Long Distance Calls over Facebook Messenger

[skilandv]

I was under the impression that phone calls made using Facebook Messenger are not charged long distance fees. I called a relative in the US using this format and was charged LD fees?!! Could someone clarify this for me?

[Nighthawk]

As long as the calls are voice chats and are strictly done over the internet using data, there should be no long distance fees. If Messenger either messed up, or the person you were trying to reach wasn't online / wasn't on a device that could deal with the voice chat at that time, it may have called them as a phone call instead.

Are you sure it was a voice chat and not an actual phone call? If you look in your call logs on your cell, do you see the outbound call? If you see the call in your history, then Messenger treated it as a regular call.

[skilandv]

I will check... Thanks for your quick response.

I am 99% sure that I called over Messenger, but would you have any idea what might cause Messenger to treat it like a regular call?

[Syaoran]

These internet based calling apps have the ability to hand off to cellular without warning and with no way to disable this.  What's App has been taking the brunt of the complaints for over a year now but they continue to ignore their userbase.  If your data or WiFi connection isn't able to maintain the call through the app, it will be handed off to cellular, making the call billable.