our response to that case is explained above, please thoroughly read it.