Call Forwarding Fee Question

[Sheebs]

On my company's plan, I have a user who very rarely uses her number and would only occasionally get inbound calls. I want to forward her phone to her cell, however when I try, I notice it says "I acknowledge that calls forwarded to the PSTN may be billed based on usage, per the terms of my calling plan". I'm not privy of which tier of plan the org has, but we have a toll free number, a decent number of users, etc.

I tried reaching out to customer support to get clarification on this, but the slow responses are as clear as mud. I'm just trying to find out if there's a fee for forwarding, how much is it? 

I get my own calls forwarded occasionally when I am not at my desk to receive them, however they don't last more than 1-2 minutes. When I set up my own call forwarding 2 years ago, I don't believe I saw this same verbiage on it. I definitely would have thought twice. 

TL;DR: How much is the fee for call forwarding if there is indeed a fee? 

Thanks in advance. 

[Ray_Harwood]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @Sheebs.

There is no fee specifically for call forwarding. It’s just a warning that if the number you enter to be forwarded to is not a number covered by an unlimited call plan, you are “hereby warned” that you’ll potentially be charged as if the company made the call directly, in my way of putting it. Bottom line: it doesn’t wait for you to enter a number, check it, and then maybe display a warning; plus, you might charge calling plans.  “Don’t say we’re didn’t warn you.” 😎

I’m guessing it probably warned you when you set up your forwarding. If not, it probably should have. 

[Sheebs]

Hi Ray, 

Thanks for the reply! Let me try to rephrase this in the way I'm understanding it, and you can let me know if I'm off base. 

So the forwarding itself does not have a charge, but the phone picking up will be charged if there's no unlimited plan. 

Is that right? 

[Ray_Harwood]

Let’s define the 3 phones involved:

• A: The original, external caller
• B: The internal number being dialed
• C: The external number being forwarded to. 

If by “phone picking up” you mean the B, yes. Your company might pay for but the call, since it’s doing the forwarding. 

[Sheebs]

I was talking about the C being charged, but I think I get it now.

So phone B(the org phone) will likely be charged to forward to phone C,  separate from whatever plan we have for phone B?

For this example, let's say phone B is part of an unlimited/very generous phone plan for the org. Is there likely to be an additional charge? 

[mandak]

This is the same question I have been trying to get an answer to. No one seems to be able to give a clear answer.

[Ray_Harwood]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @mandak.

Please describe the situation you’re unsure about.

The original question asked (after some clarification) whether the number to which a call is forwarded will be charged a fee. Honestly, I don’t know of any phone service that charges the receiver of a call a fee any more. Back in my younger days, you could talk to an operator and make a Collect Call, basically having the receiving phone pay the long distance charges, but the operator has to ask the recipient if they were willing to pay the charges, before the caller was connected. Very old school.

The audio warning of “the PSTN may be billed based on usage, per the terms of my calling plan” applies to the plan of the inbound number receiving the call in the Zoom phone plan – the number for which the “transfer to an external number” was being programmed. If a call that internal number is being forwarded to an external number to which the internal number would not normally be able to call for free, the automated dialing to the external number would also incur a charge, just as if the recipient had dialed it themself. 

[mandak]

Thank you @Ray_Harwood for your welcome and your response. I created a new post here  where I have articulated my question more clearly (at least I hope I have 😅).

(Somewhat related, I, too am old enough to remember collect calls and long distance charges)

Cheers!