WATCH OUT FOR THIS NEW SCAM!!

[SteinesShopa]

I just got a text from a 4 digit number (7626) and the message is as follows:

"TELUS: Welcome to USA! You have Easy Roam with a daily charge of $14. You'll only be charged on days you access your Canadian plan's data, send a text, make or answer a call, or check voicemail. Easy Roam will be valid until 11:59pm local time in the destination where you are travelling. To see the full list of what is included and excluded with Easy Roam, visit telus.com/travel or login to My TELUS. Plus, Easy Roam comes with an exclusive travel perk: TELUS Health MyCare Travel provides free 24/7 access via phone to U.S. Registered Nurses while in the U.S. Learn more: bit.ly/3zeiqnp If you don?t want to incur roaming charges, set your phone on airplane mode to prevent all cellular network usage."

I went near the border today, but was never in the US. Also, more importantly, the data roaming on my phone is turned off, and always has been. If you get this message, make sure you check your account through the verified Telus app. Telus does not send messages like this, especially with typos (notice how it says "don?t" and how the link is a bit.ly link? That's not a real Telus link. They are trying to get login details from confused people who don't know why they are being charged. And honestly, the emails look actually quite close to legitimate without noticing the small details. If you got this text and you tried to sign into your Telus account on that bit.ly link, then I would seriously advise changing your login credentials just to be safe. I saw this and didn't want anyone to be suckered by it. Cheers!

[xray]

That's a legit message from TELUS. The link is identical to the one on all the roaming messages from 7626 that I have received in the past when traveling in the US.

You may not have crossed into the US but the cell tower signals coming from just the other side do not magically stop at the border. If your phone decides that signal is the strongest one then it will connect to it.

[SteinesShopa]

But my roaming feature was off. I made sure of it

[xray · Accepted solution]

The message doesn't mean you activated roaming. It's a free message that doesn't require roaming.

[SteinesShopa]

Ooooh okay that makes a lot more sense thank you lol

[CJR]

It still will give you the alert as soon as hit a US tower, however if you make a phone call or send a text message it would still trigger the Easy Roam charge if it is made from a US tower.

To avoid that happening you would want to put your phone into home only. On an iPhone that would be going into settings > cellular > network selection and turning off automatic and selecting TELUS and on an Android device would be going into settings > Network & Internet > mobile network and turn off automatic and select TELUS.

If you do set home only you will only connect to the TELUS network so if do go traveling and needed to use your phone would have to turn back on automatic in the network selection page.

[SteinesShopa]

Awesome thank you!!

[SteinesShopa]

Awesome thank you!! I just was wary so was wanting to help others out, I was honestly so convinced it was a scam. Thanks for the tips!!

[xray]

No one can fault you for being careful. Cheers!